RaykoBlog

After playing Mass Effect 3 I also got my questions, though I didn't go to BioWare's office with torchs and tridents. Later I played the DLC Extended Cut to see what answers they got for me, and it closes more properly the ending, though it doesn't give too much detail. In this post I just express my own opinions about the DLC and the game overall. It's not a complain, neither a detailed review, just my perspective. There are many spoilers on this article about this DLC and some about the Mass Effect 3 ending, so if you didn't play the game yet and don't want to get spoiled, look away and come back when you are ready, or just read it and get spoiled, your choice.

Unreal Tournament is one of the most famous multiplayer games. It becomes a classic, but gamers will always worship Quake as the predecesor of every online FPS (in true 3D of course, we all know Doom, Hexen or Duke Nukem 3D, but these games are in 2D and half). 

Unreal Tournamet (UT99)

Unreal Tournament brings a lot of modes to play. In the original UT99 (the first Unreal Tournamet), you can choose between team deathmatch, domination, last man standing, normal deathmatch, capture the flag and assault to play. As with Quake, UT99 was very customizable and adaptable to every gamer. There still a lot of content you can download, from models and skins to complete modes. UT99 has the option of use mutators, that are scripts that modify or add a function to the game. So you can play a customized mode with mutators. 

Of course the UT series started with a single player story. Actually I never had the chance to play those early version of the game, but this kind of games doesn't brigth for their stories. It's the adrenaline, the action, the gore the main reason of this game. Also it's capability of play online easily make this game a great multiplayer FPS.

Unreal Tournament 2003 and 2004 (UT2003 & UT2004)

Later, Epic Games release a new version of it's unreal engine, with we could see in Unreal Tournament 2003. Honestly, I play very little this version, and I didn't found it enjoyable. But it's because I played the next game, Unreal Tournament 2004 before the 2003 release. These two version are preatty the same. The 2003 versions lacks of some modes, like Bombimg Run. The weapons texture are different and there are maps you won't find in the 2004 version. Anyway, spaking of UT2004 it's also speaking about UT2003, so let's keep talking about UT2004.

The new version of the game brings a lot of new things. No only the engine was improved, there are new modes, characters and weapons, Malcom, Xan Kriegor, Brock and Lauren are still in the game. They were generic characters in UT99, but now they are like the pioneers of the tournament, the best players in the begining of the tournament. This time with a lot of new enemies. One of the new and cool things UT2004 has are the vehicules. This introduces a new base of tactics and fun to the game. 

The new modes are Bombing Run, Onslaught, Mutant and Invasion. The other modes: Assault, Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, Domination (with some modifications), Last Man Standing and Capture the Flag are still available. The domination mode has been modified a little. Now it's called Double Domination. You can imagine how is it, rigth? Well, if you can't I'll tell you. Each map of Double Domination has two points of control which must be owned but a team for ten seconds. The control points behave like the old control points in UT99, you touch it and it belongs to your team until the opposite team touches it. So after ten seconds owning the control points, you will earn a game point. With three points (or the ammount you set up in your game) you will win the game. It's not so different, but the UT99 domination was a bit more entertain. It is very hard to defend a control point, but it's the difficult of the mode. 

The new modes are:

• Bombing Run is an complete new mode. Here you'll have a ball that relays in the center of each map. The objective is to carry this ball into opposite team's hoop. When you have the ball, you'll only carry a special weapon that can fire the ball or targen a teammate to pass the ball. No other weapons are available to the carrier. When you reach the hoop, if you fire the ball, you'll get three points, but if you pass throught the hoop with the ball you'll get seven points. Try to carry the ball when you plan to go throught the hoop, if not, you'll die. This is a very fun mode. You can make good tactics in the field to win a game.
• Mutant is the classic "chase the berserk". One of the players becomes the mutant and will have lots of powerups, such as invisibility, berserk, speed and 999 to each weapon. The rest has to kill it, and the one who kill it becames the mutant. When you mutate, you will score points by killing the others, also it gives you health. Very interesting mode to play.
• Invasion is the UT2004 version of zombie mode. You will gather a team that will figth to incoming creatures. The game pass in waves, and between them you have small time to gather wapoins and ammo. After a wave starts, it all depends on your strategy and firepower. Each wave will have more and more creatures and you have to resist as long as you can to win the game.
• Finally, a very strategic mode: Onslaught. This new mode is where we find the vehicules. It is very tactic and interesting. You'll have nodes in each map. The objective is to destroy the enemy's core, by making a link between yours and your enemiy's core. You can own a node, and when you do that, you will be able to advance to other nodes. This makes a battle line that each team will push against the opposite team. There are different configuration of nodes, and in some cases, owning a speacial node gives you adventage by getting a special vehicule or wepons.

As UT99, UT2004 is very customizable. There are lots of things you can download such as characters, mutators, modes, etc. There's a site dedicated to this content here. Thanks to people that spend time customizing this game, we can enjoy tons of new modes, now mutators, new maps and so on.

Unreal Tournament 3 (UT3)

Some years ago, we saw the new game from Epic Games, the Unreal Tournament 3. The engine they release is totally awsome, and gives to the game excellent graphic quality.

I notices changes in the Onslaught mode. Now it's call Warfare. Some maps are simpler than the old UT2004, but the new game introduces adventages, more than the UT2004. In some maps, you'll find special nodes, wich gives you adventage over your enemy, by exposing it's core, blocking ways, gaining special weapons, turrets or vehicules, or just a closer respawner. For trategics this is great. If you miss the old UT then you'll find some  remakes of UT2004 Onslaught mode.

UT3 also has a story script. Not a great story though, after playing UT99 and UT2004, what story could you expect. Well, Epic Games managed to introduce the respawn and flag concept into the story. They say that the enemy stole the Liandri's tecnology and can use respawners. Pretty bad story to me, but as you play the game, interesting things will come up. Also, Malcom, as the best of the past tournaments, leads the attacks against the enemies to push them back into their hole.

The best thing about this game is it's quality. But there's still that annoying brigth in the players. Now it's like an aura that gets brigther as you get far, but, it's UT style thougth. But for my luck, I found a mutator that disable that aura. Ironically, players are really hard to see on this game due to the quality of the textures, but I'm happy to disable that annoying aura. Search for ot on the web.

Like in other UT games, there are a lot of content to download and import, like maps, models, mutators, mods and so on. I downloaded some content to play around and I must say, peoeple out there really make a great work. So thanks to them for creating cool things for our games.

I started to like this game and I recommend it.

Tricks

Now, I will leave two tricks for Unreal Tournament 2004. I think you can try them on UT2003 also, it's the same engine after all:

Unlock secret background

When you are loading a game, you see a background, rigth? well, there are three different background usually, that are alternated. But, there is one hidded. To unlock it, search the file "User.ini" located in the "System" directory of the game. Then, open the file with your favorite editor and search the section "[GUI2K4.UT2K4ServerLoading]". Now look at the original file:

[GUI2K4.UT2K4ServerLoading]Backgrounds=2k4Menus.Loading.loadingscreen1Backgrounds=2k4Menus.Loading.loadingscreen2Backgrounds=2k4Menus.Loading.loadingscreen2Backgrounds=2k4Menus.Loading.loadingscreen4

 Do you see something strange? Of course, there's a missing number. The sequence is 1, 2, 2, 4. So change that sequence like this:

[GUI2K4.UT2K4ServerLoading]Backgrounds=2k4Menus.Loading.loadingscreen1Backgrounds=2k4Menus.Loading.loadingscreen2Backgrounds=2k4Menus.Loading.loadingscreen3Backgrounds=2k4Menus.Loading.loadingscreen4

This will make available the third background that shows Xan in a cool way.

I found this trick in the internet, trying to find the next trick I will explain. I didin't kept the link to the site, but is not a big thing though.

 

Play with any character in single-player

 I searched the internet trying to find an answer to this. You know, after you play the whole game, maybe you want to play it again but with your favorite character. It is very simple to do so. However, I didin't try to complete the whole game with a character added. But you can try that by yourself. 

When you select single mode, you will be asked to create a profile, in wich you select your character, name, teams name and difficult. But you can notice, not all characters of the game are here. To see why, locate the files "xplayersL1.upl" and "xplayersL2.upl" in the "System" folder. Open with an editor of your selection "xplayersL2.upl". You will see something like:

[Public]Player=(DefaultName="Dominator",Race="Skaarj",Mesh=SkaarjAnims.SkaarjUT2004,species=xGame.SPECIESSkaarj,BodySkin=UT2004PlayerSkins.Skaarj_Body_Default,FaceSkin=UT2004PlayerSkins.Skaarj_Head_Default,Portrait=UT2004PlayerSkins.Skaarj_Portrait,Text=XPlayers.SkaarjAA,Sex=Male,Menu="",Aggressiveness=+0.4,CombatStyle=+0.4,FavoriteWeapon=xWeapons.RocketLauncher,Jumpiness=+1.0,StrafingAbility=+0.5,BotUse=3)Player=(DefaultName="Drekorig",Race="Skaarj",Mesh=SkaarjAnims.Skaarj2,species=xGame.SPECIESSkaarj,BodySkin=UT2004PlayerSkins.Skaarj2_Body_Rage,FaceSkin=UT2004PlayerSkins.Skaarj2_Head_Rage,Portrait=UT2004PlayerSkins.Skaarj2_Portrait_Rage,Text=XPlayers.SkaarjCB,Sex=Male,Menu="",Aggressiveness=+0.4,Jumpiness=+1.0,StrafingAbility=+1.0,BotUse=3)Player=(DefaultName="Skakruk",Race="Skaarj",Mesh=SkaarjAnims.Skaarj3,species=xGame.SPECIESSkaarj,BodySkin=UT2004PlayerSkins.Skakruk_Body,FaceSkin=UT2004PlayerSkins.Skakruk_Head,Portrait=UT2004PlayerSkins.Skakruk_Portrait,Text=XPlayers.SkaarjBA,Sex=Male,Menu="",Aggressiveness=+0.35,CombatStyle=+0.5,Jumpiness=+0.3,StrafingAbility=+0.7,Accuracy=-0.1,FavoriteWeapon=XWeapons.FlakCannon,BotUse=3,TeamFace=1)[...]

 

These files defines the characters that are in the game. Now, we will locate a character that originaly was part of the list you see in the profile creation. Let's choose Jakob for example. His definitions is:

Player=(DefaultName="Jakob",Race="ThunderCrash",Mesh=ThunderCrash.JakobM,species=xGame.SPECIES_Merc,BodySkin=DemoPlayerSkins.Jakob_Body,FaceSkin=DemoPlayerSkins.Jakob_NewHead,Portrait=DemoPlayerSkins.Jakob_Portrait,Text=XPlayers.ThundercrashAB,Sex=Male,Menu="SP",CombatStyle=-0.4,FavoriteWeapon=XWeapons.ShockRifle,BotUse=2)

 

If you look close to the definition, you will see a parameter Menu="SP", this specify that this character will be in that list. So that's it, add this parameter to the character of your like and pick it up when you create your profile. For avoiding troubles, set this parameter after "sex". The characters that are not part of the single-player list has Menu="" but make sure to put the parameter in the rigth place. Don't forget the colons.

I have played with a custom character, more specifically with Faraleth. I have met the Fire Storm team and I didn't have any troubles, so you can be safe now. You can play with the parameters there, if you want, to customize the bot behaveur, and also you can download new skins and apply it to your custom character.

If you want to do more with this, search the web, there's a lot of documentation to read. 

This trick was original discovered by me. I didn't find someone that explain it, so, I hope you like it.

 

Set normal textures for models

A characterist of Unreal games is the exessive brigth textures for the characters. I don't like it, so I searched the web trying to find a solution, but it seems no one had an answer. I found how to deactivate this textures in a server mode, but I don't need to make a server, so I don't like this optinos, anyway they didn't work.

The brigth textures are usefull, I know, but I can recognize red from blue, even at low bright. Some models has errors on it's textures due to this extra brigth. For example, Faraleth has wrong her feathers, and when you look at her back, the feathers just disapear, and that's wrong. So, messing around with the editor I found a solution and I'll share with you now.

There is a folder in the game that contains the textures of the game. If you look in the "Texture" folder of the game you will find them. Each file is a package of textures. There are two interesting files: one is "BrightPlayerSkins.utx" and the other is "PlayerSkins.utx". If you open this packages with UnrealEd, you'll see that the first file has the body textures of each player with extra brigth (it's in the filename), and the second one has the complete set of character textures. By deleting or renaming the first file, you force the engine to use "PlayerSkins.utx". A side effect that produces this modification, is that you will not be able to see the team texture (red or blue) in the options of the game, but if you play the game, you will see the normal team textures.

You can also mess around with the textrues. UnrealEd is a very interesting tool to custom your game.

As the last trick, this was dicovered by me. Enjoy them.