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By colmwarner (22nd Jul 2008)If you’re looking for an indepth storyline, maybe this game isn’t the best choice. However, if you’re looking for nonstop action gameplay, then get the edge of your seat re-padded before loading

It’s been a four year wait for Unreal Tournament III (actually the 4th Unreal Tournament game and the 8th Unreal game, but the first using the Unreal 3 engine) to be ported onto Xbox 360. The series has been the staple diet of PC users for quite some time, and the Unreal engine has been used for many other games. Epic Games also brought us Gears of War, and if you can watch the opening sequence of this without thinking of Gears, then quite simply you must never have played it.

In previous versions, the premise was simple. There’s a tournament, you’re in it, go kill things. This time the attempts at plotline are there, but don’t relate in any way to the gameplay. It’s as if the developers were trying to create a “World of Unreal”, set against the backdrop of a soldier who was nearly killed in a war, and then signs up as a mercenary to get himself back to the front line to exact his revenge. There’s even a campaign map showing your progress against the enemy as you claim more and more territory. FLaG’s may be generators for respawning machines, but when you get into the game they’re still just a piece of cloth on a stick.

If you’ve played and of the earlier UT games, then this one will feel familiar from the outset. The graphics have been improved drastically, but a flak cannon still looks like a flak cannon and fires like a flak cannon. Maps are pretty symmetrical on the whole, and while incredibly detailed, the action is far too fast-paced for you to stop and appreciate the surroundings. There have been some changes to the weapons. The shock rifle now fires plasma balls that can cause damage on their own, but if you switch from primary to secondary fire more, you can explode the ball in mid-air to cause devastating splash damage.

Normally games designed for PC can have issues when restricted to the console controller. When Counter Strike was ported to the Xbox it quickly dropped off my favourites list, but Epic have worked wonders here, and you don’t miss the mouse/keyboard setup at all. Another pitfall that developers frequently succumb to is the imbalance created when vehicles are introduced to gameplay. As far back as Tribes, there have always been problems with vehicles on maps in that if you’re not in one, you’re probably clocking up respawns faster than you’d like, and if you’re first to pilot something airborne, you can clock up a higher body count than your skill deserves. Here however, the vehicles are powerful, but prone to damage, and the player on foot still has a chance against them. In maps where there are no vehicles, the teleporter is in play, but this is replaced by a hoverboard for levels with vehicles. While you can get across maps very quickly on these boards, you can’t fire a weapon while using them, and the slightest graze will send you flying, so a balance is maintained. Teamwork becomes important here as well, as you can attach your hoverboard to a faster vehicle which will provide cover and extra speed.

It’s not all just deathmatch and capture the flag either. Many of the missions require you to achieve multiple objectives before the final assault can begin. This can mean transporting an orb to a central core and claiming it for your team before the enemy core can be destroyed, or capturing and holding bridge controls to get a tank across before the enemy’s stronghold can be overrun. Failing to defend a prerequisite objective can mean you’re blasting away at the enemy core one second, and it suddenly becomes shielded again. It’s infuriating, but it keeps you moving and keeps things exciting.

The AI is far superior to earlier incarnations, but there are times when your teammates will capture a flag and get stuck on terrain on their way back to your base. Order them to defend an objective, however, and you can fairly reliably assume that it will be held.

Graphical detail throughout is exceptional, and frame rate is pretty consistent. Sounds and effects are also excellent, and the AI characters have a wider range of responses and taunts than ever before. The difficulty settings are also impressive. Choose casual and you can get through the levels with little hassle, choose insane or god-like and you’ll quickly see just how many different deaths have been written for you.
If the attempt at storyline annoys you too much, you’ve missed the point. As you’d expect from any UT release, it’s the multiplayer mode that this game is all about. Maps have less cover and therefore fewer camping positions than ever before. And it’s not the type of game where you can have players storming off on random objectives. Cores need to be captured and held, and your forward attackers need to be in position at the right moment, or the window for assault can be violently closed. The central points mean that you can go from being on the cusp of victory to seconds later being on the back foot, trying desperately to get back to defend your own base. The addiction level is right up there with Call of Duty 4, and Epic have learned from Activision’s mistake by making the majority of achievements available only through repeated online multiplay. There’s no shortcut to getting 200 kills per day for 50 days.

Overall this is exciting enough to have lasting appeal, but possibly not sporting anything new enough to make it pass the test of time. However, if you’re looking for a game that will keep you hooked until Epic release Gears of War 2, UT3 will pass the time nicely.