Results tagged “UT2003” from Birmingham Mail - Technobabble

Could recent events be starting the beginning of the end of the creep of the 'super franchise' game?
Recently publishers of titles have taken on board the yearly update methods which formerly were only applied only to American sports games like John Madden.
This means that we get a 'new' FIFA each year, another Pro Evolution Soccer, Football Manager, Brian Lara Cricket, and so on.
Does this mean a better deal for gamers? I would suggest not - while the games in themselves are usually solid and enjoyable enough, they never really represent much of a step forward.
Slightly better graphics, a few more options and a new box don't make for a new £40 game in my opinion. But the developers know that fans are desperate that the teams are up to date. So effectively you're paying the cash for a list of names.
With one eye on the enduring success of the sports genre, publishers are trying to branch out - as witnessed by developments in the world action first person shooters.
A recent title is Unreal Tournament 3 (originally titled UT2007) - in fact the seventh incarnation of this high quality series. I enjoyed the game to start with, but rapidly came to the conclusion that it was no different at all from its predecessors.
Sure, the graphics were better, some amazing-looking new vehicles were added (as well as a horrific console-style menu system) but the single player and multiplayer were effectively identical to UT2004 (and UT2003 for that matter).
A test of the longevity of a title is to try and play multiplayer a few months down the line after launch - take a look and you won't find many UT3 servers going at the moment for the PC version of the game.
Perhaps the game buying public is getting wise, dusting off versions of the title they bought 12 months or more ago instead of lashing out large quantities of cash on the updated title.
I suspect though, that any thoughts of Pro Evo publishers Konami putting out a 'patch' for their title for free with the new player names might be a bit too much wishful thinking...