unreal-tournament-III posts

Epic Games' lengthy Unreal Tournament 3 based Make Something Unreal mod making contest is nearing its end. Today the developer announced the winners of the fourth and final phase of the contest in various catagories. The winner of the best first person shooter mod went to The Ball (winning ($10,000) with Prometheus getting the first runner up prize (winning $7,000). Both mods have been turned into small stand alone games via the Unreal Development Kit. The winner of the best non-FPS mod went to the zombie third third person shooter The Hunted which also won $10,000.

While the contest is no longer taking any more entries there's still one more part of the contest that will be awarded soon in Las Vegas (and we aren't talking about playing in a casino kingdom). That's the grand prize of the best overall mod where the winning mod team will get a $50,000 cash prize as well as access to a full commercial Unreal Engine 3 license. The winner and runner-ups will be announced at the DICE Summit in Las Vegas in February.

Last week Epic Games updated Unreal Tournament III with both a new patch and a big new content update known as the Titan Pack. The updated game also made its way to Steam where Valve gave it a big 40 percent discount and let players check out the full game for free last weekend.

However there were reports on the Steam message boards that the amount of traffic generated by the free game weekend caused some Steam owners to have download issues with UT 3. While Valve has not officially mentioned these reported issues, today they seemed to throw some Steam owners a bone by announcing a second free weekend for UT 3 (beginning on Friday) and an extension of the Steam sale until Sunday, March 22. Valve did say that UT 3 rose to the number one spot on their list and that simultaneous player numbers have gone up over 2000 percent since the release of the new patch and Titan Pack.

While Epic Games hasn't released a lot of public screenshots that show off the upcoming Titan Pack for Unreal Tournament III, they have set over a list of all the new maps that will be included in the free downloadable expansion for the 2007 shooter. The following info comes directly from Epic. Remember to check out our UT3 Titan Pack hands-on feature for more info.

Hostile (Warfare)
Many research vessels were lost in the early days of Na Pali exploration. When the terrain or local fauna proved to be too dangerous for recovery, equipment was often abandoned and forgotten. But when it was learned that the Necris had moved in to recover this equipment for their own purposes, the NEG dispatched military salvage units to reclaim their property.

Confrontation (Warfare)
Confrontation Canyon serves as a training ground for Axon forces, improving unit readiness by providing highly realistic, stressful training across the full spectrum of infantry and mechanized conflict. It is the premiere facility for heavy armor training, and all forces must complete courses here before assignment to a Leviathan unit.

By John Gaudiosi

CARY, North Carolina – Epic Games isn't letting something like the bankruptcy filing of publisher Midway Games get in the way of keeping Unreal Tournament III gamers happy. Come March 5, Epic is unleashing the largest free bonus content to its bestselling game franchise for both PC and PlayStation 3 in the form of an 800MB patch. Due to Microsoft Xbox Live download limitations, this vast array of new gameplay maps, game modes and assorted goodies won't be available to Xbox 360 UT3 gamers now, or likely ever.

The Titan Pack bonus content introduces 11 new multiplayer maps for Deathmatch, CTF, Vehicle CTF and Warfare modes, plus eight popular maps from the first UT3 bonus pack and Xbox 360 version (you can check out details on all the new maps in our feature article - ed). In addition, players will experience two new game modes: Greed mode, a "tug of war" style kill points battle, and Betrayal mode, a cutthroat style of play where alliances and teams can shift fluidly throughout a match. The Titan Pack also rewards gamers for performing tasks like collecting all the power-ups in a level. There are 57 awards that can be attained as Steam Achievements for PC and Trophies for PS3.

If you own Unreal Tournament III you know that there are big things ahead for Epic Games' 2007 shooter title. There are plans for a massive patch adding a ton of new features along with plans for a new expansion for the game. Today Epic announced the winners of the second phase of their massive second edition of the Make Something Unreal mod contest. which uses UT 3 as its basis

The winners were named in a number of different catagories and all of the winners can be seen after the jump. The mods themselves can be downloaded at the Make Something Unreal web site. Phase three of the contest starts accepting submissions in April. Remember, the final grand prize winner of the contest will win a full Unreal Engine 3 license from Epic. In the meantime check out the video that showcases just some of the finalists in the contest.

Download the Make Something Unreal Phase 2 video at Big Download (284 MB)

The 1.3 patch for Unreal Tournament III hasn't been released quite yet, but that didn't stop PlanetUnreal from digging for concrete details. Among the substantial list of fixes and additions are numerous bot improvements, several mod-specific collision detection issues, increased Aegia support, and cut/copy/paste functionality for the game's console.

While the list of tweaks and additions is quite long, most are individually minor. Collectively, though, the buggy UT3 should benefit greatly from all of the seemingly minute changes the patch will bring.