Unreal Tournament 3 Review, Continued
The new vehicles are quite fun, as well as the new items and placeables. You’ll find things such as the gelatin-like "Stasis Fields" which are great for blocking choke-points, and even spider and EMP mines that wreak havoc on the battlefield, which are entirely new to the series. Watching a bunch of spider mines scurry off towards someone is hilarious, and seeing people struggle to get through a blob of stasis field really makes fragging them just as they’re coming out of it all that more enjoyable. The Necris vehicles are also all entirely new, and a bit interesting to play with. Gone are the true air vehicles though, and most maps have a very unforgiving flight ceiling as can be seen when in spectator mode, which is another example of a step back in the franchise. Hopefully Epic realizes that simply giving the game a new coat of paint, and tossing in a few new vehicles and items, does not equal taking a popular series to the next level.
Graphically, Unreal Tournament 3 does look good and it performs very well, at least on the latest and greatest hardware; the frames per second achieved on high end hardware is quite high, even at ultra high resolution and detail levels. You’d be hard pressed to really complain about much visually, though I should note that Unreal Tournament 3 is not as next-gen looking as say, Crysis, or even Call of Duty 4. For a twitch game like Unreal Tournament though, you’d be hard pressed to find more than a small percentage of Unreal Tournament fans who would trade a Crysis level of detail and poor performance in the place of moderate to good graphics and high frames per second. But not all looks good in the world of Unreal Tournament 3, as the user interface, especially in the menu tree, is extremely console-ized, and bland looking (Epic has announced that a patch with UI changes is in beta testing, as of this review).
UT3 has new vehicles and items to go along with some of the more popular weapons from the Unreal series.
The game’s sound effects and music are good, and you’ll see almost all of your sounds reproduced just as you remember them in previous versions. For new vehicles like the War of the Worlds looking tripod called the Darkwalker, the sound effects are quite fitting and really nothing seems out of place. I also did enjoy the music in the game, which I actually left on throughout all sessions of play, unlike the previous releases. The music and sound effects are also well balanced, as you can usually distinguish what’s going on around you even if there are rockets, bullets, and lasers flying all about. Audio is definitely an area that lives up to the Unreal series standard.
The speed of Unreal Tournament games is retained, and your brain will constantly be struggling to relay twitch reactions to your hands as you duel it out with others online (or play through the single player campaign). I was happy to see that this didn’t change, even though the Unreal Tournament franchise was moved into console territory; Unreal Tournament was built on fast action, but it easily could have gone the way of Quake 4.
As mentioned, the UI is a pain to navigate on the PC, but even more frustrating is the server browser. You’ll find yourself struggling to sort servers the way that you want; you’ll find options like not showing empty servers simply don’t work; and you’ll find it is impossible to add favourites. Each time that you load up and want to find a preferred server, you’ll have to go off on an Easter egg hunt to find it. One can hope that this upcoming beta patch really polishes things up - it’s a bit of a joke, especially for such a long running PC series. The UI and server browser issues only make Unreal Tournament 3 seem rushed and unpolished.
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LOL i like how the author is slagging it of saying how he thought it fell short compaired to the previous ones etc and then gives it 8 out of 10. Did he give the previous games 10 out of 10 then? and if its "one step foward two steps back", Why is it 8 out of 10 and not 5 or 6?. Hypocritical......
Hi all fragers out there!!
Rubbish review... Its like the worst, extended I have read so far about UT3. I read many informed posts on various gaming forums about the UT3 demo. Especially the weakness of the graphics engine. With screen shots to back up their arguments (dumb stuff like shadows casting shadows I think). Like Mr Gansta said this game sounds like a 5/10. Is the author being sponsored by Epic or perhaps he just has his hand up his ass!!
Have you ever played UT2004 Mr Lord? Spider mines are available in it and have been since the original demo - THEY ARE NOT NEW!!
I really enjoyed UT2004 and got the demo first which I enjoyed playing first. The UT3 demo wouldn't even install on either of my rigs. I have an ol' P4+7800GS 512Mb rig running Windows XP Pro 32bit and a dual Opteron+X1950 Pro 512Mb running Windows XP Pro 64bit (so decent and not really that exotic). Had no problem with other demos recently like Crysis (way cool graphics there)!!
Looks like Epic have really gone down hill pandering to the knob twiddling console crowd...
Ah well just have to stick with BF2 and BF2142 for some decent on-line gaming experience!!
Bob Wya
two things.
first a correction for your review. There is no 360 release yet or even announced. The Pc version was release first buy it's self the Ps3 version delayed and 360 ver isn't slated until sometime next year as far as we know. So really there was no simultaneous release.
#2 @ bob wya
The demo/Beta was downgraded graphically. Mark Reign said it was so more people would download it. I would hold judgement on the visuals till you see the real game. other than that no complaints. I feel ya on the missing game types but hey thats what mods are for. I couldn't install the demo on my pc either I run Win XP pro x64 with EVGA gforce 7800gt. Still buying the game.
This is the first review I have read that has accurately nailed down all the flaws of UT3. While the game is very enjoyable, I believe that Epic has made major errors in 'consolizing' it, which as stated in the review, is a result of splitting this iteration over multiple formats. I am holding out hope for patches to fix the varaious issues such as the server browser, nearly-silent and overpowered mantas, and the nerfing of various weapons (the flak secondary has to be the most blatant example of this as it is definitely configured to save PS3 joypadders the hassle of aiming upwards with their analogue stick). The annoying announcer and simplification of the gametypes is also quite blatant.
Time will tell if these issues are fixed. In a way, Epic has gone for the big bucks (look at unit cost and lack of piracy as well as market size for the consoles) and probably made an internal decision to rely on the PC modding community to fix their broken gametypes. Personally I do not see this franchise being played with much skill on a console. As a long term UT2004 player, I can appreciate the time it takes to become a very good player in ONS or DM gametypes. UT3 seems dumbed down slightly in this respect. But that is just my opinion. Of course, if enough people get sick of it, they will simply return to UT2004.
A bit harsh but overall a fair judgement on the game. Less of the same but prettier. There were spider mines in 2004.
I must say that I mistrust ANYONE who says the are fans of both UT99 AND UT200X. In my opion thats two totally different games. I'm a long time UT99-player (especially sniper) and I was fooled by the hype and bought both UT2003 and UT2004. I found both totally..disgusting, because of the moon-gravity, the strange physics, the kids crayon-colours of the maps.
Finally with UT3 they have restored some of the magical gameplay of the original.
ty