Having been a fan of the Unreal & Unreal Tournament franchises since the original Unreal appeared around 1997, I had very high expectations of UT3. The demo was excellent, whetting my appetite further. I finally got hold of the game on friday and have been playing on & off since then but why i think now.Ok, time to bring this Unreal Tournament 3 review to a close and if, like me, you're a fan of the series, get ready for a couple of painful home truths.As you've probably gathered by now, I'm very much less than impressed with Unreal Tournament 3. I think it'd be fair to say that I'm actually pretty ticked off with Unreal Tournament 3.the demo offer so much as did the hype that went with this game over the last two years.Epic, having developed the completely brilliant Unreal Engine 3 and used it to create the rather good Gears of War on both xbox 360 and the pc (with the pc version being a lot better) have gone and released what amounts to little more than a lazy re-hash of the all the previous Unreal Tournament games.For me, one of the seriously glaring flaws is the online/offline aspect whereby, if you don't log in to GameSpy you can't create a profile... and if you can't create a profile or log in to an existing one, you can't save your progress through the single player campaign. Yep, that's right, unless you sign up to GameSpy every time you exit Unreal Tournament 3, you'll have to start all over again next time you load it up unless you log in to GameSpy and i think this is wrong to be forced to this every single time you want to play a single player game (not all of us play online games these days) not that it even tells you that you need an internet connection to play this game there's no mention of it in the manual either not that I'm suggesting in any way that this is a deliberate omission.I'm not saying that Unreal Tournament 3 is in anyway a bad game as for anyone who hasn't played it, there's plenty in here to recommend it I'm not saying that Unreal Tournament 3 is in anyway a bad game as for anyone who hasn't played it, there's plenty in here to recommend it. But seeing as the average age of a gamer is now knocking on for 22 and the age range of 'gamers' is regarded as being 18-35, that'd mean the vast majority of us have played at least one Unreal Tournament game, if not all of them... and other than spiffy graphics, new maps and a few tweaks, Unreal Tournament 3 offers us sod all new.
I wouldn't have minded nearly as much, in fact it wouldn't have been a problem if there was some form of proper single player game in here. Quake is on its fourth incarnation and it managed a solid single player game that yes, felt tired, but at least made the effort. And what about the game's namesake, Unreal? Why the hell didn't Epic go for that instead? Unreal Engine 3 has been licensed out to everyone and their dog, Epic must be minted... so maybe they should spend some of those licensing bucks and hire some bloody creatives to make an original game with the engine they just embarrassed with Unreal Tournament 3?
In short, if you're a nomadic Tuareg tribesman who's just moved into the city and has never played Unreal Tournament, then this is worth getting. Everyone else, just load up UT2k4 or wait for Unreal Tournament 3 to hit the bargain bin.
THE GOOD BIT.Looks great
THE BAD BITS.It's yet again more of the same... again
THAT annoying GameSpy is forced on you for multiplayer
Unreal Tournament 3: Seen the engine before, seen the weapons before, and sure as hell seen the gameplay before