Epic Announces, Details Latest Unreal Mod Contest

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Developer Epic Games has revealed the details on its latest $1 Million Make Something Unreal Contest, which challenges its participants to create a mod for the PC edition of Epic's Unreal Tournament 3 using the Unreal Engine 3 toolset.

Sponsored this time around by hardware manufacturer Intel, the contest offers over $1 million in prizes, with the grand prize being an Unreal Engine 3 license. Other prizes include Intel software development products and Velocity Micro PCs.

"To all you aspiring game developers out there--this is your chance to get in the big leagues," said Epic VP Mark Rein. "We have categories for all kinds of creatively talented people including programmers, artists, 3D modelers, designers and even aspiring film directors."

Rein added: "Unreal Engine 3 is used by many of the industry’s leading game companies, so this is truly a chance to prove your worth and get your foot in the door of the game business while having your work potentially exposed to millions."

Judging will begin this June and end in fall 2009. For more details, check out the official site at www.makesomethingunreal.com.

Chris Faylor was previously a games journalist creating content at Shacknews.

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From The Chatty
  • reply
    April 3, 2008 10:10 AM

    Its a shame UT3 is a disgrace to the series. Sure the graphics look pretty, but it doesn't feel like an Unreal Tournament game at all. Hopefully Epic will come through with a UT3.5, similar to what they did with UT2k3, when it was unpopular. I tried logging in to see if I could play the new facing worlds map and found only one server populated. Sad indeed.

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      April 3, 2008 10:19 AM

      Hopefully another badass mod will come out of this. "Alien Swarm" (I think that's what it was called), the top-down "Aliens" shooter from the last contest was damn cool.

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        April 3, 2008 1:21 PM

        The next Alien Swarm game is being developed on the Source engine (and has been for a long time...they need to hurry up and release something).

        Hopefully we get another great game like RO and AS. Or, if anything, the Red Orchestra devs are compelled to get an early RO2 build out for the MSU contest.

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      April 3, 2008 10:34 AM

      my theory of online gaming sequels is every sequel just splits the audience between games by about 40-60%. so honestly, I don't think UT can survive anymore, they overfranchised. look at the best examples of games that are played long term like CS and it's because they didn't have sequels early on.

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      April 3, 2008 10:34 AM

      How much have you actually played it? It's practically UT2k4 but with better graphics, different art style (I don't like the new art style at all), and some new modes. The player movement is almost identical save for a few tweaks like air dodging.

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        April 3, 2008 10:42 AM

        UT2k4 was BETTER in every way.

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          April 3, 2008 10:45 AM

          I'm curious, do you have details?

          I've actually avoided picking up UT3 precisely because the demo had the same fundamental look and feel as the previous games. To hear someone say that it "doesn't feel like an Unreal Tournament game at all" is a little o_O

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            April 3, 2008 10:51 AM

            Yes I own the game, didnt you read my original post, I tried to play facing worlds o_O. It was a waste of money imo.

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              April 3, 2008 10:56 AM

              The art direction is lacking, movement isnt fluid, no people to play multiplayer with, single player campaign is a letdown, noticeable slowdowns even on a high end PC. As in terms of gameplay, it just doesnt FEEL like a UT.

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                April 3, 2008 5:35 PM

                I had the opposite experience with UT3 in all aspects. UT3 definitely has a place in the UT family table, next to grampa Unreal, uncle UT, cousin U2, mamma UT2K3 and papa UT2K4.

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              April 3, 2008 2:14 PM

              I didn't ask if you owned the game, and I did read your original post. :-) Thanks for the additional comments. Although, I've never found fluid movement to be an aspect of any of the UT games, and I don't think that the lack of players is a component of the game design per se.

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      April 3, 2008 12:52 PM

      It's the same fucking game.

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        April 3, 2008 5:53 PM

        I disagree. The slower pacing of UT3 alone makes it play different, handle different. It's not as fun. I don't like it.

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          April 4, 2008 7:55 PM

          I prefer UT3, as I preferred ut99 to ut2k4. I thought 2k3/4 were aberrations and I see UT3 as returning to more of the original style, which I liked better. Plenty of other things about the game suck though.

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