Why is UT99 the best?

[MessiahComplex]

The level of customization, pure and simple.

Example:
UT99 Bots: Customize class, skin, voice, tweak bot weapon preferences and even skill levels plus their names.
UT3 Bots: ...Nothing.

Haven't played the other UTs.

[X_Sheep]

The music in UT99 is far better than any other UT. The music in UT2k4 is pretty bland.
I can't really comment on UT3, but from what I hear on the official website (which has music previews) it's mostly UT2k4 again with some remixes from UT99.

Also, UT99 is the only one that runs on my crappy laptop

[Creavion]

The music in UT99 is far better than any other UT. The music in UT2k4 is pretty bland.
I can't really comment on UT3, but from what I hear on the official website (which has music previews) it's mostly UT2k4 again with some remixes from UT99.

Remixes of UT99 Tracks in UT3:
------------------------------
Mech 8 (DM-Arsenal, DM-Morbias)
GoDown (DM-Deck)
Skyward Fire (WAR-Torlan)
Foregone Destruction (CTF-Face)
Menu Remix

Remixes of UT2004 Tracks in UT3:
--------------------------------
ONS01 [mostly known through ONS-Torlan] (WAR-Confrontration, WAR-TankCrossing)

[brdempsey69]

May have been mentioned before, but original UT has, by far, the best community of any of the Unreal series games, with some of the greatest people. Can't say that about UT2k4 or UT3.

Maybe it's because the people who chose to keep playing UT also at the same time chose to stand apart as independent thinkers, instead of going along with the robotic line of thinking that there was some sort of obligation to move on to one of the newer iterations of UT, even though it was inferior to the original.

I salute you folks.

[`Mex]

I think there must be a million reasons, firstly UT 99 was made to compete with the quake series which was the dominant online fps game, both quake 1 and 2 were great games.
Every effort to make UT99 awesome was poured into the development process on the single goal to make it the best there had ever been, also quake 3 was going to be released in 1999 so everyone knew they had to make something really special to beat it.

Later UT games were made for cash, also they were made for "mass appeal" which basically means they listened to people who complained about being killed too easily in ut99 and dumbed it down for them. The logic being that these casual players make up the majority of the people who bought and played the original ut99 and so if you make these people happy you will have good sales.
Unfortunately for us that meant slower shock rifle, less rockets to load (reduces spam, but if you think about it you are still spamming the same amount but just firing twice as often), no sniper rifle, which was perhaps their biggest mistake when it came to weapons since the sniper was one of the favourite weapons of UT, instead you get a lightning gun which is nowhere near as satisfying to use (in ut2k4 sniper is present but again dumbed down with a slower firing rate).

You don't start with an enforcer any more you get an assault rifle, this was to give people a sense of starting off with a decent weapon (since that had been a complaint) it's just terrible and neglects the fact that if you have semi decent aim the enforcer isn't as bad a starter weapon as you'd think .

The new weapons totally shot the balance that made UT99 combat amazing, probably the best example is the shock rifle, the shock balls move so slow its nearly pointless using it instead its mainly used for its primary fire as if it was the old-style sniper rifle.

Also a big massive mistake was to incorporate the double jump (omg) finally its been removed from ut3 but my god what an oversight that was. My personal opinion is that a wall jump would be fine, it could add alot to the combat game play, say you are falling down a wall with a guy at the bottom loading rockets for you, you can time a jump from the wall to avoid rockety death, it adds a great number of possibilities for deeper game play, unlike the mid-air jump which made ut2k3/4 jokes.

The graphics in the later games were improved yeah, for visual appeal, but the point of the game is to frag people and the new super shiny reflective graphics make it increasingly harder to track people as your eyes sift through the details, this is further trouble by the fact there's very little contrast between the graphics of the maps the the player skins used. Maybe this is why all the characters look as if they have been eating doughnuts for 5 years while waiting to appear in this game so that you can spot their fat asses more easily.

Ok map design, the problem of the mid-air double jump caused most of the maps to be too open and have millions of entrances and exits dotted about all over the place, again no balance, it turned the games into a long range aim contest. Sometimes I think the development team just decided to model all their maps on blocks of Swiss cheese. Also they seem to have no idea about proportions take curse][ for example, how amazingly cramped is that map it's not even as wide as the original curse][ in ut99, you would think since they had designed big fat chunky characters with unnecessary double jumping abilities they would have the sense not to shrink maps.


Basically ut99 is brilliant because its has a massive variety of features that are all balanced in almost complete harmony the latter games have no balance and less features.
Probably the most important aspect is the weapons and the reason why they work so well in ut99 can be explained easily.
Take the 3 most powerful weapon - the sniper rifle, shock rifle and rocket launcher.
Each one is adapted for a specific range, the sniper rifle long range, shock mid and the rockets close range, no other weapons can beat these weapons for effectiveness at these ranges.
So that means you dont get one weapon dominating the entire game e.g. sniper is a bad choice for close quarters fighting, there's no point in shooting rockets at someone half a map away.
This forces change and variety, it forces you to move to your weapons best range in order to kill someone.
This balance has been applied to all the weapons in ut99 and that's why it works so well.

I could go on and on about why ut99 rocks but look at what I've wrote so far I'd better stop before I comatose everyone.

Long live ut99

[GenMoKai]

Pfff what a story `Mex but i think more of us agree

[brdempsey69]

I agree with`Mex 100%. He speaks for a great many who share the same perspective that he does. I, for one, was shocked & very disappointed when I downloaded the UT2003 demo & tried it. They hadn't made a sequel to the original UT at all. They had ported a console game called Unreal Championship to the PC and called it UT2003. It should have stayed on the console. UT2003 was a lot more like Quake than original UT & I can't tell how much I despised the weapons being nerfed, mainly because of the crybabies at the official Epic forums who claimed the weapons in original UT were overpowered & unbalanced. That's pure BS.

Original UT remains the best because it still has the best weapons that have the best functionality of any of the Unreal series games. And they are balanced, contrary to what the naysayers claim.

[Phorce]

Wow ! What a thread. Many good reasons in there, but the one that stands out for me is the "I *am* in there ... fighting for my life". Also Proxy Mines would never let me leave ut99 cus they just wanna have fun

[nomaes]

only the best because of that satisfying, original "HEAD SHOT"

[Saya-chan]

After some studies, I've finally came with the fact that UT99 is best because it is the easiest game to mod, easiest to make maps for and the fact that its lovely, classic low-poly and cpu-friendly graphics are the best you can find. Which is something that's starting to disappear since the 'high-poly mapping' era began. And I'm not exactly blaming anyone for this, but just think about it... Is it best to have a hyper detailed map that runs at 5fps or a low-poly simple map that runs twelve times faster and thus, has a better gameplay? UT99 was born as a low-poly game, just to be fast on all computers, what improves gameplay. I personally think we're all starting to forget about this. We care more about visuals than gameplay, me included...

...

Phew... what a long paragraph. -_-'

[Phorce]

Yeah I remember noticing that when I first ran UT. The high framerates induce a fierce sense of immersion that is lacking in some games. Half Life being an exception. Understanding what triggers intense immersion is key in good game design. Plus everything is just "right" in UT, like the voice acting.

[synaesthetic]

proof that 'bigger, louder, shinier, and dumber' is not always the best way to go in gaming next to ut99, my next fav's morrowind when I got nothin goin on. it's been a while since something revolutionary came along,it's all just shinier....and dumber

[Creavion]

Not exactly: Unreal 1 > Unreal Engine 1
UT99 > Unreal Engine 1.5

[Firetaffer]

UT99 ROCKS!

[Creavion]

Not exactly, UT99 did not deliver the u1 maps and the music files.
Not seriously they are some differences between the engine versions, mostly in the from ground up new coded unrealed 2.0 against the 1.0er and what I heared also differences with better inprovements of Fire textures and such stuff. Thats what I know.