UT 2003 comments

External Since: Nov 12, 2003 Posts: 5

I just got this after the price dropped to $20. I had played the demo
and it just wasn't compelling enough to be worth the $50 it was
originally priced at.

I haven't tried playing online yet. I didn't play the original UT
online much, either. Finding a populated server is a real pain and when
you do find one, half the time the game in progress is almost over and
then everyone leaves. Annoying when you just want to run around and
shoot things. Anyone else feel the same? There must be some, because I
noticed in this version they changed "practice" mode to "instant
action".

I like the fact that the bots are more varied in appearance. Most of
the maps, however, kind of suck. I don't get a sense of place from
them, except for the outdoor and maybe the Egyptian ones. The
third-party ones are better. In the original UT, each area of each map
had its own feel, so when I pick up the game again after a long hiatus
it feels like returning to familiar places. Plus you have to use
different tactics in differently shaped rooms. Here it's like the old
Infocom adventure game mazes: "You are in a maze of twisty passageways,
all alike".

The thing that bothers me the most about the bot play, though, is the
levels jump in difficulty between "skillful" and "adept". I usually win
every DM game at the skillful level, and lose every one at the adept
level. It gets frustrating.

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External Since: Jan 25, 2004 Posts: 129

In article <191120031330184280%mborok@mindspring.com>,
Mark Borok <mborok.RemoveThis@mindspring.com> wrote:

> I like the fact that the bots are more varied in appearance. Most of
> the maps, however, kind of suck. I don't get a sense of place from
> them, except for the outdoor and maybe the Egyptian ones. The
> third-party ones are better. In the original UT, each area of each map
> had its own feel, so when I pick up the game again after a long hiatus
> it feels like returning to familiar places.

I usually only play the standard maps when I'm new to a network game.
After that I only join servers playing 3rd party maps. Far as I'm
concerned, network games would be better off if they came with only a
couple of maps to get the players started, plus a level editor so it
would be easy to make new maps.

I don't have UT2k3 yet though. Am I correct in assuming that the mac
version does not come with a level editor? (like 99% ofthe other games
that are ported to the mac)

--
C Lund, <a style='text-decoration: underline;' href="http://www.notam02.no/~clund" target="_blank">www.notam02.no/~clund</a>