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4 out of 5 Jaded Reviews: Unreal Tournament III The first things that I am going to hit off on are: If you have a high-performance PC with specifications better than the minimal system requirements listed for UT3, go for it. While the game's User Interface is more focused towards consoles, the game is meant to be played on a PC. If you're a cheap Xbox 360 fanboy like me then you're in for two different responses for this game.Unreal Tournament is an established PC franchise along the gameplay lines of Doom, Quake, and any other adrenaline filled twitch first-person shooters. The gameplay is fast, intense, lethal, and fun. It's simple design is what makes it so addictive and enjoyable. UT is all about the slaughter. There is no tactical feature, there is no real world weapon, and there is no place to hide. The gameplay in Unreal Tournament is as far from Gears of War as you could possibly get. Epic called it GoW on steroids and this is a fact. The goal is to run around at a ridiculous speed with unrealistic and highly flashy weapons in order to obtain frags, create as much gibs as possible, and to score the flag. There is time to hide behind a crate like a coward but that will only get you slaughtered faster. This game is high intensity fun that focuses on skill more than anything. Unreal Tournament III focuses more on the classic UT99 gameplay of being in everyone's face and brings back many classic arenas and weapons but also many of the features from UT2003 and UT2004 (yes, that means it's the fourth game in the series despite being named for the Unreal 3 engine). As a note here, I'm not reviewing the multiplayer aspect solely because non of my friends ever got UT3 and I never enjoyed playing with random people by myself. But there are still a very small amount of semi-officially and unofficially hosted servers that you can play on. You can also host a dedicated server if you'd like allowing better performance for people who play by using your console as the host and not being in the match yourself. This review is all about the gameplay, campaign, story, and instant action. As such, I'm going to start off with what makes the 360 version different from the PC and PS3 versions. The 360 may have gotten exclusive content (which is now available to the other two systems) but the PC and PS3 already has user created custom content and, dare I say it, Character Customization. Let me repeat that more clearly, UT3 on the Xbox 360 has removed the ability to customize your character. Since it is on the PS3, I am throughly pissed off at this. We get some half-decent maps, two useless characters, and two player splitscreen at the expense of one of the hype generating features of the next-generation? Instead they gave us a UT2003/2004/GoW style character selection screen where you choose one of the pre-created bot avatars as your character. That's just not cool. The 360 also has not received any DLC. Not even for people to pay for. That also is not cool. The graphics are lacking in some areas, such as the massive blur at long distances, and sometimes the game will even crash if you have too many characters in the match. That just is not cool. The PS3 and PC version have both received a lot of updates and expansion content. Especially when it comes to maps but also gametypes. The options available to you is fairly plentiful. You can customize several volume options, announcement types, auto-taunt, fully customize your controls(!), and adjust your HUD and weapon priority, weapon hand, pickup weapon switch, crosshair type, weapon HUD size, sensitivity and turn acceleration, look centering, inversion, and vehicle control method. The video section adjusts brightness, post processing, gore, and subtitles. The credits and character selection is here also. Overall that's a lot of in depth options. There's also a community menu which allows you to download the non-existent DLC, view leaderboards, Achievements, and the Gears of War 2 trailer. It also should be added that you can change option menus with the left and right bumper which is great because you don't have to exit and enter menus all the time. Moving on to the story, it is not Gears of War. The story to everyone is mostly a pitiful attempt to make the unreal tournament real. Featuring a hostile takeover of the main character's world, corporate wars, and revenge; the story has some awesome gameplay moments and some awesome story moments. The moment you combine them, however, is when everyone is going to go back to the original Unreal, or even Unreal II and wonder why Epic didn't just use the tournament ladder from the previous Unreal Tournament games. The original Unreal had an exceptional story and Unreal II had a very exaggerated cast but a believable enough story. UT3 should have focused on the tournament and not unreal world events. That said, it does do a decent job of giving you choice and giving you an introduction to the world that is Unreal Tournament. The story allows four player cooperative play over Xbox Live or system link, which is great, but unless you're playing on Insane it probably will be too easy. The campaign's gameplay is great, as it is really just pre-chosen arena settings. The characters are very well done, with the exception of the Krall that will make you question the voice actor direction. The Necris sound morbidly gothic; while Reaper sounds like Marcus Fenix, Othello sounds like Cole, Bishop sounds like your typical holy crusader, and Jester sounds like the girl you'd date next door. Reaper makes a great main character, as did Marcus Fenix. Othello and Bishop really work as supporting characters for your team because they're just so funny together. Bishop, specifically, gets all the good lines because he talks in a medieval crusader for God against the infidels kind of way, not to mention that he is the sniper. Jester's lines just kind of get in the way and even Othello wishes she would stop making wisecracks. You can choose your next fight but will often be forced down one row of arenas depending on which paths you take. These can give you some benefits or make things worse depending on how you choose. Cards can be played to provide you with some limited advantage, but you're often at a large disadvantage anyway. The game can get challenging, especially once you start fighting the Necris. This also means that it is cheap. Some characters are designed to have a skill advantage, often you are outnumbered, and often you don't get as good of equipment to slaughter with. The final boss is a great way to end the series, as it is in other UT games, but the ending cut scene tries to add full circle loss and revenge. I say it fails simply because it's an Unreal Tournament game where things tend to respawn when killed. That isn't to say that either suffers, only together. The gameplay is as perfect as it was in the original UT and the cut scenes are gorgeous and tell a great story if it wasn't set to arena based combat. Now on to the gem of the game, arena based combat. The bots are intelligent. The single player offers four difficulties of Casual, Normal, Hard, and Insane; much like Gears of War. The multiplayer bots, however, get eight difficulties. Novice, Average, Experienced, Skilled, Adept, Masterful, Inhuman, and Godlike. This adds a great level of play for newer players but any pro wont find a challenge with an entire match of Godlike bots. They play realistically, though, in anything but Vehicles. Their challenging and typically make intelligent choices. They aren't people, though, so can know things in which a person cannot to make up for their programming (freaking aim-bots). The customization is pretty good for multiplayer but you have less Mutators, no custom content, and not as many things to tweak. For instance, I cannot change the Bio Rifle when using the Weapon Replacement mutator. So rocket arena also includes one very out of place Bio Rifle. The weapons are true to the original. The Rocket Launcher has been given its grenade function back and can fire single shot or load up three rockets. It can also lock on after watching an enemy for a moment. The Flak Cannon works great around corners and up close. The ASMD (Don't search for that, the "official" term for it is slightly inappropriate) Shock Rifle is slightly underpowered but has good range and has a just as lethal as ever (and beautiful) Combo attack. The Link Gun seems to link in proximity now rather than by actually shooting your teammates but it still repairs vehicles, fires rapid green plasma balls at enemies and can still give people the shaft. The Bio Rifle still works slightly unorthodoxly by spitting out green blobs that sit on the ground so it will be underused but has better range in UT3. The secondary function will attach blobs to players to drain them and works as a slow instant kill in most situations. The Enforcer is still the starting weapon and features a three round burst that is almost useless. The primary fire is accurate and has really made me realize what makes a starting weapon great. Accurate, powerful. Anything can slaughter it but a newly spawned pro wouldn't turn to anything else as their only means of defense until they find their all mighty Rocket Launcher. The Impact Hammer is also a weapon that you spawn with, it's your close-quarters instant slaughter piston. It has a powerup-removal function but since powerups drop from dead players, it's best just to unload ammo into them. The blood that collects on the Impact Hammer is a great effect. The Sniper Rifle can kill anyone in one shot that doesn't have a lot of health or helmet. It has a great zoom and is bolt action, much like the Gears of War sniper. The AVRiL is an anti-vehicle rocket launcher that can lock on, fires one shot, and is pretty much useless outside of that. There's some equipment to pick us such as the Slow-Field Generator, EMP mines, and Detonation packs. The Slow-Field Generator deserves a spotlight here. Think of a cube that acts as a force field. Much like the Shield Doors in Halo 3. Now anything that is inside that, either when it is deployed inside or just moving through the Slow Field actually slows down. Everything inside goes to a Baywatch style slow motion (as opposed to the bullet time in the Matrix). That's impressive. That's all that can be said. It is impressive. The Redeemer also deserves a spotlight just because it's the frickin' Redeemer. Like the equipment, you have to use it and cannot use any other weapon until you do so. The Redeemer is a tactical mini-nuke that leaves a very bright bloom of death that can make anyone slaughter the entire enemy team with one shot. It can be quickly dumb fired or manually piloted to critical areas. This thing is as beautifully lethal as any weapon has ever been. But the rocket can be shot out of the air. Bots love to do this when players manually pilot it. Another glorious return to UT3 is the Translocator. A personal teleportation device. I say it breaks CTF because the bots use it too damn much but it revolutionized how CTF is played. You cannot teleport with the flag so you can gain a lot of distance fast and even hit unusual places with it to get the flag or protect your flag carrier. It adds a whole new dimension when all you've been playing is straight up "Get flag, run away" games and is very much a staple of the Unreal Tournament franchise. In matches with vehicles, you get the Hoverboard. The 360 limits the tricks to jumps and spins but it's very good for traveling long distances in vehicle based matches. Getting hit by anything will knock you off so it's best to only use it to get closer to where you need to be. The inclusion of vehicles is awesome and some of the maps are pretty big. You have Vehicle CTF which is just like CTF only with vehicles, Hoverboards instead of Translocators, and turrets. It's pretty fun but straightforward. The other vehicle based gametype is Warfare. A combination of Assault and Onslaught from the previous Unreal Tournament games, the point is to defend your main base while slaughtering the enemy's base. You connect from your base to nodes that connect to more nodes that eventually leads to the enemy base. Your base cannot be repaired but the Link Gun can repair nodes. You can attack what your nodes link to. Neutral nodes are available for anyone to claim but enemy nodes must be destroyed first. You cannot attack nodes that are connected behind another node. But some nodes do have intricate connections to create different vital areas to attack or defend. The amount of vehicles in UT3 is staggering. With the full selection of Axon vehicles from UT2004 and a whole slew of Necris counterparts. Some of these are simply amazing, like the Scavenger, in function and look. The way the Dark Walker and Scavenger move on their tentacles is just ominous to see. Sadly, the Xbox 360 version (if not the PS3 version) does not allow you to use the horn on the Hellbender. Which has been the best part of the vehicle throughout the franchise because it's very similar in function to the Warthog in the Halo franchise... Other gametypes are Deathmatch, which is straight up FFA, Team Deathmatch, and Duel. Duel is like a Head to Head gametype where only a limited number of people can be fighting and the rest observing. Like you could have four people in the game but only two will fight each other at a time. Winner gets to fight the next person while the loser takes to the spectator line. Not a bad idea and does lend itself well to 1v1 because it uses the Red and Blue team colors. So the overall summary I would give is that Unreal Tournament III is a worthy continuation of the Unreal Tournament franchise. Some people still like UT99. Some people like UT2003 or UT2004. And many people will enjoy UT3. If you have a PS3 or PC then you should get those versions because they are at least four times better than the stripped Xbox 360 version due to the limitations of the console. This version is unfortunately not worth the price but the gameplay is raw, fun, and competitive. The gametype options are extensive and the community integrated features and support for the other two systems is outstanding. If you have to get this for the Xbox 360, I would pass. But if you can get it for either of the other two systems then certainly go for it. This is classic gameplay. And it stands tall amongst the slower, more tactical minded games that have been released in this generation leaving it a real gem and a must own for anyone that isn't solely an Xbox 360 owner. |