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lpkmckenna · Feb 28, 2011, 11:16 AM

The Porting Team has labelled the newest port of Unreal Tournament 3 as their Port of the Week.

This is a fourth time this game has been ported and posted. There have been many, many problems with previous ports, the biggest being issues with mouse control and advanced lighting.

I've just tried it, and I'm very happy now.

I'm thinking about copying it to a flash drive and hiking down to the Apple Store to see how well it runs on the newest systems.

I'm still hoping for a genuine port. Feral Interactive has published two Unreal Engine 3 games to the Mac App Store (Bioshock and Borderlands), so lets hope they are making lots of money and do many more UE3 ports, including UT3.

Leonard · Feb 28, 2011, 11:22 AM

They finally ported UT3 after I quit waiting for it.

I should really buy it one of these days for the Xbox 360 and see what it's really like. Most of the people that liked UT2004 didn't seem to care for UT3. Of course UT2004 had a big community on the PC/Mac and there was alot of user created content. Or maybe I'll just download the port for the Mac and check it out.

lpkmckenna · Mar 3, 2011, 03:58 PM

So Mark Rein said yesterday that Unreal Engine 3 is in fact coming to the Mac! See here: Unreal Engine 3 running on Mac OS X) | Joystiq

This change is policy is probably the result of successful sales of Infinity Blade in the iOS app store. Just like Angry Birds and other stuff was ported from iOS to Mac, Epic probably wants to enable Unreal Engine iOS games being ported to the Mac.

So we should expect to see Infinity Blade on the Mac, probably Bulletstorm, Unreal Tournament 3, and the Unreal Developer Kit (which is free and pretty cool, because 3rd party mods can be published to it instead of UT3).

And maybe even Gears of War (but not the sequels, which are XBox360 only. MS are such friggin' jerks by times.) And there are many other UE3 games on Windows I'd love to see ported.

Leonard · 04:29 PM

Originally Posted by lpkmckenna

So Mark Rein said yesterday that Unreal Engine 3 is in fact coming to the Mac! See here:

That is the OLDEST news I've ever seen. The Unreal Engine3 came to the Mac years ago! I'll go find you a link!

edit:Damn proxy server at work, I guess I'll have to find a link when I get home from work. I may be wrong though, Ryan Gordon may have started the port of the UT3 engine to the MacOS X and linux OSes, but may have never finished it. But I thought he finished the UT3 engine, it was just some other piece of software that UT3 game used that he couldn't get the license for or there was licensing issues with.

Leonard · Mar 3, 2011, 04:42 PM

Same guy promised it 4 years ago:

Gears of War, Unreal Tournament 3 are Mac-bound | Software | Macworld

Wikipedia sort of implies the UT3 engine is available for MacOS X by saying:

The latest release is the Unreal Engine 3, which is designed around Microsoft's DirectX 9 technology for 32/64-bit Windows XP/Windows Vista/Windows 7 and Xbox 360 platforms, DirectX 10 and DirectX 11 for 32/64-bit Windows Vista/Windows 7, and OpenGL for 32/64-bit Linux, Mac OS X, and PlayStation 3.

The Final Dakar · Mar 3, 2011, 04:46 PM

It's a shame 2k had to ruin Duke Nukem Forever jokes (forever!). Now what will I derisively dismiss promises with?

lpkmckenna · Mar 3, 2011, 04:48 PM

Yes, I know Gordon was working on a port, but it was waylaid for some licensing reason that he refused to divulge. This UE3 for Mac really is "new" news, just announced yesterday at GDC 2011.

It would be awesome if the Mac version of UT3 used some of the newer lighting technologies found in the updated UDK. For instance, if you "play" the Unreal Tournament 3 demo embedded in the UDK (the Deck 16 map), the lighting is much more advanced and natural looking.

It would be smart of Epic to released the free UDK to the Mac App Store with a properly playable UT3 demo inside, with a link to the complete version.

I won't be happy to pay more that $20 for a Mac version of UT3, but if it includes the lighting updates found in UDK 2009, I'd pay $50. It really looks much nicer.

Leonard · Mar 3, 2011, 04:55 PM

I'd never pay $50 for UT3 on the Mac. Maybe $20.

Frankly I'd consider pirating it before paying them. UT3 not coming to the Mac in 2008 (Mac gamers had to wait an extra few months) was one of the reason I finally broke down and bought a Xbox 360 for gaming. And I still hold a grudge against Epic/Macsoft for not fulfilling their promise.

lpkmckenna · Mar 3, 2011, 05:06 PM

This is how Deck 16 looks in Unreal Tournament 3:

And here's how it looks in the Unreal Developer Kit from 2009:

That is worth $50 to me.

lpkmckenna · Mar 3, 2011, 05:12 PM

I don't think MacSoft will be publishing these Epic games for Mac. I think Epic will do it themselves. Ultimately, it was probably MacSoft that screwed the port by refusing to pay the necessary licensing costs for whatever it was that needed it.

lpkmckenna · Mar 3, 2011, 05:17 PM

Here's a YouTube video showing Deck 16 on UE3 and UT3.

I'm probably complete wrong to hope for a more advanced UT3. We'll just get the latest version ported from the PC. But a man can dream.

Leonard · Mar 3, 2011, 05:35 PM

I can understand your excitement. That was the same excitement I had in late 2007 and early 2008, until nothing showed up by spring of 2008.

I just hope for Mac users that Epic comes through this time.

The only trouble is, there won't be too many PC players to play against as most of the servers have shut down by now. Mac users will end up playing Mac users only.