After documenting my Unreal Tournament 3 setup, it's now time to get into the meat of every Unreal game: the many maps. It's a big part of the reason why you can just keep playing Unreal Tournament, because with every map you can get a very different experience. All in all, I have over 150 custom maps installed. Together with the 60 official maps that's enough to entertain you forever... or at least for a while.
Most of these come from map packs, where I will list all the ones that I have. But I've already talked about the Community Bonus Packs (because they are more than just map packs) and the Domination mod, so I won't repeat that here and instead focus on what's left, which is exclusively low poly stuff. And I will also show off some standalone maps, but only some highlights.
All the praise goes to UnrealArchive.org, a website that dedicates itself to preserve custom contents for the entire Unreal series. Originally, they didn't have Unreal Tournament 3 in there, because it was a little bit more complicated, but they made it happen eventually. All download links in this post will direct you to the Unreal Archive.
Again, every community-made content goes under ..\Documents\My Games\Unreal Tournament 3\UTGame\ in Windows. Custom maps specifically go into \Published\CookedPC\CustomMaps. You can organize things there via subfolders, without the need of additional configurations, where it's generally a good idea to put map packs into their own folders and so on.
Low Poly Map Packs
HOLP Level Packs
HOLP1
HOLP2
HOLP3 Vol. 1
HOLP3 Vol. 2
HOLP stands for "Hardcore Oldskool Low Poly" and this what you download if you want your maps to look they are from the original Unreal Tournament. Well, that doesn't actually do them justice, it's mainly about building the maps via basic geometric shapes (the "brushes"), like in the old days. And some of these maps still look very pretty, where this style can lead to a very clean look, something that the stock UT3 maps won't offer.
When UT3 was still "new" those maps were absolutely essential, because they enabled you to play the game with the best possible performance. This doesn't really matter today anymore, but they are all so good from a gameplay perspective that you still want to give these map packs a good try.
COMP - Competitive Map Packs
The COMP packs were made in the same vein as the HOLP series: low polygon counts, high amount of gameplay focus. All these maps were designed with competitive play in mind.
Impressively, the second pack was entirely made by the same guy, N00b_Zaibot. Many of his maps look a bit similar as a result, where I often can't tell on first glance what was what, but rest assured that the gameplay is excellent with all of these.
UOF LP Map Pack
If that's still not enough low poly goodness for you, then the UOF LP map pack will have you covered. UOF stands for "Unreal Old Friends" and there are several other map packs from this line as well, where it might be worthwhile to check them all out. One of them even has Domination maps.
From those other packs I really DM-UOF-Aero, which is another good low poly map, and CTF-UOF2-Legacy, which is a fantastic CTF map, combining the ideas of Eternal Caves and Vertebrae with some beautiful outside scenery. But otherwise I'm not a big fan.
Standalone Maps
CBP3 Bonus Maps
Even if you have all five volumes of the Community Bonus Pack 3 installed, you don't necessarily have all CBP3 maps, because there were a couple of standalone releases. Here's what I could still find:
CTF-CBP3-Andhera
DM-CBP3-Daoist
DM-CBP3-Maidenlike
DM-CBP3-Radiant
DM-CBP3-Suraj
Andhera and Suraj are two more maps by nELsOn, who loved to create maps inspired by the original Unreal, which take place on the planet Na Pali. Raed and Saip are two of my absolute favorite CPB3 maps, so it's good to have more where they came from.
Daoist and Maidenlike are lookers, two of the most beautiful maps that you will find for the game. I also love how Maidenlike gives you all four basegame power-ups (UDamage, Berserk, Invisibility and Invulnerability) all at once, that's just crazy. Makes you look and feel like a "Mutant" again from the UT2003/4 game mode of the same name. And it's gimmicks like this that can make a map stand out.
As for Radiant, there is a CTF version of the map in the packs, but you can also play it in other modes via this DM version. Given that you like Spider Mines. It's also a bit more gimmicky, but I've enjoyed it quite a bit back in the day.
HOLP4 (Inofficial Collection)
You can also find a variety of standalone maps in the low poly style from the authors of the HOLP packs, like the sharp-looking DM-Saturation for example:
There were even plans to make a HOLP4 in late 2010 / early 2011, but that never came to be. Still, I was able to collect twelve more of such maps to make my own inofficial version of HOLP4, which I'm going to share here for the first time ever:
Here is also a list of the individual maps found in this pack:
The Keepers
As already said, I won't be going through every single map that I have outside of the Community Bonus Packs and other map packs, even though it's actually not that many. But I wanted to list my absolute favorites, where I think that these maps should be in every UT3 collection:
CTF-Mako
DM-Aelon
DM-Crash
DM-Phera
WAR-Araja][-SE
Now, let me explain what makes each of them so great...
CTF-Mako is similar to CTF-1on1-Joust from UT2004, which means that you will spawn inside the enemies' base and can grab their flag immediately. So, this is essentially a duel map for Capture the Flag, but it also works well enough in 2v2, where this one is a bit larger than Joust used to be and gives you underwater routes.
The map offers a clean low poly style with high poly elements mixed in, where it offers both visual clarity and some eye candy, kind of like how some UT4 maps were designed (thinking mainly of Sector 23). Speaking of, the author Stevelois seems to be still quite active making maps for UT4, according to his blog, which makes me want to check out that game more.
DM-Aelon was made by XYZ 8000, also know as DeathoX 8, who has contributed quite a bit to the HOLP and COMP packs. All his (or her?) maps are recognizable by a signature style, where Aelon is no exception, but it also offers very beautiful visuals on top, instead of the low poly style from those packs.
The architecture is a typical DeathoX 8 map, it even has those single-block-elevators, but it's inside a cave, which looks all so natural and smooth. It's really the best of both worlds.
Next we have DM-Crash, which is a remake of a 1on1 map from UT2003 and UT2004. You can actually find plenty of good remakes of maps from the original Unreal and Unreal Tournament. And I'm talking about proper remakes here with updated visuals, and not just some conversions. But with UT2004 it's a different story... There's Torlan, of course, but otherwise there aren't that many.
And this makes this remake of Crash stand out, especially since it perfectly captures the look and feel of the original, but with the possibilities of UT3/UE3. However, it may suffer a bit from the same problems as some of the base game maps, where it's visually too busy.
DM-Phera is yet another Na Pali map by nELsOn, who I've already mentioned above, and it's probably my favorite from all those. It takes place on a clocktower of a Nali church, which got hit by a flood and is now surrounded by water. The top of the tower spawns a Redeemer and the bell will ring whenever that happens. There are also Nali Healing Fruits all over the map as a replacement for health pickups and overall this is a very tight map for lots of memorable action.
It uses one of the music tracks from the Community Bonus Packs, CBP3-Velocity, but the map also works great without music, because it has such a strong ambient atmosphere, using a variety of sounds from the original Unreal. If you love the atmosphere of that game, you will like this map for sure.
Last but definitely not least, we have another map taking place on the planet Na Pali and the only Warfare map in this list: WAR-Araja][-SE by minifloppy. You can also find ONS-Araja for UT2004 by the same author, where this is a remake of that and an impressive one at that.
The environments look really beautiful and I like the Nali crosses on top of the mountains, that's such a nice touch. And of course I adore the usage of sounds from Unreal, especially those howling wind sounds. This really takes me back. But it's not just nostalgia for Unreal what makes this so great, but also nostalgia for UT2004's Onslaught mode, where this map is a lot more extensive with its seven Power Nodes than what you will usually find in UT3.
The "Classic" link setup doesn't work as intended, however. It tries to remove the additional orb spawners, but the orb will still spawn there and just float in the air... But you can just use the "No Orb" mutator if you want things to be more like Onslaught.
Instead, I've replaced it with two link setups of my own, which I personally found more fun than the default one. There is no node editor in UT3, but you can still create your own link setup by providing a config file for the map in question. If you want to try my setup for this map, open the \Config\WAR-Araja][-SE file and replace its contents with the following:
Another thing worth pointing out about this map is how it makes great use of the Stealthbender vehicle from the Titan Pack, which is a very rare find. Only two official maps have it. In general, I'd wish there were more such large high quality maps, which embrace the variety of vehicles this game has, instead of always going for the same stuff...
Honorable Mentions
Here are some more good maps, which I wanted to share, but where I don't feel as passionate about them, probably because they are lacking in one aspect or another. So, they might be great visually, but not so memorable in gameplay. Or the other way around. Still, they are all worth checking out:
CTF-EpicBoy
CTF-Eternity
CTF-Eurus
CTF-Pistola
DM-Acquisition
DM-Eggshell
DM-Gardenia
DM-Liandri
DM-Malevolence-LP
DM-Purgatoria
DM-Rankin-2010
DM-Restrict
DM-Rustees
DM-Valon
DM-Ventilation
VCTF-HangingGardens
VCTF-HangingGardens-Nightfall
WAR-Bittersands
WAR-Flare
WAR-IslandHopSE
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