Ok, I've spent about an hour playing the demo. Here fucking goes:
I start the game up to be presented with a fuckin login screen. Yes, I have to create a fucking account for a demo. What the shit? Oh well, it only takes a second...
Oh wait, they want an e-mail address, but I can't type an "@" symbol because the key that does it opens up the FUCKING console when it is pressed. Great fucking thinking there, Epic.
Bullshit out of the way, I'm in the menu. The music sounds even more like the original UT music than UT2004's menu theme did, and for a brief moment my spirits are lifted, until I actually look at the menu, which is still the same fucking 'simplified' piece of Quake 3 shit - right down to the sounds the menu makes when you click or hover over something.
Oh, and it also has that fucking gay fisheye thing that everyone stole from Mac OS, despite the fact that it's completely fucking horrible.
Whatever, let's play. First gametype on the list is Deathmatch, for which there are two maps, one of which is ok, and one of which is TOTAL FUCKING SHIT, but I'll get to that in a second.
I start the game for for the first time, and it looks like I'm playing on an N64 while looking through a steamed up pair of my great grandma's glasses whilst on a hangover from drinking a gallon of antifreeze. Yes, it's blurry and foggy as fuck.
I fiddle with the fucking graphics options, and after a few minutes the game looks pretty nice, despite being on near minimal settings - shame the map size to player size ratio is still way fucking off, and everyone is a short, fat little gnome with huge torsos and arms, and a tiny, tiny head the size of Tony Blair's nutsack.
I'm apparantly holding an enforcer, although it looks nothing like such one. Way to alienate your players. I then pick up a link gun (pulse gun) which looks like a fucking vibrator and what I'm told is a flak cannon - which looks like it's made of fucking lego.
Oh well, I start killing shit. The best, best fucking thing that I notice about it is that I'm no longer able to double-jump after dodging, and, thank fucking god, the whole 'adrenaline' bullshit has been removed.
The bots aren't putting up that much of a fight, set to 'average' by default, but that said, they're probably equalling 'skilled' or 'adept' bots of UT99.
There are a few gameplay changes too:
When killed, damage amps and jump boots are now dropped, Quake 3 style, and a new piece of equipment 'armoured helmet' is now included. I can only assume that this protects me from the instant death of a headshot.
I win the round, and the next map loads reasonably quickly. It looks like a straight rip off of Bladerunner, but whatever. All's going well until suddenly, one guy is in a fucking huge robot bastard-child of a HL2 strider and a Matrix Squiddy.
Yes, he's in a fucking huge robot, and he is KILLING FUCKING EVERYBODY. IN DEATHMATCH.
In livid fucking rage that the whole concept of a deathmatch has just been fucking buttfucked by Cliffy B and his newfound fucking obsession with vehicles, I die four times to this faggot in a robot before I finally blow up his ride and take him with it.
Prick.
Next gametype on the list is team deathmatch, which is... well, the same, but with teams. Some other faggot gets into the robot, same shit, etc.
NEXT GAMETYPE.
"Vehicle CTF."
What about normal CTF? Oh well, Onslaught was cool, right? Yeah, it was, but this isn't onslaught. This is a bunch of vehicles zooming at one another up and down a bridge and blowing the shit out of eachother endlessly.
If you don't have a vehicle, you can get on your silly little hoverboard and make yourself totally defenseless, and if one person so much as scratches you with any given weapon, you fall flat on your face and spend three to four seconds pulling yourself up to your feet again - in which time you are surely fucking dead if you opponent has so much as ounce of skill.
I play this mockery of CTF for half an hour, after which time neither team has done more than briefly touch the other team's flag before being splattered into paste.
The fourth and final gametype on the list is "Duel", which is 1v1 deathmatch, because, you know, playing deathmatch against only one other player wouldn't be EXACTLY THE FUCKING SAME, would it?
Graphics Engine: Incredible.
Graphics Style: Shit.
Deathmatch: Good.
Team deathmatch: Deathmatch.
Deathmatch with a vehicle in it: Fucking shit.
Team deathmatch with a vehicle in it: Fucking shit.
Vehicle CTF: Really fucking shit.
Duel: Deathmatch.
Map design: Boring, wank, uninspired and fundamentally flawed, totally ignoring all mechanics of gameplay.
