E3 2006 First Look Preview
Unreal has a well respected history in the PC
first person shooter genre. For the next incarnation they are turning everything
up a few notches, and also supporting the PS3. Those familiar with the series
will be happy to know that along with Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch and CTF, their
bringing back Onslaught and introducing a new Warfare mode. Combat doesn’t just
take place on foot, there are many vehicles, ground turrets, and even strange
robot looking combat vehicles. The variety of combat will be implemented across
play modes.
A clever new element is the hover board. It may
seem small, but one of my pet peeves of the Battlefield type games is how long
it can take to get somewhere when there aren’t any vehicles around. If you have
a long distance to travel, you can put away your guns, and hop on your hover
board. You can even jump and show off some tricks, but you probably won’t be
focusing too much on your boarding skills with bullets and explosions all over
the place.
The level that I had a chance to see incorporated
taking over checkpoints, grabbing the orbs, and using your shock rifle to charge
and hold the checkpoint. There were portions of the level where you had to get
past a chokepoint, and would jump into a turret to take out the enemies on the
ground, and in the air. There were also sections of the level where the fighting
caused a rock formation to tumble, crushing the vehicle sitting below. Near the
end of the level, the somewhat organic looking 3 legged robots had to be
dispatched.
UT 2007 appears to borrow the best of past games,
and introduces enough new elements to make it one of the more intense and
exciting next-generation shooters. UT 2007 is due in, you guessed it, 2007.
