As
the latest in the long-running and extremely popular Unreal franchise,
Epic and Midway’s viscerally exciting Unreal Tournament
III
delivers some truly
exciting and intense shooting action. Once again taking place in its
uniquely violent science-fiction world, with a fairly interesting story
mode that allows you to progress in combat against a deadly alien force as
you try and defend humanity against their invasion. The initial levels are
basically tutorials that allow you to get the basics down, while the later
stages bring a bit more depth and excitement to the gameplay. As usual,
players have access to tons of weapons and ammo, with the biggest addition
this time around the inclusion of vehicles that you can jump into
immediately by pressing the square button. You
can progress through UTIII’s story mode fairly quickly, and these stages
make a good foundation for online multiplayer play. If you don’t want to
play through the story mode and instead want to jump straight into battle,
the game offers a variety of gameplay modes including the expected
Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, Duel, and Capture the Flag modes. These are
all very tight and give players an immediate rush as they allow you to
jump right into the action. One interesting variation is the Vehicle
Capture the Flag mode where you take control of one of the many vehicles
as you battle for the opposing team’s symbol. The control in the vehicle
modes is very smooth and responsive with the directional and firing
methods very much like the standard on-foot portions. There is a slightly
different camera angle in these sections and you are still vulnerable to
attacks, especially from rival vehicles but they are definitely loads of
fun to use in combat. There are loads of different vehicles including
several different types of tanks, buggies, sleek battle pods that roar
across the maps and others. The cool Darkwalkers are the most imposing of
the vehicles, with slow tentacle-like claws they tower above the landscape
and fire deadly rays at anything in their path. However, they move slowly
and aren’t as flexible as other vehicles which makes them vulnerable to
attack. Since both teams can access vehicles, its important to note that
the sophisticated AI makes the appearance of the Darkwalkers quite
intimidating, though your faster speed means it isn’t entirely
impossible to avoid their fire. Epic has done an excellent job in bringing
balance and power to each of the vehicles and this adds a great new style
of play to the game’s already solid multiplayer action.
While
the vehicles are impressive, UTIII hasn’t neglected on-foot players. As
usual, the team and solo Deathmatch modes offer an immediate rush of
excitement with tight controls, fantastic map designs and a well balanced
stock of weapons at your disposal. During the game, you can run over a
variety of cool devices. Each map also brings unique challenges such as
hidden areas, elevators and the occasional deadly drop. There are more
than a dozen different maps available, and each one brings a unique style
of play. Some are more open, which lend themselves well to all out combat
in Team Deathmatch and duel modes while others lean towards a more complex
layout more suited to Capture the Flag and Warfare modes. Quickly learning
the layout of each level is important, since power-ups usually appear in
the same places, which allows you to anticipate their arrival, giving you
a critical edge. You have access to an impressive array of weaponry that
includes basic weapons such as pistols, machine guns, flack cannons,
rocket launchers, toxic shooting Bio-rifles that shoot deadly ooze at
opponents and small gauge tactical nuclear weapons that can wipe out the
immediate area of any enemies. The weapons perform beautifully, and you
can switch between them quickly during battle to save your big guns or
unleash a ton of fire-power on opponents. You’ll find numerous pick-ups
throughout such as health and weapons power-ups, additional armor and
additional ammo. The two most significant additions to the Unreal arsenal
include hoverboards that allow you to glide through the levels much faster
and the Translocator which allows you to shoot portals and jump through
them for traversing gaps or catching opponents off guard. These are really
cool additions that add plenty of new strategy to an already intense and
solid multiplayer game, making Unreal Tournament
III
one of the most
intense and well-balanced shooters on the market. The enemy AI is quite
impressive and the bots show a great deal of skill and strategy in battle
which makes for some really intense battles.
In
addition to offering the usual standard FPS modes, UTIII takes things to a
new level and includes an innovative new Warfare mode, where two teams of
players go all out to dominate a map. This mode includes both vehicles and
on-foot modes. In this mode, both teams are trying to create and use Nodes
on each map, while attacking the rival team’s Power Core. Each Node is
connected on a grid, displayed on the map, where when connected they give
your team access to additional weapons and vehicles, plus the ability to
attack nearby nodes to increase your team’s control over the map. As you
drain the nodes of your opponents, you make their Power Core more
vulnerable to attack. Chaining these nodes together makes them harder for
your opponent to destroy, and while building them, players can use their
Link Guns together to complete them even faster. Players will also have to
look out for Orb carriers, which are on-foot soldiers that carry a
critical device that gives strength to nearby friendly nodes and repairs
them. When a hostile node is near to one of your teams, it drains its
energy and makes them more vulnerable to attack, so the rival carriers
need to be stopped. While its basically and more elaborate team deathmatch
that mixes in some elements of capture the flag, its an incredibly intense
section of the game that gives UTIII a unique feel all its own. The sheer
number of weapons and vehicles onscreen at the same time makes for chaotic
and vicious combat which brings a new layer of strategy to an already
exciting experience.
Playing
the game online is probably the best part of the overall experience, and
Epic has done an excellent job implementing this portion. Logging on via
the PS Network is a relatively painless experience thanks to the intuitive
menu system and matching abilities. Players can select which mode they
want to play in, number of opponents, frag and time limits and more
depending on how much they want to customize the game. Unfortunately,
while the game promises to deliver extensive customization options, these
aren’t ready yet, so this is all potential at this point. However, the
game plays quite smoothly online with little lag or defect evident, which
makes for one of the more robust and action-packed PS3 online titles to
date. Taken together, this is one impressive package of games that offers
a variety of action from straightforward deathmatching to team play and an
elaborate Warfare mode that brings an intense new level to the action. As
you might expect, everything about the game’s visuals impresses,
especially the maps. There’s a variety of locations ranging from
snow-covered mountains, desolate burned out cities and space ships to play
through that gives you plenty of variety. The game’s smooth frame rate
allows you to enjoy its brilliant character animation, stunning rendered
environments for stunning and fluid gameplay. Its
graphic engine and underlying technology is uniformly impressive and
delivers some of the most detailed, robust visuals seen on the PS3 to
date. While the lack of customization options is slightly disappointing,
the deep selection of varied single and multiplayer modes should keep
players satisfied until they go online. Unreal Tournament
III
brings some of the
most intense and exciting FPS action to date onto the Playstation 3,
giving console players a state-of-the-art experience with solid gameplay,
addictive multiplayer modes and several innovative features that make it a
solid title for with immediate and long-lasting appeal for hardcore FPS
gamers.
- Michael Palisano
Grade:
B+
