Quake III and Unreal Tournament turn 10 years old!

[Brandonv]

Now this makes me feel old. Quake III and Unreal Tournament have both just turned 10 years old - UT was released Nov 30, 1999, and Q3 was released Dec 2, 1999. Those two games came out around the time that I got my first 3d graphics card, a Voodoo 3 3000 PCI. I was only 16.

I can still remember all the rivalry and arguments on forums about which game is better. I have always been more of a UT fan, but I played some Quake Live earlier this year and found that I like Q3 better than I remember.

I think I may need to install the original UT to celebrate. I also own UT2k4 and UT3, but I think the original is still the best in the series.

 

[firehawk12]

Yeah, the twitch shooter is a dying (or dead) breed. It's sad, because I know I can't play these games as well as I could back when they were released. I just don't have the reflexes to pull off a falling/strafing/jumping railgun headshot nowadays.

 

[Islander]

Wow, that sure brings back memories. I was working for Guillemot at the time (Hercules Graphics) and we had just release the first nVidia GeForce card and we were "testing" it with these games.

 

[Geckothan]

Yeah, the twitch shooter is a dying (or dead) breed. It's sad, because I know I can't play these games as well as I could back when they were released. I just don't have the reflexes to pull off a falling/strafing/jumping railgun headshot nowadays.

It's a real shame as well. Most FPS games today feel so sluggish and skill-less compared with proper games like UT and QuakeWorld (Quake III as well, but I'm partial to QuakeWorld). I guess as the average gamer gets dumber and slower, game developers have to compensate.

 

[Robert Maxwell]

Those games kind of faded away because they're too niche, too hardcore, and too simple in terms of gameplay.

These days, it's pretty much gone to the open source world. Since the Doom and Quake engines have all been open-sourced, and we have projects like Cube/Sauerbraten, it's a niche that's basically filled by the community now.

 

[Geckothan]

You mean, because the average 14 year old "gamer" kid isn't good enough to keep up with the people who have been playing it for 10 years, gets mad and quits because having to practice to get better at a game is too time consuming for people with no attention spans? These games are only niche because today's generation wants instant gratification and success without having to put in any skills or effort.

With such old games, most of the people already playing them have been playing them for a long time and have lots of practice, thus there's not enough low skillers and bads around for the aforementioned 14 year old kids to compete with and their only choice is to practice against people who can actually play, and losing makes the kids of today ragequit rapidly.

Conclusion: the games are still great, it's the generation-of-stupid that's killing them off.

 

[firehawk12]

Honestly, most of it is because games are designed for the controller, which has slower precise aiming/aim assist.
And I guess Epic did try with UT3 - but no one bought it. I know on the console it didn't really play anything like an old school UT game though. It was considerably slower.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

I loved Unreal and Unreal Tournament. I used to play them, years ago. Pity they're (apparently) not available for OS X.

I remember getting majorly creeped out by one of the Unreal monsters, the one that stuck to the ceiling and flung knives at you.

 

[Turbo]

I realized this when I looked up the dates after my attempted install of Elite Force failed on my Windows 7 computer. Damn, I do feel old.

 

[Trubinator]

Makes me feel old too. Both games came out around high school age for me =(

 

[Tim]

Those games bring back memories. I loved doing online deathmatches back in the day.

 

[Robert Maxwell]

You mean, because the average 14 year old "gamer" kid isn't good enough to keep up with the people who have been playing it for 10 years, gets mad and quits because having to practice to get better at a game is too time consuming for people with no attention spans? These games are only niche because today's generation wants instant gratification and success without having to put in any skills or effort.

Well... so? Video games are a business, what's the point in making games the vast majority of your market doesn't want to play?

With such old games, most of the people already playing them have been playing them for a long time and have lots of practice, thus there's not enough low skillers and bads around for the aforementioned 14 year old kids to compete with and their only choice is to practice against people who can actually play, and losing makes the kids of today ragequit rapidly.

It's not a lot of fun to get your clock cleaned by a dozen people who've been playing the game for 10 years, now is it? It's kind of difficult to "get good" when you can't survive for more than a few seconds, don't you think?

I was addressing why they don't still make these games, and it really just boils down to the fact that the industry has moved on. The straight-up FPS genre--run around and kill everything in sight--just isn't novel anymore, and doesn't bring the variety and complexity that gamers now demand.

It doesn't mean there's something wrong with the games themselves. UT and Q3 are still great, and lots of fun. I still play them. But there's just not much of a market for new games of that sort.

Conclusion: the games are still great, it's the generation-of-stupid that's killing them off.

Did I say there was anything wrong with the games themselves? No, I didn't.

Your generational bigotry is certainly misplaced, though.

 

[JonathonWally]

Yeah, the twitch shooter is a dying (or dead) breed. It's sad, because I know I can't play these games as well as I could back when they were released. I just don't have the reflexes to pull off a falling/strafing/jumping railgun headshot nowadays.

It's a real shame as well. Most FPS games today feel so sluggish and skill-less compared with proper games like UT and QuakeWorld (Quake III as well, but I'm partial to QuakeWorld). I guess as the average gamer gets dumber and slower, game developers have to compensate.

I'll definitely agree that after UT and Quake all new FPS feels slow as hell. I practiced UT like crazy to get decent at it online. Love those games.

 

[captcalhoun]

i got a new PC just to be able to play Q3 and Team Arena. never liked UT1, but UT2004 is the mutt's nuts. UT3 was pants. the only good thing in UT3 is the damn hoverboards.