Epic have been making multi-player focused first person shooters for almost 10 years. The unreal tournament franchise is an iconic first person shooter series among pc gamers, making its debut with Unreal Tournament in 1999. Since then, the Unreal Franchise has churned out numerous sequels, their was game engine so good, it has been borrowed and used by many other game companies , such as the ones who made Mass effect, BioShock or Army of Two. They have built a huge fan base due to their pioneering of "twitch" gameplay, basically very very inhumanly fast gaming with a steep learning curve, where only those who spend 20 hours a day on the game can truly master. The prequel to Unreal Tournament 3, Unreal Tournament 2004, was one of the best games I have ever played: it perfected their twitch game play, offered all sorts of new game modes and offering something to every pc gamer, from the true hardcore online gamers who play for huge cash prizes to those who enjoy fun, relaxed, easy games against some bots on the very very very very easy difficulty. So, judging from Epics past experience in this genre and by the sheer quality of Unreal Tournament 2004, you would probably be expecting something not too far away from being the greatest first person shooter ever created. Well if you were, then you better set your sights at something more along the lines of "decidedly average online shooter"
The Unreal Tournament games have never focused on single player aspects of the game, which is a shame really, but, just as previous games in the series, there is a single player campaign in Unreal Tournament 3. This time around Unreal tournament isn't a sport where you choose your team of warriors and fight your way through a tournament, its a War. You play as a character on the hunt for revenge against an evil half naked alien woman who led an assault your world and killed everyone. You act as mercenaries and fight for a corporation and you fight to gain territory from other corporations in and so on. It doesn't really work though. I never felt like I was in fighting a war since whenever I died I respawned, then went about killing again. They should have just stuck to their more enjoyable tournament style campaign. And the fact the levels are just the arenas from the online modes makes the idea that you're at war even less believable . The campaign is no more than a Training mode for newer players, giving them a good feel for the game before they man up and go online for the first time. Bot skill can be varied, the lowest setting turning bots into gormless idiots, and the highest turning bots into half decent players who have auto aim. Its not impossible to complete the campaign on the highest setting, but it is a fun challenge trying to play against opponents who never miss. The campaign is also playable online with up to 3 other real people, which does make it easier and more enjoyable, as you don't have to do everything pretty much by yourself. There is also instant action, which is just a match against bots where you choose the game mode, map etc.
The real fun, however, is to be found in the online features of Unreal Tournament 3. The game consists of 6 game modes. Deathmatch is the standard free-for- all affair. Team Deathmatch as you'd expect, breaks you up into two teams. Duel is a one on one match where two players go at it while other players spectate. Capture the flag is self explanatory, but the hand held teleporter, the Translocator, adds an interesting dimension to the games. Vehicle Capture the flag is played on larger maps and with, yes you guessed it, vehicles. The Translocator is ditched and instead players are given hover boards to get around the map quickly, as well as the usual assortment of sci-fi tanks, Jeeps, planes, walkers, buggy's etc. The final mode, Warfare, is like the Onslaught mode of previous Unreal Tournament games. It is played on huge maps and offers players access the largest and most devastating vehicles in the game.
Warfare mode is a node based game, where each team has to destroy their opponents Power Core, which is located in their opponents base. The power core is linked to other nodes at various spots in the map. Each team must fight through the map and make a chain of nodes that link their core with their opponents. Once they have achieved this, their enemies core can be destroyed. Games involve constant pushing back and forth across the map back and fighting is usually concentrated in certain spots. This is by far the most strategic mode and good teamwork does pays off. However, for the first few games it took me a while to work out where to go, due to the mini map being rather small and hard to interpret. But once I got the hang of it, it was actually pretty intense stuff.
The maps themselves are well laid out and can be learned fairly quickly. They range from desert warfare to fighting on top of an orbiting space ship and each one offers its own unique experience. There is one map, however, which I despise called "gateway", which is basically lots of maps interlinked by portals and you can travel between each one. Sounds fun, but in reality you spend most of the time just looking for someone to kill, going from world to world endlessly searching for that elusive enemy. That said, the rest of the maps are very well made and its very hard to choose just one favourite. Also, Once the mod tools are released, players will be able to design their own maps, which will bring a lot of new community centred content to extend the lifespan of this somewhat short game.
One thing that can't be denied is how good Unreal Tournament 3 looks. Even on a normal TV, everything is gorgeous to look at, and on a HD TV, most will simply be blown away. The graphics are just jaw dropping in full HD. The games design is very "Gears of War-esque," which isn't surprising considering it was made by the team who brought you Gears of War. Its a welcome change and gives the game a really nice atmosphere. Normally, these graphics would get a 10/10 easily, however, when you start a match, you will notice the supposed orgasmic graphics are flat and have awful textures. For some reason, the graphics take extra time to load, leaving the first 5 or 10 seconds of a match looking more like a Goldeneye for the N64. Once the graphics do eventually load, they are fantastic, but even still, you wonder why a new next generation game would suffer from such a problem?
Sadly, the graphics slow loading time isn't only the major let down in the game. There are fewer guns than in Unreal tournament 2004, less game modes and the gameplay is very much the exact same as its predecessor. There is no real new innovative gameplay, and if anything, the ps3 version has slower gameplay than UT2004. The vehicles feel as if they're made from papermache and I feel far more powerful on foot with my AVRIL anti-vehicle homing rocket launcher than in any tank or fighter. The game also gets quite repetitive after you finish the campaign and after you play a few online matches, you realise there is no real depth to this game, and it is the exact same as the campaign, except you're playing against real people who have mastered the twitch gameplay and absolutely massacre you. The game gives you no real reason to keep playing and gets stale very quickly. Its pretty much Unreal tournament 2004, just with fewer guns and game modes and better graphics. It seems the games developers thought that the sublime graphics were a good substitute for good gameplay and having fun, but sadly, that's only true for a short time.
The thing that annoys me about this game is that, technically its not a bad game, but when you consider how hyped it was, how good the past Unreal Tournament games were, you cant help but feel as let down as a single man who travels to the Virgin Islands expecting to be surrounded by beautiful desperate women, only to realise its full of fat old holiday makers and couples. You're expecting some kind of first person shooter nirvana, but when you start playing you realise that its just an average shooter with brilliant graphics, and you can't help but be annoyed.
So, If you really have to play this game rent it. But if you really must experience the "twitch" gameplay of Unreal Tournament, I recommend you get a copy of Unreal Tournament 2004 for your PC or just wait till Unreal Tournament 3 drops in price.
Rent it.
The Unreal Tournament games have never focused on single player aspects of the game, which is a shame really, but, just as previous games in the series, there is a single player campaign in Unreal Tournament 3. This time around Unreal tournament isn't a sport where you choose your team of warriors and fight your way through a tournament, its a War. You play as a character on the hunt for revenge against an evil half naked alien woman who led an assault your world and killed everyone. You act as mercenaries and fight for a corporation and you fight to gain territory from other corporations in and so on. It doesn't really work though. I never felt like I was in fighting a war since whenever I died I respawned, then went about killing again. They should have just stuck to their more enjoyable tournament style campaign. And the fact the levels are just the arenas from the online modes makes the idea that you're at war even less believable . The campaign is no more than a Training mode for newer players, giving them a good feel for the game before they man up and go online for the first time. Bot skill can be varied, the lowest setting turning bots into gormless idiots, and the highest turning bots into half decent players who have auto aim. Its not impossible to complete the campaign on the highest setting, but it is a fun challenge trying to play against opponents who never miss. The campaign is also playable online with up to 3 other real people, which does make it easier and more enjoyable, as you don't have to do everything pretty much by yourself. There is also instant action, which is just a match against bots where you choose the game mode, map etc.
The real fun, however, is to be found in the online features of Unreal Tournament 3. The game consists of 6 game modes. Deathmatch is the standard free-for- all affair. Team Deathmatch as you'd expect, breaks you up into two teams. Duel is a one on one match where two players go at it while other players spectate. Capture the flag is self explanatory, but the hand held teleporter, the Translocator, adds an interesting dimension to the games. Vehicle Capture the flag is played on larger maps and with, yes you guessed it, vehicles. The Translocator is ditched and instead players are given hover boards to get around the map quickly, as well as the usual assortment of sci-fi tanks, Jeeps, planes, walkers, buggy's etc. The final mode, Warfare, is like the Onslaught mode of previous Unreal Tournament games. It is played on huge maps and offers players access the largest and most devastating vehicles in the game.
Warfare mode is a node based game, where each team has to destroy their opponents Power Core, which is located in their opponents base. The power core is linked to other nodes at various spots in the map. Each team must fight through the map and make a chain of nodes that link their core with their opponents. Once they have achieved this, their enemies core can be destroyed. Games involve constant pushing back and forth across the map back and fighting is usually concentrated in certain spots. This is by far the most strategic mode and good teamwork does pays off. However, for the first few games it took me a while to work out where to go, due to the mini map being rather small and hard to interpret. But once I got the hang of it, it was actually pretty intense stuff.
The maps themselves are well laid out and can be learned fairly quickly. They range from desert warfare to fighting on top of an orbiting space ship and each one offers its own unique experience. There is one map, however, which I despise called "gateway", which is basically lots of maps interlinked by portals and you can travel between each one. Sounds fun, but in reality you spend most of the time just looking for someone to kill, going from world to world endlessly searching for that elusive enemy. That said, the rest of the maps are very well made and its very hard to choose just one favourite. Also, Once the mod tools are released, players will be able to design their own maps, which will bring a lot of new community centred content to extend the lifespan of this somewhat short game.
One thing that can't be denied is how good Unreal Tournament 3 looks. Even on a normal TV, everything is gorgeous to look at, and on a HD TV, most will simply be blown away. The graphics are just jaw dropping in full HD. The games design is very "Gears of War-esque," which isn't surprising considering it was made by the team who brought you Gears of War. Its a welcome change and gives the game a really nice atmosphere. Normally, these graphics would get a 10/10 easily, however, when you start a match, you will notice the supposed orgasmic graphics are flat and have awful textures. For some reason, the graphics take extra time to load, leaving the first 5 or 10 seconds of a match looking more like a Goldeneye for the N64. Once the graphics do eventually load, they are fantastic, but even still, you wonder why a new next generation game would suffer from such a problem?
Sadly, the graphics slow loading time isn't only the major let down in the game. There are fewer guns than in Unreal tournament 2004, less game modes and the gameplay is very much the exact same as its predecessor. There is no real new innovative gameplay, and if anything, the ps3 version has slower gameplay than UT2004. The vehicles feel as if they're made from papermache and I feel far more powerful on foot with my AVRIL anti-vehicle homing rocket launcher than in any tank or fighter. The game also gets quite repetitive after you finish the campaign and after you play a few online matches, you realise there is no real depth to this game, and it is the exact same as the campaign, except you're playing against real people who have mastered the twitch gameplay and absolutely massacre you. The game gives you no real reason to keep playing and gets stale very quickly. Its pretty much Unreal tournament 2004, just with fewer guns and game modes and better graphics. It seems the games developers thought that the sublime graphics were a good substitute for good gameplay and having fun, but sadly, that's only true for a short time.
The thing that annoys me about this game is that, technically its not a bad game, but when you consider how hyped it was, how good the past Unreal Tournament games were, you cant help but feel as let down as a single man who travels to the Virgin Islands expecting to be surrounded by beautiful desperate women, only to realise its full of fat old holiday makers and couples. You're expecting some kind of first person shooter nirvana, but when you start playing you realise that its just an average shooter with brilliant graphics, and you can't help but be annoyed.
So, If you really have to play this game rent it. But if you really must experience the "twitch" gameplay of Unreal Tournament, I recommend you get a copy of Unreal Tournament 2004 for your PC or just wait till Unreal Tournament 3 drops in price.
Rent it.
