Released: November 19th, 2007 (PC), December 11th, 2007 (PS3), and July 7th, 2008 (360)
Developer: Epic Games
Publisher: Midway Games
Genre: FPS
Onto the 3rd major installment of the Unreal Tournament series!
My goodness...what a bland, bland cover... This is just the skin of the problems with Unreal Tournament 3. To start with, they tried to put in a story. Unreal Tournament already had a story, but this was just pulled out of nowhere. The story is "ahhhh, evil necris! Must destroy!" (necris are these undead assassins) You play as Reaper, a dude who looks like he needs to go back to Gears of War. Badass characters from previous games look and act nothing like they should. Malcolm (winner of the previous Tournament) tries to act ghetto, Lauren's voice hurts my ears (it's squeaky and whiny), the necris do not look cool at all, it's just ruined. Really, they are all muscular and robotic. Kragoth is just unrecognizable. He is no longer white skinned and pupiless. He looks like an ordinary beefy human. They try to make it super serious, but fail because the voice acting is terrible. You know...trying to sound serious when the situation really isn't serious...like being forced to made a huge deal over you spilling a drink. It's hard to do because it isn't a big deal.Those new to the series, won't know what the hell I'm talking about. For you, Unreal Tournament 3 is just another genetic shooter. There is nothing special about it. You'll see a bunch of a beefy men, some barely armored women, generic music, and voice acting that makes you wanna puke, too squeaky for females, and attempts to be too serious and/or manly. (even the lame taunts got laughable. "F Yeah!" "Wooohooo!" "That'll hurt in a minute!" What?) For those who care, the Krall are back in...but they are lame and look like dinosaurs. They also don't know how to speak proper english ("Me see flag!") The Krall are annoying and hulky, and do not resemble their Unreal counterparts at all.
I guess you are truly wondering about the gameplay. I mean, for a FPS, it comes down to the gameplay, right? Well, they slowed things down from Unreal Tournament 2004. Depending on who you are, that's a good or a bad things. (it's not slow, slow. It's still fast, just not as) Either way, that's fine. You get the exact same weapons from the previous games. Only, it was decided to make them all ugly (with the exception of the Bio-Rifle (fires horrible gobs of green) and the Shock Rifle (fires energy beams), which both look cool) Even boring is better than making them downright ugly. The enforcer (basic pistol) is so dinky and ugly, you wonder how it can kill anything. I'm not bashing the fact that the weapons were really recycled, the weapons work just....why so ugly!? (Also, they removed the AVRIL and the Grenade Launcher and the Ion Cannon from the previous game)The weapons are also sorta gimped. The Link Gun (fires energy) is WAY over-powered, the Bio Rifle is slower, fires farther, the Flak Cannon fires slower. It's like everything slowed down...except the Link Gun which got faster. Firing the Redeemer (the BFG basically) makes everybody's screen turn white, even if you weren't around the blast, a mild annoyance.
The controls on the PC are fine, it's a PC, the controls are always fine. The 360 and PS3 version's are awkward though. It'll take a while to get used to, but you can customize it. (for example, on the PS3, one of the default is L3 jumps, while L1 alt fires and R1 fires. How are you suppose to dodge and shoot?) But like I said, you can customize them, that's very nice.
They took out a lot of options however. In any version, there are almost no graphical, hud color, crosshair options. What? They've had those in since Unreal Tournament 99. Apparently, using a system that works ISN'T a-ok. Instead, we all get to be clones. And speaking of not a lot of options....They are maybe 3 game modes, then variations of those modes. Deathmatch, Capture the Flag, and Warfare. (basically Onslaught from UT2k4) Warfare is a mode where there are nodes spread about a map. Once your team has all the nodes controlled, you get to attack the enemy core and destroy them. (and of course, the opposite if the enemy team manages to control the modes) then there's like...Team Deathmatch, Duel (1 on 1 death match), and Vehicle CTF (CTF with vehicles) But why? In Warfare and CTF, you can ride a hoverboard with the press of a button. The maps were reduced in size...so what's the point of having vehicles in CTF?
The maps are just boring. They decided to NOT bring back maps we love (besides 3 or 4 of them...) We could've had a mighty collection of maps from the previous 2 games, plus the new ones. Instead, we get a bunch of crappy, small new ones. They basically loop over and over and are very tiny. None of them are castles, or in caves, or anything. Everything looks and feels robotic. Some levels have clones that are the exact same thing, but some objects are moved or the coloring is different. For exmaple, there is Torlan, Torlan Classic, Torlan Necris, Torlan Small...aghh, why not just 1 Torlan map?! It doesn't help that the music is so boring and quiet. The PS3's music is just bugged. The main menu music loops too early, cutting off a whole section, and sometimes the music will not repeat when it's done (Deck is a specific level when this happens. The music will only start back up when the game ends)The online is dead because this game bombed. No joke, hardly anybody plays the online. Pretty sad, considering Unreal's online is still active. There isn't much more to say about this. They turned Unreal Tournament into a generic FPS and this is has shining qualities. Nothing made me go "wow" or "woohoo!" I only stared in horror and disbelief as I journeyed into the single player and found a bunch of muscular guys trying to act like the douches on Manswers. I stared in horror as I went to instant action to find no modes, uninteresting maps, and lame weapon designs. I stared in horror as I went into the online and found only dust and somebody's skeleton.
"Hang on! What about mods? Mods always improve games!" The PC and PS3 both have mod support. (sorry 360) However, mods will NOT make a bad game good. It's impossible. I had to mod my version just to make it playable. (I bought the game at a sale of a closing store, for 5$) I had to mod it more modes and better skins and more/better maps. Normally, people do this to make a fun game even better. I had to do it just to prevent the game from setting me on fire from boredom. I don't like killing people in a tiny level with little to no music with only annoying taunts as my company. (you can't turn them off) Don't waste money on this just for mods, go back to the previous games for that.Also, The Titan Pack was released a while ago. It's a free update, that basically tries to fix the game. IF YOU BUY THIS GAME, DOWNLOAD THE PACK...unless you have a 360, because it wasn't released for the 360. It adds in more modes, Greed and Betrayal. Greed is basically Head Hunters from UT 99. You kill people, collect their skulls, then return to a certain place to score points. Betrayal is just confusing and weird. It's an instagib mode though (instagib is a mutator in which players all have Shock Rifles that kill you as soon as it hits. Very good for dodging and hitting practice) They still left out Invasion, Last Man Standing, Domination (any version), Mutant (they turned this into a Titan mutator), Bombing Run, and Assault. (Mutators are rules you can put in that change the game.) The Titan mutator, if you kill enough, your number will go to 100, then it zones out into this odd 3rd person view and you have more health and such. The Titan can be upgraded as well and turn even more powerful.
AI was improved a little bit...not much though. PS3 trophies were added, along with Steam Achievements for the PC. The PS3 version also has a poorly slapped on splitscreen. (the 2nd player must use the default controls. The PS2 version of UT 99 could have the 2nd player customize their controls....like I said, they decided to not put in previous improvements)
Now, I'm going to post pictures of 2 things...the evolution of the Flak Cannon (basically a shotgun on steriods) and Kragoth...just to show how things have changed.
(yes, I skipped it's Unreal appearance) This was the Flak Cannon in Unreal Tournament. Bulky yes, but it looks powerful. It's sorta ugly, but it looks scary. If an opponent is running at you with this, you better run the hell away.
This is the Flak Cannon in Unreal Tournament 2004. It's skinnier, more like it's original appearance. Doesn't quite look so threatening, but it's still scary if an opponent has one. It's more detailed than the UT 99 version.
What the hell is that? When I first saw this, I didn't recognize what weapon it was. All 3 other versions fire the same way, have a similar reloading system, and a sorta similar color. (except it's 1st appearance) But this...it's a mutant. It looks unpleasant to hold, they tried waayyyy too hard to make it look powerful.
This is Kragoth in UT 99. You can tell he's badass. The uber white skin, his pupiless evil face, you know he's a necris.
I couldn't find a better picture sorry, this is a pretty bad one, he's in his team colors and his eyes are closed. His hair and suit have tiny purple bits in them. True, it isn't what Kragoth really looks like and some people hated this, but I liked it, it was a unique change. He did have pupils in his profile picture, but they are so light it's extremely hard to tell.
This is Kragoth in UT 3. Wow. I know it's hard to tell from this picture, but he is bald, he's skin isn't so white, and he has full-blown pupils. Wow. He looks just like every other steriod-broaded male in UT 3. (The other UT games had a lot more original characters, not clones) He isn't unique at all. AND THEY COULD'VE DONE IT RIGHT.
This is a mod for UT 3, fixing the stupid necris. The guy on the left is Kragoth. It looks amazing! This is actually a very early beta version of the mod too. You can follow it/maybe download it here http://forums.epicgames.com/showthread.php?t=655468 Modders never cease to amaze me.
I'm not even going to give it a tl;dr paragraph. I'm tired of talking about the game
+ Same Weapons
+ Brought back a few classic maps
+ Titan Pack
- Same Weapons
- Ugly weapons
- Small, deformed maps
- Boring/bugged music
- Dead online
- Not many game modes
- Relies on mods
- Not many customizable options
- Horrible Single Player
- Bad voice acting/lines
For the PS3, Unreal Tournament 3 gets a -3
For the Xbox 360, Unreal Tournament gets a --3. (super negative!)
For the PC, Unreal Tournament gets a 3.
