Conclusion, final thoughts and Awards
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 pissed off with Unreal Tournament 3.
Actually, that’s not quite right. I’m pretty pissed off that Epic, having developed the completely brilliant Unreal Engine 3 and used it to create the rather good Gears of War, have gone and released what amounts to little more than a lazy re-hash of the all the previous Unreal Tournament games. You’d have thought they’d learnt with the UT2k3/UT2k4 thing that gamers get mighty shirty when you take the piss, but apparently not.
Click for larger imageFor 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.
So if for any reason you’ve no net access, as is the case for a whole bunch of Virgin Broadband users who’ve had no access for the last two days, that means you’ll be starting from scratch each time your net access is down. Perhaps you’re one of the few that doesn’t have net access at all, in which case you’re stuffed. I don’t suppose this would be so bad if there was any mention on the box of a net connection being mandatory but there isn’t. In fact there’s no mention of it in the manual either… but then again, having a short paragraph saying “You have to have a net connection for profile creation and save games” might’ve put a few people off… not that I’m suggesting in any way that this is a deliberate omission.
Click for larger imageI’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.
Pros
Looks great
Runs brilliantly on less meaty PCs
Cons
It’s yet again more of the same… again
About as innovative as a brick factory
Bloody annoying GameSpy is forced on you for multiplayer
Other than the new levels, you’ve seen it all before… boring now.
Unreal Tournament 3: Seen the engine before, seen the weapons before, and sure as hell seen the gameplay before. M-m-m-m-m-Monster Yawn!
HEXUS Awards
Unreal Tournament 3
Slightly less creative than a BBC 3 re-run of the 1979 Morecombe and Wise Christmas Special, but not nearly as funny.
Slightly less creative than a BBC 3 re-run of the 1979 Morecombe and Wise Christmas Special, but not nearly as funny.