The 2009 D.I.C.E. summit is going down this week in the always wonderful Las Vegas, and it is here that Epic Games announced the winners of Phase 2 of the $1 Million Intel Make Something Real Contest. The way it works is simple: make the best mods for Unreal Tournament III and get a ton of cash. In this portion of the contest, $70,000 in prizes have been rewarded to mod makers who place in the categories.
Midway announces brand new bonus content set to hit Unreal Tournament III and listed as the best price ever, free!
Blend Games Writes:
Valve today enabled free Steam registration for Unreal Tournament 3, allowing owners of Epic's multiplayer shooter to prepare for the the large upcoming patch.
Developer Epic has spilled the beans on a forthcoming major patch for the PC version of Unreal Tournament 3, which will pack Steam achievements and other tweaks.
The Unreal Tournament III mods responsible for making over 160 modded maps, bringing game characters Master Chief and Mark Phoenix to UT III, and restoring the world-famous Bombing Run for the PC and PS3 have made themselves at home on the Playstation 3 console by making a clubhouse open for both mods and fans of Unreal Tournament III. The manifesto on their website is as follows:
Legendary Pictures, the film production company that is currently co-financing the Gears of War film adaption, is currently in talks to buy Gears developer Epic Games, according to Variety.
Epic Games's cash-cow these days is Gears of War but don't think they've forgotten the Unreal series that put them on the map. Just a couple weeks away from Gears of War 2's release, Epic VP Mark Rein has revealed that a huge update is coming for Unreal Tournament 3.
WorthPlaying writes: "In UT3, you assume the role of a futuristic warrior engaged in contests of intense shooting battles against skilled opponents, controlled by human contestants online or by AI, fought with the most powerful sci-fi weapons and vehicles. Epic continues to support the PC version with yet another patch further tweaking, balancing and fixes bugs/crashes."
NVIDIA today released the Unreal Tournament 3 NVIDIA PhysX Mod Pack which includes three maps. Make sure to enable "Hardware Physics" under Video Settings in the UT3 settings. Driver release v177.39 or later is required for GPU PhysX hardware acceleration. This pack requires a PhysX-enabled card or a NVIDIA Series 8 graphics card (minimum).
Highlights this week include Nancy Drew: The Phantom of Venice (PC) Sid Meier's Civilization Revolution (Xbox 360/PS3/Nintendo DS), Unreal Tournament III (Xbox 360), and Final Fantasy Fables: Chocobo's Dungeon (Nintendo Wii).
PalGN writes: "Back in April, Epic Games' Vice President Mark Rein stated that the Xbox 360 version of Unreal Tournament 3 would include a "Gears of War 2 related surprise". Speaking with TeamXbox, Rein has confirmed that the 360 UT3 disc will indeed feature exclusive Gears of War 2 video content.
Eurogamer writes: "Level design hotspot 3D Buzz has decided to run its very own map-making competition for Unreal Tournament 3.
Unreal Tournament 3 v1.3 patch:
Speaking to videogaming247, Epic boss Mark Rein has confirmed that a story claiming 40 million pirated keys had attempted access to the PC UTIII servers is incorrect.
"In a recent discussion with TG Daily, Mark Rein declared that there were an astounding 40 million attempts at illegitimate access to Unreal Tournament 3 servers using pirated keys."
Any real Unreal Tournament fan knows what Tactical Ops is. A very popular total conversion that was created for Unreal 99 based on modern combat. Well it seems that the silently developed Tactical Ops 3 mod can be ported to the PS3 if the option to change controls is added, since mods can be run on PS3 and this is a mod. Whats the catch? The programmers wish to have a PS3 donated to them, so whos it gonna be? The big deal is being able to have a completely different game for free on your PS3, that is, if you own UT3.
"I'm sure many of you already seen the new UT3 360 trailer, but what most of you don't know is that one of the maps shown there ( DM-ArcticShipment ) is actually a user created map done by a member that goes by EpicJon on the Epic Forums.
Ripten: Unreal Tournament 3 for the Xbox 360 is coming this Summer (June 30th in the States and unannounced in Europe) and it looks like loyal Microsoft fans will be getting five exclusive maps, two new characters, and split-screen action for two players. Unfortunately for 360 users, this bonus content doesn't really mean diddly.
Today, Epic Games and Intel have announced the $1 Million Intel Make Something Unreal Contest. Epic Games and Intel will be judging mods for the PC version of Unreal Tournament 3, for the following categories: environments, characters, weapons, gameplay, tools, vehicles and more.