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Unreal Tournament 3 Review Print
Written by Donny   
Tuesday, 04 December 2007

I want to say from the Creators of Gears of War but then Again Unreal Tournament has been long since GoW.

 

Unreal tournament has been a major success among online players as well as single players for those who can’t afford DSL. Trust me I feel your pain. What makes unreal tournament so great it’s the online competitions as well as the modifications that are made. The last unreal tournament game we saw was about 4 years ago with the release of Unreal tournament 2004. Now with beefed up graphics and better weapons as well as Modifications Unreal tournament makes a comeback on PC as well as Consoles.

                Unreal Tournament is a game based on online multiplayer so their main focus in online. However with the single player campaign or as you will see it in the game offline mode focuses on events within the tournament. It uses a similar feature to that of Counter Strike for the Xbox where you go around collecting weapons and shooting people however you’re not always just going around in circles, you actually move forward. The events take place in a Massive level and few objectives are given for the player to complete before moving on to the next level.

                Online Multiplayer is the main feature on UT3. You can challenge people from around the globe and join a team. There are a few teams you can join and depending on the team each will have its own unique armor and style. You can play several different game modes such as: Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, Capture the flag, Duel, Warfare (FKA Conquest) and Vehicle Capture the Flag. The Vehicles and Weapons are probably the main attraction for UT3. If you’ve played UT2004 you will know that the weapons look similar to the ones in UT3. In fact they could actually be the same since the graphics have been beefed up so the weapons could have more detail. Killer awards have been expanded as well. For example if you accumulate 15 kills with a certain weapon the player will be given the award for that particular weapon. The awards are: Jackhammer, Gun Slinger, Bio Hazard, rail rape, Combo King, Shaft Master, Blue Streak, Flak Master, Rocket Scientist, Head Hunter, Skeet Shooter, and Big Game Hunter.

                There are 2 types of vehicles: Axon vehicles (made by the Axon Corporation) and Necris vehicles. The Axon vehicles are the same ones that were on UT2004, but with a few changes. When tagged to a vehicle the player gets a hover board that can be used to travel from one place to the other on the level. However because the player is hanging on to the vehicle he is venerable to attack not to mention that the hover boards are weak and can be destroyed with a few shots from the enemies. Necris vehicles are newer vehicles controlled by the undead humans. There are six Necris vehicles, and although they are not parallel to Axon's vehicles, they are intended to make a good balance against them.

                UT3 was made using the newer engine from Epic which is the Unreal Engine 3, the same engine used to make Gears of War, Hour of Victory, Blacksite Area 51, etc. The game features stunning details as well as massive worlds for battle. The framerate is very smooth with no lag what so ever. The only lag that occurs in the game is when playing online with a bad connection. The audio fits in right with the graphic details. It has very good sound effects as well as voice over. For the Sound track it varies from person to person. Some people might like it some might not.

                I installed UT3 on 5 separate machines with different specs. The highest one was 3.0GH, 2 GB Ram, Windows XP running on a 19 inch HD monitor. The game runs on both Vista and XP so it’s really a good thing for any windows player. The recommended requirements for the game are:  2.4+ GHz Dual Core Processor, 1 GB of System RAM, NVIDIA 7800GTX+ or ATI x1300+ Video Card and 8 GB of Free Hard Drive Space. These requirements are what it takes to take full advantage of the game and they in fact look stunning. The minimum system requirements are: 2.0+ GHz Single Core Processor, 512 Mbytes of System RAM,  NVIDIA 6200+ or ATI Radeon 9600+ Video Card and 8 GB of Free Hard Drive Space. While these are only the minimum requirements the game will default to the basics of what your system can handle. The Last PC that I installed Unreal Tournament on was only a 1.7GH dual core processor, 2GB of RAM, ATI Radeon Xpress on a Windows XP and Vista (I Dual Boot). While the game may still run flawlessly on a system with the less than minimum requirements the graphics do suffer. So if you don’t care about graphics you can run your UT3 on the less than minimum on your system. The frame rate stays solid and the action is the same as always.

                The control system is the same that has been for years for FPS. Sometimes it can be very sluggish to follow commands and with so many buttons being pressed at the same time, it can confuse new comers. It takes a while to get used to them but eventually new players will get better and better at it.

                UT3 comes with an editor that will allow you to edit characters and levels as well as weapons and vehicles. You can post your mods up and challenge friends with your new looking level design. Using the Editor is very simple because it is more of a drag and drop type of feature rather than programming everything from scratch.

                UT3 offers many levels of excitement, Online and Offline LAN play as well as a single player campaign. Over all UT3 will keep you coming back for more for years to come. Specially with the level editor where you can create your own custom mods. If you love online games then you will definitely love Unreal Tournament 3.

Game Play: 10/10

Graphics: 10/10

Sound: 8/10

Controls: 7/10

Life Span: 10/10

Total Score: 90% = A

 

 

 
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