Unreal Tournament III (PC DVD)

Having been a fan of the Unreal & Unreal Tournament franchises since the orriginal Unreal appeared around 1997, I had very high expectations of UT3. The demo was xcellent, whetting my appetite further. I finally got hold of the game yesterday and have been playing on & off since then.

The Good:
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1) The game engine is awsome. Seriously, the graphics sound and physics are so far in advance of anything else that every other game engine I've seen just became obsolete. Yes, it really is THAT spectacular, so long as your system is sufficiently powerful.

2) Some of the maps included in the release version are excellent. Again, full use has been made of the engine capabilities to deliver inspiring and genuinely fun experiences.

3) Character customisation - it's now possible to fine tweak many visual elements of your character such as helmets, shoulder guards, torso designs, even boots. This adds nicely to the feeling that one has a unique character.

4) It has more "story" than any previous Unreal Tournament game. Even has some humourous moments, and some great cutscenes rendered with the impressive game engine. Did I mention that the game engine is unbelievably good?

The Bad:
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1) It's buggy. Several times during the "campaign" mode the game just crashed, requiring a hardware restart. Not amused.

2) What happened to all the options? Why can't I decide if I want to allow translocators in all the game modes? Why can't I choose a name for my character for off-line or LAN play? Why can't I assign the Tab key to anything? (I know why- why can't I re-assign the key that toggles the console?) The number of options and the ease of their manipulation that was present in UT 2004 is sadly absent.

3) Level design & number of maps. Some of the maps, particularly some of the deathmatch maps, are mediocre at best. I can't help thinking that the development team spent years designing the engine, then merely tacked on a few maps & called it a game. Again unlike it's predecessors, don't expect to have a vast choice of maps to play out of the box.

4) Limited game modes. What happened to Assault? Who are the developers trying to kidd by including 1-on-1 play as an individual game mode - especially without any dedicated "duel" maps? The inclusion of Vehicle CTF is nice, but lets not forget that VCTF started life as a 3rd part mod for UT 2004. And am I supposed to think that the "warfare" mode is anything but a very slightly altered version of the old "Onslaught" mode from UT 2004? Even some of the maps are re-modelled Onslaught maps!

5) Limited basic character models. Sure, the ability to fine tune your character is excellent, but with only 4 or 5 basic "species" to choose from, this is once again sadly restrictive compared to UT 2004.

6) The game seems to forget most if not all of my personalised settings every time I start it up. I would imagine that it saves these as part of some sort of on-line profile, however because every time I try to log-in it says that my password is not valid (how is that? I haven't decided what I want my damned password to be yet!!) I don't suppose I'll be finding out any time soon.

7) Truly abysmal user interface. It's not user friendly. It is difficult to work out what's going on and it takes an unecessarily long amount of time to basically DO anything. Again, the user interface in UT 2004 worked, so what on earth was the point of re-inventing the wheel, particularly when the result is inferior to it's predecessors?

Conclusion:
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As I stated above, I can't help feeling that the vast majority of the development time was taken with the game engine, which it must be said is vastly more sophisticated than anthing I've found in any other game. It's as big a step over the UT 2004 engine as the UT 2003 engine was over the orriginal UT. Awsome. However, I think that the actual guts of the game itself could have done with considerably more content and quite a bit of pollish.

Apparently the first/inevitable patch is in the works as I write. I can't say I surprised. Obviously with the game design tools being included UT3 will eventually be as expansive and will have as many if not more maps that UT 2004, but these things should not have been essentially left to the mod community to do.

To sumn up, a superb game engine that has an occasionally sadly lacking implementation. I would seriously hesitate buying this game at least for a few weeks until most of the major issues have been resolved.

1-2 WEEK UPDATE:
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Since my initial review I've managed to get the game to save my on-line profile. This seems to have solved the crashing bug I described above and the game now apears to be completely stable. However, it seems that one has to choose a completely unique character name in order for the game to save your profile. For players coming to the game in maybe months or a years time this will be a major headache - not being able to chose ones favourite character name.

Having played every map the game has to offer, I have to say that my original comments regarding the lack of content, lack of options and lack of types of avatar still stand. The game itself is fun to play and looks unbelievably beutiful (IF your system is up to the task) but I still can't help feeling that the game was rushed to the market for a Christmas release, which has resulted in a severely restricted level of content. If in the near future FREE upgrades are released with loads more maps, characters and options, then I'd be quite happy to award the game 4 or maybe even 5 stars. Until then, the obviously rushed release means it's very definitely only getting 3.

Finally, a shooter that sticks to its roots.

Who needs hardcore, hashed-up, quasi story themed FPS' when you have something as intense and fun-filled and at the same time - glistening with current technology models, lighting and physics.
Yummy.

Ok... so the menu system is terrible... the options a bit limited... but overall, hey, it's a great game.

And for a tenner...?!

Well the graphics are good, a sturdy 8/10 or so. The game is multi-core optimised too, even getting fps from all FOUR of the cores in my system.

The gameplay of UT3 manages to keep the energy and pace that the series is loved for, with some extras thrown in, such as a bunch of new vehicles, new guns and plenty of gore. Aside from small gimmicks, the gameplay is vastly unchanged from the style of the previous games, and therefor unlikely to appeal to people who weren't a fan of the prior games.

The AI is decent, though it does have the odd moment where it seems not to care about incoming fire at all, but it is still a notable improvement.

The sound quality itself is crisp, but it does all start to sound the same after a while. The sound options menu is lacking.

Overall, UT3 is to its predecessors much like what Counter-Strike: Source is to Counter Strike, mostly a visual upgrade, but with a few odd bits and bobs thrown in to enhance the fun. But as with both of said games, not alot has changed in the core gameplay, and the game is more like a remake than a revolution.