Epic's Unreal Engine 3 Ported to iPod Touch and iPhone 3GS

[MacRumors]

Anandtech spent some time with Epic Games' Mark Rein last week and was shown a demo of the Unreal Engine 3 running on a 3rd Generation iPod Touch. The demo included a flythrough as well as a playable level from Unreal Tournament.

It's using a modified Unreal Tournament level previously shown off at GDC. A virtual thumbstick on the left side of the screen controls your movement, while tracking your thumb in the lower right corner of the screen controls the camera. Just tap the screen to shoot. Mark said this is a tech test bed and they’re experimenting with several different control schemes including ones with tilt.

The Unreal Engine 3 is a modern 3D gaming engine which powers games such as Bioshock, Gears of War and Unreal Tournament 3.



Article Link: Epic's Unreal Engine 3 Ported to iPod Touch and iPhone 3GS

 

[TerrorOFdeath]

Looks Sweet.

Bioshock 4 Iphone&Ipod Yay

Tod

 

[cmaier]

Apple or some other player big enough to be able to set a standard SDK needs to come out with a control pad case for this thing.

 

[DipDog3]

That is really impressive!

The game engine requires OpenGL 2.0 so this will restrict the game to 3rd generation iPod Touches and iPhone 3GSs only. Epic is planning on making the engine available to licensees at some point, opening the door eventually to Unreal-powered iPhone games.

I doubt the older iPhones/iPod Touches would have the processing power to run it even if they had OpenGL 2.0

 

[*LTD*]

The future of handheld gaming.

 

[cmaier]

The future of handheld gaming.

I'm waiting for a Duke Nukem Forever port.

 

[mingoglia]

It's amazing how far technology has come. It wasn't too long ago that PC's had trouble being that smooth with that much detail on those games.

 

[Boomhowler]

hope this means Unreal Engine 3 for mac, native. That would be sweet.

 

[Sayer]

So when will this appear on a Palm Pre, or Android OS phone... oh right, nevermind.

 

[alent1234]

I'm waiting for a Duke Nukem Forever port.

it's been like forever since they announced the PC version

 

[skeep5]

I have unreal tournament for OS9, and would love to fire it up again. I don't have a machine that's running OS9, does anyone know of a workaround to get that installed and playable?

 

[leomac08]

alll we need now is halo!

 

[Jayomat]

cool... neertheless.... the controls look like something you must get used too

 

[zombitronic]

Apple or some other player big enough to be able to set a standard SDK needs to come out with a control pad case for this thing.

I really like the drag-to-turn style of controls on these touch based games (see Terminator Salvation). I think it trumps a second, right thumb control "stick" or "pad" (see Duke Nukem). For the platform, I feel that it works extremely well.

That being said, a physical control pad would be cool. The problem would be usability WITHOUT the physical controller. Is anyone willing to put out an iPhone/iPod touch game that requires you to buy a physical attachment?

 

[Dragomer]

I'm waiting for a Duke Nukem Forever port.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duke_Nukem_Forever

Only been in development since 1997 ....


I think he was being just a little sarcastic.

 

[cmaier]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duke_Nukem_Forever

Only been in development since 1997 ....


I think he was being just a little sarcastic.

Yeah, it was a joke.

 

[Jayomat]

That being said, a physical control pad would be cool. The problem would be usability WITHOUT the physical controller. Is anyone willing to put out an iPhone/iPod touch game that requires you to buy a physical attachment?

not me at least

 

[cmaier]

not me at least

It would be easy enough to add virtual joysticks to games (they all have them now anyway), but having an official apple control pad with built-in battery backup would be nice for when you know you're going to be doing some gaming. If Apple sold it, enough developers would get behind it to make the price worth paying.

 

[ChazUK]

And it’s not just about iPhone support. Mark told me that as soon as CES we’ll see Unreal Engine 3 on another mobile platform entirely. More announcements will happen throughout 2010. This isn’t a platform specific thing, it’s about bringing Unreal Engine 3 to the entire portable market.

I wonder where else this engine is headed?

It's awesome what they've done with the iPhone too.

 

[CalCanuck]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duke_Nukem_Forever

Only been in development since 1997 ....


I think he was being just a little sarcastic.

Wired just did a more in depth look at the failure of DNF see article here:
http://www.wired.com/magazine/2009/12/fail_duke_nukem/

 

[ipoppy]

alll we need now is halo!

All we need is WoW

 

[mabaker]

Amazing that once the cash is flowing all the devs turn to the iPhone platform - even those that have been ******** on the Mac platform throughout ALL these years.

 

[cmaier]

Amazing that once the cash is flowing all the devs turn to the iPhone platform - even those that have been ******** on the Mac platform throughout ALL these years.

To be fair, Apple is rumored to have made life difficult for game developers on mac for a very long time. (For example, Carmack has said quite a bit about this).

 

[DougB541]

Amazing that once the cash is flowing all the devs turn to the iPhone platform - even those that have been ******** on the Mac platform throughout ALL these years.

Imagine that...a company wanting to make money....

To be fair, Apple is rumored to have made life difficult for game developers on mac for a very long time. (For example, Carmack has said quite a bit about this).

They are still difficult as per a bunch of iPhone developers....its just that with so many Touchs and iPhones out there, hard to ignore it.

 

[sp00]

For certain games, you need a joystick and a clear view to play. This is why a real joystick and buttons for the iphone and ipod touch is important. I really hope Apple creates a usable addon.