Classic Tournament Gaming with a Face-lift
Nothing brings back good memories such as sniping on a CTF map, hidden in a tower, and after hearing head shot several times, hearing the announcer scream "HOLY S*%$!". Unreal Tournament is a well known franchise so there's little introduction to what you need to know about this game. If you've unfamiliar though, all you really need to know is shoot the other colored team. Shoot them good!
UT3 feels really familiar since it is essentially the same exact game as all of the other Unreal Tournaments, just with fancy graphics. So why upgrade to the new UT3? Aside from the graphics, the gameplay is enhanced with new modes and new takes with deathmatch and team deathmatch. One of the more interesting things they've added is the titan-style vehicles in certain maps. Basically, you are pitted in a normal deathmatch with players (or bots) and dual until a giant vehicle is available to mount. At this point, you literally just rake up kills until the machine is destroyed. It's a load of fun.
There is a single player campaign, but it's really nothing more than a tutorial to show new players how to play all the game modes. It is co-op, which can be a bit more fun than just playing against the bots. Playing through the campaign allows you to unlock new characters, so it's at least good to go through once. However, you may feel annoyed during some of the capture and hold missions, as your team usually will not hold a territory for an extended period of time.
Anyone who's played several of the Unreal Engine 3 based games already know how wonderful this engine looks. Everything from particles to lighting look great on this engine. Something you'll really like is even though this engine looks amazing, you can usually crank up the graphics and experience no lag whatsoever. This has always been a great feature of the UT series. So slower PCs should still be able to load this sucker up and crank out frags at a steady frame rate.
This game sounds just as amazing as it looks. If you are fortunate enough to have an X-Fi sound card, you'll be thrilled to hear an amazing piece of software to test the quality of your card. This game was built with the X-Fi in mind. All of the guns will thump with bass and bullets will literally sound like they're whizzing past your head.
One of the only disappointing choices they made was the lack of "Assault" game modes. These modes were similar to those of Team Fortress 2, where one team has an objective and the other team tries to prevent it from happening. However, the reason this mode was not included is because according to Epic, it was the least played mode in the series. Hopefully a future patch or mod will fix this issue.
If you're a fan of Quake or Unreal Tournament, you'll feel right at home with Unreal Tournament 3. The maps are better, there's modes bleeding from the sides, and there's a good heavy arsenal at your dispense. The mod community hasn't jumped this one like the others, but there's still a good selection out there, including maps and characters. Let's just hope this is expanded soon.
Verdict: Buy
