Unreal Tournament 3 - Preview

Posted on Thu, 2007-11-22 18:01

I finally received my copy of Unreal Tournament 3 today from Play.com after waiting years for it's release. And I must say I am impressed, more than I thought I would be.

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Graphics

With the release of the full game we are now able to crank the settings up although I still notice the lack of AA which Epic seems to have forgotten or kept out of the Unreal 3 engine. Although saying that, the game really doesn't need it if it hasn't got any but that would surprise me. I can only assume that it has some AA perhaps 2x or 4x turned on permanently and cannot be turned off.

With the demo we were restricted to only the low to medium textures but are now graced by the high textures with the full retail game hiding in the 7.87GB of game data.

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Gameplay

Gameplay for me is pretty much identical to Unreal Tournament 2004 but with a little difference that I am unable to put my finger on.

Multiplayer of course is the main focus of the game with the following game types:

  • Deathmatch
  • Team Deathmatch
  • Duel Deathmatch
  • Capture the Flag
  • Vehicle Capture the Flag
  • Warfare

Deathmatch - Free-for-all deathmatch.

Team Deathmatch - Team-based deathmatch

Duel Deathmatch - A one-versus-one test of Deathmatch skill. Whoever wins the round will take on the next spectator watching the carnage.

Capture the Flag - Team-based capture the flag. Invade the opposing team's base, grab their flag and bring it back to your own to obtain glory.

Vehicle Capture the Flag - Team-based capture the flag with vehicles. Invade the opposing team's base, grab their flag and bring it back to your own to obtain glory.

Warfare - Link togetherNodes and destroy the enemy Core in this team based mode.

Warfare of course is the old Conquest game mode but has been renamed with a few changes. Warfare is basically Conquest and Assault mixed together, word is some of the maps are 3 times bigger than the old UT2K4 Onslaught maps. There is also an orb which can be used to instantly capture the enemy nodes.

Single Player Story

UT3 introduces a story in to the campaign mode that I quickly tried out. The story is started off with a pre rendered video which is basically a human town getting attacked by the Krall who are the Skaarj from 2K4 which involves the main character, Reaper (you), to get badly injured. You are then healed by another race and aim to fight back but the race that healed you wants to do some jobs for them, which then puts you in a ladder sort of system with battles against AI with your teammates Jester (Repear's sister), Othello and Bishop.

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Other Stuff

A nifty little extra that I wasn't aware of was the ability to customize your character. You had the option in UT2K4 but it was pretty much limited to set models and gave you the ability to change the colour of it.

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You are first asked to chose your faction then you have a choice to edit certain features of your character to adjust it's physical look by changing the items from the categories which are facemask, helmet, goggles, torso, shoulder pads, arms, thighs and boots.

This is rendered in real time using the game engine which is cool as well as useful.

More extra's can be unlocked through progression of the game so you can customize your character even further.

Conclusion

UT3 seems like a good buy on my early thoughts and can only hope that the multiplayer is as good as the single player and I am sure will tempt over the Unreal Tournament 2004 players if they have the hardware required to run the game at least at it's medium settings.