'Unreal Tournament III' beta demo.

Downloading it now.

Same here. Hopefully it doesn't shut down on startup like CoD4 did.

Holy balls! This would happen when I have a really full weekend. Look forward to downloading and letting this humiliate my 4 y/o PC ASAP.

Yeah and the bad part is I can't just upgrade my CPU as my mobo won't take any of the better CPU's. I'd basically have to rebuild, at least partially. Don't have the money for that right now, so console is the only way I can play this. IF my 360 ever comes back in working condition.

That's weird. Maybe the download had some corrupted data?

So, is it running for anyone?

After the supremely excellent UT2k4 and Gears of War, I have an obligation to play this.

Press Q to activate your gay little hoverboard.

Vehicles are nearly impossible to control.

Its official: TF2 has ruined me.

I couldn't find UT3 more boring and dull if I tried. It's kind of interesting to play in light of TF2 and its various developer commentaries, where they list exactly why certain decisions were made.

For example, the characters in TF2 are designed in such a way so that from any distance, you know what character you're playing against, and what weapon payload they have. Yet in UT3, the map size is such that the only thing you can make out about your enemy 90% of the time, is what team they are on. And thats because the generically designed armor they wear is a uniform red or blue. As to what gun they are holding well, you'll find out after they kill you.

But I don't want to sound like a Negative Nancy, so I'll give the game a truly deserving compliment: Epic can code like mad. Expansive, geometrically complex levels filled with high resolution textures, and the game never, EVER dips below 70 FPS on my rig.

Long and short of it, Epic seems to be pulling an id-ism. So-so gameplay, powered by excellent underlying code. If the modders jump on it though I will pick up a copy down the line.

What do you guys think?

It's a shitty demo, because the levels they put in there are about as dull as you can get. Whose idea was it to show off the vehicles by placing them in a hundred yard straight shot full of bumpers that stop your momentum completely? The idea of Vehicle CTF is great, but that level sucks completely. The trailers and whatnot promise more expansive levels, and it still plays as well as UT ever did, so I'm going to hold out hope for the retail.

They should've included an Onslaught level as well. I think the real purpose of the demo was to give people an idea of how the performance would be, because everyone knows the real strength of the UT series is the mod community. Just imagine Red Orchestra under this engine.

Jeez, I just joined a match of straight deathmatch, and I realize how spoiled I really am by TF2. It's so, so boring to just run around and shoot at everybody, get killed, respawn, etcetera.

I used to be a big deathmatch player in 2K4, but now I think I'll be strictly Onslaught, Assault and CTF.

I could never get this damn demo to work. I think my combination of AMD processor and nVidia 7600GS vid card decided to say "FUCK YOU B_Metal." Strangely enough I downloaded the "Transformers" demo and it started right the fuck up. Brainless timewaster but not terrible.

Did you try updating your video drivers? That's usually the first thing I do if a game happens not to work properly.

Yeah, I even used the drivers specified in the read me. I have this feeling that I probably either did something wrong, or that demo just hates an AMD processor.

You're not really missing much, anyway.

That's the feeling I got from the responses here so I'm not terribly heartbroken. I think it may be time to start channeling funds into my rebuild CPU "emergency fund."