Amazon.com: Unreal Tournament III: PC: Video Games

67 Reviews

5 star:		(29)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(8)
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3.6 out of 5 stars (67 customer reviews)

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28 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Going In The Right Direction.. Slowly.., December 6, 2007

By	Victor (MI) - See all my reviews

Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars

Before I start I'm going to admit that this game is very fun and very intense. No doubt that it contains way more action than it's predecessors. The only problem is.. it's not finished. And what I mean by that is that this game needs some serious patching updates before I'd even consider it a full fledged product release. Some players have embraced it's flaws with hopes of fixes (like myself), but some people need to understand what they're getting in to before they get disappointed.

When Epic released the UT3 demo back in October it was released with GREAT anticipation. FINALLY a glimpse at an Unreal game that contained lifelike characters with bigger and badder action like never before. Created with the Unreal Engine 3, the characters and environments alike are definitely sweet eye candy.. which leads me to believe that the last several years this game has been in development have been merely to make it look good. The Beta contained a LOT of bugs, which is normal considering its a "Beta Demo," but when it was announced that UT3 had gone gold in a matter of weeks many had their doubts that the bugs that plagued the Beta Demo would be fixed in the retail version. Many of the bugs had remained. One such bug has the players viewpoint very close to the ground. It's like playing UT3 with little people instead of the proper height of the character models.

Much of what made UT2k4 and UT99 so great have been stripped from UT3. If you're a fan of the movement styles of 2k4 then you'll be greatly disappointed as the jump dodge has been removed. Jumping in itself is bad enough because some obsticles just aren't low enough for the character to jump over even with double jump. Fans of both eras will notice that the colors are washed with 100 types of gray and brown. The absense of bright colors (on players and environments) tend to make the game depressing and grundgey. Only a few levels even contain color and even so they're just lights. The game is also drowns in bloom and distance fog. Sure, the bloom and fog give the game more realism, but they also hinder sight when playing the game. At one point a players screen can get so bright (due to power ups coloring the screen) that it makes it even more difficult to see anything.

The User Interface (menu system) is very consolized and not PC friendly. Because the game is coming out for the PS3 and 360, Epic decided to give PC users a very consolized looking menu. Many areas do not have tabs or drop down menus for easy navigation. You find yourself going menu after menu then going back to a previous menu only to go forward again. It's a real hassle. Deep customization is gone from this game. PC users cannot control many of the graphic settings they could control in previous Unreal Tournament games. It's either all or nothing by sliding "World Detials" and "Texture Details" 1 through 5 with 5 being the max detail settings. If you REALLY want Unreal Tournament 3 to be truly customized you would have to go into the game's .ini files and edit the code by hand. And even when you do so, your game still needs to connect to the internet where Epic and/or Gamespy have servers that SAVE your .ini files. Yes, Epic and/or Gamespy have servers that store your game's .ini files on their servers. The mothership does call. Sometimes your changes stick and sometimes they don't.

Epic chose Gamespy, much to the "delite" (sarcasm) of UT players everywhere, as their choice of software for finding game browsers online. The browser in both the beta and retail have not changed. You MUST create an online profile for yourself in order to play online. Sometimes, when you want to play offline, the game still asks you to connect to the internet. It's very annoying. One problem is that when browsing for specific games (like having the option to not show empty servers or full servers), you finalize your decision and then when the game list shows up.. it didn't even filter out what you're looking for. So you have to go back, redo everything and try again. There are no favorites tab, you cannot see who's playing on any of the servers, and you cannot spectate any server.

The single player campaign in itself is a fun addition to those who just want to play offline. There is a story that goes along with many many battles. You play all the gametypes (except duel) with your team (Ronin). The bot AI on the enemy team is very good... but I can't say the same about any bot AI on your own team. You'll have to experience that one for yourself.

Warfare is a fun addition to the game along with the other classic gametypes. It's one big game of capture the flag mixed with Onslaught (a gametype from UT2k4) with a ball. My only gripe is that Warfare has a LOT of maps, while gametypes like CTF and vCTF (Vehicle Capture the Flag) have a handful. A small handful.

Character customization is not as deep as it could have been and there aren't as many characters to choose from. You have to play through single player mode to unlock new characters such as the Necris.

There are many problems that plague this "final" release of the game that are currently being fixed in beta patches that are being privately tested as I write this. What's disappointing is that the game should have been finished when it was released, not patched heavily within a short time. If you're that picky about it then maybe you should wait for an official patch.

Nonetheless, if you can look beyond the flaws and want a game where you can run and gun, blow things up with vehicles and lay some smack down to your friend across the country.. then this game is for you.

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43 of 52 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars THE ABSOLUTE GAME OF THE YEAR!!!, November 18, 2007

By	NeuroSplicer (Freeside, in geosynchronous orbit) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars

Games that are as long awaited as UT3 always bear the inherent danger of becoming over-hyped and to inevitably disappoint in the end. Well, this is NOT the case with this game. UT3 ROCKS!

Graphically you have not seen anything that beautiful this year! Surfaces, shadows and explosions are just GORGEOUS! Yes, I liked the graphics even more than those in CRYSIS (and I gave CRYSIS a raving review - check it out if you like): they are crisper and even more atmospheric.

Fans of the UT-series will meet again all our old ...friends: the Bio Rifle, the Link Gun, the Shock Rifle, the Flak Cannon (my favorite!), the Rocket Launcher and the Sniper Rifle. New additions are the Enforcer (to replace the under-used Assault rifle) and the Impact Hammer (replacing the shield gun). An interesting twist: hitting an enhanced target with the Impact Hammer's alternative fire will drop his power-up for you to grab!
SuperWeapons are also at our disposal, both the Redeamer and the new Target Painter.

The number of available vehicles has been enriched as well. Besides the Axon vehicles from UT2004 (which have been renovated), a new Necris set is available: vehicles that demonstrate novel behaviors, yet are beautifully balanced with the Axon set.

What is really impressive once more are the environments. You have to see them to believe them...! And the skies...! I have not seen more breathtaking skies ever since, well, the original UNREAL.

Since this is a pretty demanding game, once the rockets start flying do not trust that by meeting the Minimum requirements you will be cruising. So, here are the official RECOMMENDED requirements:
� Pentium 2.4GHz Dual-Core (or AMD equivalent)
� 1GB of RAM
� nVIDIA 7800GTX (or ATI x1300 equivalent)
� 8 GB of HDD space
� WinXp (SP2) or WinVISTA

CRYSIS is surely getting a run for its money for GAME OF THE YEAR!

I cannot imagine anyone not enjoying this...

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!!!

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12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Are you kidding me? UT3 is mediocrity incarnate..., February 15, 2008

By	Ashraf Eassa "Ash" (New Hampshire, USA) - See all my reviews

Fun:3.0 out of 5 stars

Okay, so to begin, I'm as die-hard of an Unreal fan as it gets -- ever since my introduction to the game at the tender age of 10, I've been quite the Unreal afficionado. I eagerly anticipated the releases of UT2K3 (which wasn't amazing, but I certainly enjoyed it) and UT2K4 (best game of 2004). So naturally, I awaited UT3's release in wide-eyed awe as the days counted down to the release of the game. Come early November, I was in total dismay at the product that Epic attempted to pass off at Unreal Tournament 3.

At first, the game had horrendously demanding system requirements. My machine was getting pretty old (a Pentium D 925 and a GeForce 7800GS) so it was high time to upgrade. After upgrading to a Core 2 Quad and GeForce 8800GT, my performance issues were solved, but I was left wondering, "why does this game require so much processing power"? Where were the real time shadowing on every piece of geometry as was promised in the original UE3 demos? Where were the dynamic lighting, destructable environments, and ground-breaking physics? The extent of the game's graphical splendor lies solely in that it has neat "blurring" effects when under water/slime. Other than that, DOOM 3 and Half Life 2 are quite honestly not much worse looking than this game-- and they ran flawlessly on my old computer. Meh, so graphics I'd rate, perhaps, a 8/10. However, graphics hardly account for what I think of a game -- I still have a BLAST with the original DOOM, which has total crap for visuals by today's standards.

The story that is provided is really, REALLY, cheesy. Okay, so apparently some clan is at war with a team of undead aptly called the "Necris". Funny thing is about this war is that, uh, nobody actually dies! What the hell kind of battle field is it where your dead soldiers are saved by respawners? Epic should have stuck with the whole sports/competition theme that was prevalent in the earlier installations of Unreal Tournament -- at least that was somewhat believable. Meh, UT isn't about the single player game anyway, but the SP game here certainly wasn't as nicely done as that found in UT and UT2004.

So, the multiplayer gameplay is what this game's all about, and it's here that UT3 shows its shortcomings relative to the older titles. UT and UT2004 both had a plethora of game modes, and there were many high quality, brilliant maps for your gaming pleasure -- UT3 is not so. Its maps are generic, to say the least, and there just aren't that many of them. Furthermore, the only game modes available in UT3 are Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, Capture the Flag, Vehicle Capture the Flag, and Warfare. This is in stark contrast to UT2004's plethora of modes, including assault, onslaught, invasion, bombing run, CTF, deathmatch, team deathmatch, mutant, etc. The previous game just was so much MORE of a game. It had more maps, more modes, and it was just better. UT3 looks, aesthetically, better than its predecessor, but who the hell plays a game for only looks?

So, I'd say steer clear of this atrocity unless you're really itching to have a complete collection of Unreal games. But, quite honestly, the Unreal Anthology -- with UT, UT2004, Unreal, and Unreal 2 -- is only $[...] on amazon and is much better. Hell, the anthology would be more of a value even at the price of UT3.

So, if you already have UT2004, don't buy this. If you don't have UT2004, don't buy this and get the Anthology with the groundbreaking UT and the amazing UT2004. Stay away from this trash until it his $[...] in the bargain bin.