UT3: A review, after a night of playing. . .

Well, I must say that I am rather disappointed at the game as a
whole.
The epic forums and other message board are full of people praising
it
without making any real points other than that it looks tremendous,
and that anyone that doesn't like it just doesn't know what they are
talking about/is an idiot/hasn't really played it. I keep seeing "It
hasn't been out long enough for an honest review", But how long does
a
game have to be out to realize they removed much of what the previous
games had?
First, obviously the UI, , it's bad, , much like a console, , but
enough about that, that seems to be a big point, and at times the
only
one addressed. Some people don't care that it takes many more steps
to
exit the game than previous versions of the game did, but
nevertheless, it's still a huge step backwards. It's going to be a
real pain to anyone modding: Many more steps to get out of the game
when testing.
Second, the entire Adrenaline system is removed. No adreanline
combos,
stock or otherwise. I just think that was a bad move, I would be left
out due to a rushed release and/or Epic's apparent tendency to pawn
stuff off on the modding community. What wasimplemented in it's
place:
Nothing. . .
Third, six gametypes, , yes SIX. Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, CTF,
VCTF, Duel, and Warfare. No ONS or Assault, which we were led to
believe Warfare is a suitable replacement for. (It is not a suitable
replacement for either so far, but I'm still trying to get into it).
No Bombing Run, No Domination or any sort, no Invasion, Last Man
Sanding. Again, it feels like they left it all for the fans to make,
kinda like they left AS out of ut2003.
Next are the VTMs. There are lots of them, for every aspect of map
making, , that's right, , no coding tuts, no vehicle rigging tuts,
nothing about weapons or anything: Just mapping.
The last thing, is the one that ist he preverbial "straw that broke
the camel's back": Bots are limited to 15 in a map. So for those of
us
that live in a rural enough area that we don't get good enough pings
for online play, or just can't take the game serious enough to play
online, We're just plainly out of luck. As I stated, it's a deal-
breaker for me. My main reason for picking up UT3 was to mod for it:
I
mod for 2k4, and in between modding or while testing, I play a bit
against bots, ,32, , bots. Why anyone would want to play with less is
beyond me, and I understand: "The real games are against
humans, ,blah blah blah". Yea, I know that's what many think, but if
you for whatever reason, can't play online, it makes the game rather
worthless. It is obvious bot support is not anwhere near a priority
in
Epic's book, with the reduction in the number of bots, and what seems
to be their sloppy, barely present AI. For most of what I have seen,
the bots, even at higher skills, run around pretty pointlessly, not
really doing anything until they stumble across an enemy or a point
of
interest like the flag in CTF.
As for graphics, while the system is updated for much greater
capabilities, what ships with the game is IMO not as great as many
are
boasting. NO, it's not my system, I have an X1950XTX video card and a
VERY good 22" monitor, 2k4, HL3, Bioshock, as well as others look
AWESOME on my system, UT3 looks kinda washed and drab.
There are also some other little inconvienences, but I'm not sure if
they are universal or not, since I see little mention of them in the
boards: Set the mutators, number of players and such, and the next
time you start the game up, do it all over agains, because UT3 is not
remembering anything. Same with my keyboard mapping, but I wonder if
everyone has this problem, because I see little mention of it.
Add it all up, and notice some threads on Epic's message boards are
getting locked without being answered, it looks to me like they are
in
damage control mode. I question the sources of messages that openly
praise the game in blanket fashion, throw veiled insults at anyone
that thinks otherwise, and the failure of anyone to adress some of
the
issues. Just my $.02