Unreal Tournament 3 beta review
Mikey 17 comments
I had hoped to share my experiences with the hot-off-the-press Unreal Tournament 3 (beta) but unfortunately a glaring usability issue is preventing me from even getting passed the login stage.
Like a lot of other games I am required to create a profile in order to play, so I hit the 'create profile' button as instructed. After completing the details required I was alerted with the following error message "the password provided is invalid for the existing account based on the specified email address". WTF? Bear in mind I am creating a new account as instructed, not trying to login with an existing account. I don't have an existing account hence the necessity to create a new account yet the error message is assuming I am trying to login with an existing account.
No matter how many times I try I can not get passed this stage. It amazes me to no end, that the game developers have the talent to create something as complex a modern FPS yet not have the capacity to execute something so basic as an account set-up process.
In any event, I am not expecting Unreal Tournament to be anything special. If the game play is anything like it's predecessors it will be utterly boring by today's standards. Hopefully the next demo release will actually let me play.
Update 01: Still no luck playing online so bot-match it is. I have just played off-line and will report my experiences and post screen shots later tonight.
Update 02: Ok, the following paragraphs outline my offline playing experience, and I have even included some screen shots.
Graphically speaking, UT3 is rather picturesque at times. Although you wouldn't get a chance to enjoy the scenery while fending off sniper attacks. The screen shots at the end will give you an idea of what to expect, and bear in mind these were taken on my DirectX 9 card and you can expect a DirectX 10 card to look even better. Considering the level of detail, it ran better than I had expected with all details maxed out at a native res of 1680x1050. But the all the UT engines have always played great even on lower end machines.
Game play is sadly yawnful. It plays just like UT and UT2003. The weapons are the same although they look a lot nicer, and as far as I can tell there is at least one new weapon. My guess is this game will appeal to gamers who haven't played any of the UT series before or the hardcore UT fans.
Enemy AI is better than what I experienced on the Call of Duty 4 demo, but I did notice they didn't play very well as a team. But this is a beta product so I won't write that off just yet.
All that said, when finally released UT will probably find itself among the many game of the year contenders.
andrew
Monday 15th October 2007 | 12:17 AMhey mike, if someone like you has problems how do mere mortals like myself go?
Jack
Monday 15th October 2007 | 05:03 PMI managed to make an account using a Hotmail email address. Had exactly the same problem trying to create an account with my normal email address though. Haven't played it on my Gaming Computer yet so all i can say is lagzilla -.-
Rodney
Tuesday 16th October 2007 | 12:20 AMI had no problems creating an account but I don't go for online gaming much so it doesn't really help me!
The game is pretty much identical to UT 2004 and the graphics don't seem much of an improvement (but I bet if I loaded UT2004 I'd see how wrong that statement is). Game play is smooth with all settings maxed out on my somewhat ordinary PC.
I can see a few hours being wasted but not much more...
Franken
Tuesday 16th October 2007 | 10:21 AMIts a car cry short of what we were promised ages ago... http://www.unrealtechnology.com/html/technology/ue30.shtml
Shane
Thursday 25th October 2007 | 10:51 AMcan someone email me to solve this (a different problem)... when i create a profile it says that I cannot put blank spaces and it has to start with alphanumerical symbols or something like that whenever i try to create one...i have double triple and even practucally quadruple checked it all but it STILL wont work!!! email me at
Nessunome
Monday 26th November 2007 | 01:07 PMSame problem as Shane. Also, on non-US keyboards the @ key brings up the console, forcing you to alt-tab to notepad and then copypaste the symbol to even ENTER an email, which is frankly a pitiful oversight on the part of Epic. I struggle to see how it can misread a five-letter (not even any numbers), all lowercase (just to be safe) username as containing a non-alphanumeric character or a space at any point.
Dan
Sunday 9th December 2007 | 02:44 AMAt least some of U got to play Offline, I can't do that due to the fact that it's impossible to create an account. Jeez!!!
Mick
Sunday 16th December 2007 | 03:58 AMIt sounds like you were just too stubborn to pick a username that wasn't already in use.
Not true. I had tried several unusual ones as well in an effort to get passed that screen. The problem is with the crap response. If a user name is already taken, then I should be reading "sorry, that user name is already taken"; not "the password provided is invalid for the existing account based on the specified email address".
The first one I tried to use was 'rustylimedotcom'. Somehow I doubt that one was in use.
Xenya
Saturday 26th January 2008 | 09:36 AMI had the same crap response. Tried something as simple as the name 'hazelblue' and got the 'username cannont being with non-alphanumeric symbols' error message.
I got it three times, even though the usernames I used began with letters.
I'm glad it was the demo and not the actual game. Not much else to say...
nenad4o
Saturday 26th January 2008 | 11:14 AMI GOT IT GUYS!!!
Just make a notepad document, write your nick inside, copy it, and where it says "Username" paste(CTRL+V) the nick.
nenad4o
Saturday 26th January 2008 | 11:23 AMIf the above doesn't work, then click "Offline mission" or whatever it is. When it enters there, click log off and try to make an account. I've made two.
Sam
Wednesday 30th January 2008 | 04:45 AMI have those problems too, but I can play offline. The problem is, even on really good settings (setting the sliders to 4) everything is really blurry. I can play other games fine so what is wrong here?
Saturday 31st May 2008 | 01:13 AM
nenad40, didnt work with my! Tried a pretty odd but easy to write name....nope!
Even did this notepad thing!
Have an hotmail email account....didnt help me much!
What the hell is this?
I really can't believe that they have this huuuuuge humongus BUG, for such a big company/game!
I mean, it has been sold in masses..... And just for the record I have the REAL cd!
and i did not download it, so let's exclude that it could be my cd key!
This is a major F**k up, really hope i get my solution!
ReLoUd
Sunday 7th June 2009 | 08:45 PMI managed to creat a account but when i want to login i gave in my account name,password en pressed login...then it gives me a loading screen...and after that it gives me back the login screen so i can't play online :'( i patched it,installed the titanpack but nothing helped plz i need some help!!!!
Swe_88
Monday 10th August 2009 | 02:59 AMCreat a profile on www.gamespyid.com and use the same E-mail on unreal T.
kam
Sunday 14th October 2007 | 10:20 PMi agree with the anoying situation, but u CAN get past this stage you know, just play "offline mode" , n your in, im still reading up about the profile creation error thou, it would be nice to play online and not against bots...the eye candy, hmmm, its not that great in some levels, but, this is only a demo so im expecting some sort of improvements with that and also may be some more options within the graphics settings option...