When I think of a way to summarize Unreal Tournament 3, the saying "One step forward, two steps back" comes to mind. I consider myself a fan of the Unreal series of games, especially Unreal Tournament, as I’ve been playing each and every one of them on launch day with each new release. I have very fond memories of the first Unreal Tournament, and the late nights frag fests with friends, or strangers, across LANs and the Internet. I also have fond memories of being impressed with each new release, and the content offered as the series progressed. Even the differences between Unreal Tournament 2003, and Unreal Tournament 2004, were enough to keep me satisfied and refreshed. Unreal Tournament 3 however, falls flat on its face compared to what the previous sequels offered.

I believe that one of the issues that Epic faced was the rising costs of PC game development, and the appeal of an extra revenue stream from porting over to consoles. To Epic, I’m sure it was a no-brainer to forge full steam ahead into console game development, especially after the success of Gears of War. What hurts PC gamers though is that Epic took a fully dedicated PC franchise and divided their resources to release on multiple platforms. Just as Gears of War took extra time to port to the PC, a simultaneous release on the Xbox 360, PC, and nearly the PS3 as well, cost Epic resources. It is my belief that in doing such, the development quality of Unreal Tournament 3 suffered.

Design-wise, Epic chose to provide a single player campaign (if you can even call it that) and numerous multiplayer game modes. Initially, the single player experience starts off great, with an excellent cinematic sequence and an immediate push into combat. As a gamer, the cinematics alone certainly had me pumped and ready to kick ass and chew bubblegum. Unfortunately however, the opening campaign becomes outright irritating and monotonous within a half hours time. It became so bad in fact, that despite forcing myself to keep pushing along in the hopes of seeing something better, I never reached anything exciting, and instead felt as if all of my time spent in the single player campaign was a complete and utter waste.

Unreal Tournament gets a slick visual makeover for the newest instalment.

The main issue with the single player campaign is that you’re simply thrown into encounter after encounter, sometimes for an hour or more at a time, with no real story progression. It’s ends up feeling like you’re either permanently suffering from déjà vu, or you’re stuck in a hellish cycle of poor single player experiences as you play the same old capture the flag, deathmatch, and warfare missions over and over again. The character development and story is poor at best, and the whole experience simply feels tacked on as if Epic was forced to do so at gunpoint by Midway in order to release Unreal Tournament 3 at full price on the consoles. Despite the rewards that are given to you in-game, such as single player campaign player cards and new character customization options, there is really no value to completing the single player campaign at all.

Multiplayer is where Unreal Tournament shines, but also further suffers from some blemishes. Throughout my time spent playing online, I found myself waiting for something, even if minor, to make me feel that Unreal Tournament had progressed in some way from previous iterations. I certainly had a blast in Unreal Tournament 2004, and figured that at the very least Unreal Tournament 3 would be that and then some. Unfortunately, my wishes were never met, and as I previously stated, Unreal Tournament 3 felt like it had made a step forward in certain aspects like graphics, but taken two back in terms of actual gameplay experience. Certainly there are Capture the Flag, Team Capture the Flag, Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, Duel, and Warfare game modes to keep you busy, but as is, Unreal Tournament 3 feels as if it devolved to even pre-2003 standards.

I find myself deeply wishing that Epic had retained all game types, and created new ones, beyond the obvious Assault and Onslaught hybrid which is now known as Warfare. Sure, the power core concept in Warfare is a bit different, and shooting out the little plates of the cores feels satisfying, but did the other game modes really have to be cut? Unfortunately, the fans of the previous games just have to deal with missing game types, some of which were fan favourites for the past few years. The levels also seem to lack creativity, as objective-based play of Unreal Tournament 2004 maps are behind us. All of this seems to be a dance that usually comes to any franchise moved into console territory. Would we have been given more had the Unreal Tournament franchise not moved to the world of consoles? Only Epic and Midway know.