Atomic Mutant vs. Unreal 2

#1 Wow. Congrats on the rave review, Joshua!

Anyone who hasn't tried out the I Was an Atomic Mutant demo, do so now!

p.s. - I love the 'Toss or Eat' weapon. Muahahahaha!

#2 Hehe, that's awesome. I played Unreal2 and I agree with this reviewer's comments. Guess I need to try out IWAM now :)

Grats on the good review!

#3 Its good to hear such a things from rather popular site. Kinda a gives additional hope to whole indie scene - people "out there" are not looking just for eye candy, PR-chanted "revolutions"and, sorry...boobs.

The more games you play, the more you look for something fresh.

#4 I'd vote for more boobs and less violence ... come on already America...

Of course, IWAM doesn't exactly adhere to this ideology :)

-J

#5 I didn't bother with U2 based on the negative reviews and reaction in newsgroups, and earlier disappointment with UT2003 (a graphics demo disguised as a game). Unfortunately, U2 reached #3 in the NPDTechWorld top ten for the week of 9 Feb, so it will probably still make money, even if it falls out of the top ten in the first week (UT2003 only got to #4 the week it released and fell out of the top ten immediately, and still sold 800,000 units in the first few weeks of its release), and encourage mainstream game developers & publishers to make more of the same fare.

Some of this might be a residual of the success of the original entries in the Unreal franchise (in fact many people prefer Unreal and UT -- five year old games -- over U2 and UT2003), but some of it is a deliberate marketing tactic already common with certain Hollywood movies -- use heavy, over-the-top advertising to front load sales before word-of-mouth sends sales plummeting. I'm down to buying an average of less than one mainstream game a year, and I won't touch a game until I've read a dozen or so reviews and newsgroup postings about the game.

The most game fun I've had recently was with Abuse, an old side scroller, which is free to download since crackdotcom bit the dust. (Note to indies: If someone does a decent 3D version of Abuse, I'll buy it. I'd do it myself if I didn't already have a project.)

The IWAM web site was brilliant and hilarious -- unfortunately, the IWAM demo won't run on my machine :( . It's not a hard crash, but it doesn't display anything and keeps my hard drive spinning constantly until I use Task Manager to kill it. I'll try redownloading and reinstalling.

#6 It really disturbs me that you see more and more things like pre-orders, "bundles" and those sorts of things.

A good example is Star Wars Galaxies. They promised a bunch of things, people pre-ordered the game WAY in advance, now a lot of features are cut and the monthly price has not been announced (AKA, will be high)

When I look at random internet sites I see a LOT of people willing to buy a game based on the name before they hear any reviews or word of mouth. The neww Wing Commander game, for example (Privateer? Or is that the old one? Freelancer?) is "based" on a game many years old, there is no reason to believe the old one will live up to the new one, yet I've seen tons of people getting very excited about it.

One place I differ from most people though is that I DON'T think this occurs because of marketing. What causes it is the FREE MARKETING of websites and magazines.

One thing that always greatly annoys me is when people make lists like "top 10 games we're looking forward to." PCGamer went as far as to make a "top 10 games of 2003" list. That is so unfair...the games aren't out, don't rate them yet! Or look at all the free advertising the Sims Online got, based *solely* on the press releases from EA. Turns out...the game sucks, but the damage is already done.

People believe that where there's smoke, there's fire. If magazines spend an inordinate amount of time covering a game, have preview after preview, put it on "future" top ten lists - well at that point it doesn't really matter what review they give the game. Even if the review is honest it is usually far too late. It's like printing a correction after months of a false story.

I wish game sites would stick to reviews and leave the hype to the marketers.

#7 That was a fun game, Atomic Mutant :)

#8 I'm not trying to hijack this thread or anything, but I haven't figured out why some people just love to tear apart ut2k3. I don't think anyone ever claimed it was going to be some sort of revolutionary game or anything like that. As the title of the game indicates it's still unreal tournament (version 2003). I don't understand what people expected...a completely different type of game? Everyone knows what UT was...simply a fun decent-looking (for the time) multiplayer fps.

UT2003 is the same except it looks amazing, and is a resource hog. I don't know...it seems to me like people were expecting something completely different. It's still a fun multiplayer fps. And it doesn't hurt that the engine looks great.

I haven't played Unreal 2, so I can't judge it, but I don't understand why people are so riled up over ut2k3. maybe someone can clarify this for me.

#9 I agree with you Yacine, you can be angry when the final result is a surprise.

Now what James said is true, pre orders are really embarassing and dangerous.

But anyway, I'd prefer to see some games like that instead of seeing games company fired tons of ppl.
It's probably not too much the case in USA or Japan, but it is in France...

BTW ATOMIC mutant is excellent ;) Too bad the demo level was in the night!

#10 Josh,

Congratulations. Indie games have to stand on their own and the comparisons that this review should be a success factor check list for all indie game developers:

One: Establish an identity by having a clear vision.
Two: Balance variation and repetition.
Three: Be ingenious.
Four: Make me care.
Five: If I don't know what I'm supposed to be doing, there better be a damned good reason.
Six: Allow me to increase the challenge as my skills improve.

If we all could get such strong praise, "It is a smart, clever, funny game, and completely fulfills the Seven Words of Excellent Game Design(tm).

Clarity, fidelity, variation, ingenuity, involvement, direction, challenge."

Congratulations to the entire team at Canopy Games.

#11 After readin that entire review, I must say a Huge A-MEN to what he is saying in general regarding game design!

As for the IWAM demo, I have not played it yet, but this is soon to be remedied as I am d/ling as I write.

Congratulations on the rave review man. Chalk one up for indies everywhere! ;-)

#12 Edit: I still can't get the IWAM demo working. I redownloaded and reinstalled, and got the same effect -- a black box on the upper left portion of my screen, and my drive light goes busy until I used TaskManager to kill the game. I do notice the sys requirements call for 98/ME/XP and I'm using 2K. Anyone get the demo working on a 2K machine?

(When I mention 'developers' in the following, I'm referring to companies doing game development, not individual software developers working for those companies.)

@Yacine: Well, this was actually mostly about U2 (the subject of the article linked by Joshua, the OP). The reasons for the negative reaction to that title are pretty clear if you read the Unreal newsgroups or read online reviews, so I won't repeat them here. Any google search on Unreal 2 reviews should give you ample fodder. (PC Gaming was a notable exception, giving the game good reviews, which angered many readers -- but generally I don't bother with reviews from companies receiving major ad revenue from publishers or developers.)

However, since we are on the subject, both UT2003 and U2 were oversold by the game developers, who promised the public far more than they delivered. The public didn't create these expectations in a vacuum -- they believed what the developers told them about the game. The reason for UT2003 shortcomings appear to be that Epic and DE bumped up against the release date for XBox Live and Unreal Championship, so instead of giving the public the game they described, they shipped what they had with UT2003 and concentrated on UC. There was an incident where the games switched hands between DE and Epic, which pretty well signaled that they had closed further development. There is plenty of unfinished (vehicles) and underutilized (Karma) code inside UT2003, and the retail release had plenty of bugs.

So the relationship with Microsoft forced Epic to an early release. More disturbing is Epic's special relationship with Nvidia, which goes back a few years but is readily evident from the opening logo on the UT2003 title. It's difficult not to view this game as a blatant effort to sell new video hardware. The graphics power evinces no design intelligence, and often tons of polys are thrown on the screen for no apparent reason, or worse the model detail interferes with gameplay. Personally, I don't think a company deserves points just for throwing a lot of technical power at a game, any more than I should like a piece of artwork because the artist used every colour on their palette. It's rare that a game comes along that justifies a system upgrade, but its deeply cynical to make a game just for that purpose.

More technically, this engine was started five years before the first retail release in 1998. It is a ten year old engine. Since then, as new features have been hacked in, it has not received a single major refectoring or design overhaul. The older a software system gets, the more unstable and sensitive to change it becomes. Even a brilliant functional or object model becomes polluted with modifications. One question many asked after the release of the latest entries in the Unreal franchise was "What were the developers up to for the last five years?", because the final product does not look like five years worth of improvements over the original. Trying to get Karma working for more than client side death scene animations is my guess. Trying to get vehicles to work. Wrestling with an arcance network replication system. Tracking down the elusive sorts of bugs that occur in ten year old software systems. Trying to figure out the deeply-nested and nearly indecipherable conditionals in the AI code.

FPS are old. Without a new twist, the genre doesn't intestest me anymore. FPS on a ten year old game engine interest me less. Epic, DE and Legend promised the gaming public much, and delivered little more than a graphics makeover. They deserve to be brought to task, because they didn't simply fall short of their own ambitions, but succumbed to special deals with third parties. It's funny that people now say that UT plays like the sequel to UT2003 -- the older title certainly shows more polish and design intelligence. Then again, Epic wasn't all about deals with hardware vendors back then.

I wouldn't expect most people to be as familiar with the history of the franchise and companies involved as I am (I used to be a UT modder before turning indie -- and Epic's behaviour largely motivated my decision), but its ingenuous to suggest that the public is overdemanding, when their expectations are set by the vendors themselves. Most of the time I'm willing to write off the difference between the hype and the actual product as the residual effect of developer optimism about what they can accomplish and when, but in Epic's case the whole affair appears more cynical and conniving, and not simply the residual effect of optimism. Epic and DE did promise the public something revolutionary, and delivered a protracted advertisement for NVidia cards.

#13 Yeah, what he said!

FPS is a pretty well-baked genre, and UT2k3 is a lot like every other FPS game. It looks nice but it won't run well on a lot of comps and takes steps backwards in many areas.

The weapons are toned down too far (IMO), in the name of "balance" they made the weapons more boring. The voices are annoying ("Hee hee I ownzored you" is something you expect the characters to say) The old UT has more maps, more skins and such...UT2k3 didn't really add much to the genre, which *is* a failing given how overdone the genre is.

I've heard many people say they don't like the UT2k3 maps very much, I haven't played enough to comment on that. But overall UT2k3 and UT2 are basically graphical upgrades. And a lot of people are annoyed over that because the graphics look as much like Quake as they do Unreal.

Half-Life raised the bar of single-player FPS games quite a bit, and U2 doesn't come close to that or include *any* multiplayer at all. Both UT2k3 and U2 project a "been there, done that" feel. It doesn't make them terrible games, but it makes it hard to get excited by them.

#14 James,words "graphical update" describe the latest releases of FPS very well (especially multiplayer oriented ones). I dont mind if basic formula is kept the same, if its good, dont breake it, right?
but there is terrible lack of new elements, such as new play modes, different environment (not new maps- better give new expierence via different environments- underword only for example where not only opponents but also need to refill your lungs play huge role. or zero gravity environments etc.)

if nothing substantially new is added to the game, then maybe just new pack of maps should be released (or sold) instead? Why should thousands of players buy new and new releases which almost completely dublicate previous ones just for eye candy, which will be tweaked down anyway just to keep game running at decent speed...

#15 Ok, I downloaded the demo - awesome game. Very original!

Is the full version available for purchase somewhere?

#16 Rodney,

If you can't find atomic mutant at your local walmart, best buy, target, or you simply don't have any of these locally...

Try EBWorld ... or if you live in the U.S.A. you can get it directly from the publisher.

... or check other online ordering, it should be around

The initial printing wasn't huge, hopefully demand will drive another one :)

-J

#17 Here's a little peek at the retail side of PC gaming from some recent experience... you can read about it here

It seems that the major chains were VERY skeptical of the Atomic Mutant game... and the orders have been tiny to NONEXISTENT... a certain large chain has taken a wait and see attitude on the title...

A good title can easily get derailed if retail buyers (not consumers!) don't go for it... in many ways, the quality of a game has nothing to do with it getting picked up or not... the people making the decisions have no idea, don't play games, and mostly don't care.

The plus side is that there has been a great response to the title ... and some retailers are taking notice and placing large orders :)

From the thread:

"This is a side of the business that most people don't see. You see, the publisher's customer is essentially the retail buyer. If you don't get them to pick up the product, then it doesn't get to the shelves. Something like Unreal 2, has such a marketing budget and all the magazine covers, etc. that the buyers makes sure it's on the shelf on release day. The rest of us, get a wait and see."

and

"Next week, I've been informed, the most nationally syndicated game columnist, Marc Saltzman is featuring Mutant as his "Game of the Week"! Marc's column appears in 99 newspapers nationwide, and this will also be posted on CNN.com and USAToday.com! We're pretty psyched about this, because it gets the word out to non-gamers like we never could."


... the saga continues ...

-J

#18 I just read the comparison of IWAM and U2; congratulations on the excellent "review"! It's great to see a "smaller" title taking on the big-boys and trouncing them!

#19 Hey Joshua...that's awesome. I hope more good news keeps rolling in.

And Brad, thanks for that thorough reply. I think I understand the situation a little better.

#20 For anyone interested, HomeLan posted an interview with Mike Berglund... Mike is co-owner of Canopy Games and a big reason why Atomic Mutant exists...

From the article:

"Value priced PC games usually dissapear off the map as soon as they are released to stores but that's not the case with I Was An Atomic Mutant, a 1950's themed action title from developer Canopy Games and publisher ValuSoft that has generated a lot of solid critical attention. HomeLAN got a chance to chat with Canopy Games's Michael Berglund to find out more about I Was An Atomic Mutant."


Enjoy,
-J