Unreal Tournament 3 Review

Page 2 - Seeking answers? Join the Tom's Hardware community: where nearly two million members share solutions and discuss the latest tech.
Toggle sidebar Toggle sidebar
I have to agree with those here who point out that this is finally the true successor to the original Unreal Tournament which is exactly what we were after. Unreal Tounament 2003 was the biggest disappointment of my gaming life. Never have I been so let down. Unreal Tournament had that slight gritty realism that made it stand apart from the quake 3 engine which seemed to be everywhere at the time which we loved.

2003 then came alone and gone was the gritty tight scale feel to the game and in came cartoon nonsense. 2004 was no better.

UT3 feels like a modern remake of a classic which is just what the doctor ordered. now if only we can get EA to remake the original BF42 with a new engine and team dynamics we will all be happy.
 


Yes, UT's bot AI has always been the metric that all other FPS games are measured by... good point. (and even those that think UT2k4 sucked would have to agree that the AI there was the best of any UT game)

As for assault... everyone tries to do it but honestly, a game like assault takes a good TEAM and not just a good PLAYER to win when attacking. That is hard to find online. That is why assault was never the most popular gametype in 99 or 2k4. QuakeWars should be finding that out soon... (it is just a copy of assault mixed with a little bit of onslaught/BF thrown in) They dropped it in 2k3 and now again in UT3. (yet another similarity between the two 😉 )
 
u know what i find amusing (speaking as someone who never played any of the UT games a lot) but from what i gather '99 was great, then 2003 sucked, then 2004 ruled, then ut3..... sucked, so, get your hopes up people! (not that I care much, im not likely to buy the next one either, im not a twitch gamer, more BF for me...)
 



Oh no no...ut3 doesnt suck, not al all!
I've played ut1 since 2000, but ut2k4 was not enough to get me out of it (although, it was not bad at all too), and now seven years later ut3 has been released, and i finally left ut1, and why? Because ut3 gave me the nostalgy of ut1...
This new ut brings the movement, the true feeling from ut1, and thats what i, a long time ut player require from this game.
So the game is great, it just needs some fixing on the UI yeah, but apart the bash and trash i see in this review which i find unfair, i think this is an awesome replacement for the previous uts.

UT3 is already bringing some ut legends back to stage like lauke(hopefully), shaggy, stevo, mTw|crush etc..
Hypno is brutally kicking ass too.
Maybe even gitz comes back.
 
I know for myself I played UT99 for years....really until about 2005 or 2006 and it had the hard to define fun factor in the multiplayer world. 2K3 seemed to be rushed out the door and missed the mark on many levels. It looked pretty but the gameplay wasn't fun and the maps were HUGE. 2K4 did a pretty decent job of coming back. ONS was fun and the game looked great, but for the "hardcore" player, the play mechanics of the original were missing. The maps were often too big and it was hard to really "see" what was going on. UT 3 seems to have returned to the play style of UT99 and for myself and many UT buddies, that is what makes this incarnation of the game worth playing. They may never recapture the UT99 formula, but it is good to see the double dodge gone, smaller maps, and a the ability to "see" what is going on. The action is fast paced and the hitscan and non-hitscan weapons have a good feel. I say hurray for the return to UT99 gamestyle. I'd agree the singleplayer gets dull fast and the UI could have used a major overhaul. I also would love to see all the gametypes available. I miss domination...and even a gamestyle from UT2k3 (a game that wasn't great) ... which was like soccer! Overall a thumbs up from an original UT fan.
 
the gametype you mentioned was bombing run. Loved it but evenly matched teams could have a single game last for HOURS... which turned some ppl from it.

I am a UT99 fan and while I like all the mechanics I really LOVED the larger size of 2k4. Multiplayer fps games are getting bigger. Vehicles need space. BF proved that. The rest of the mechanics (like I mentioned before) could be enabled/disabled by included mods. (many added with the editors choice pack) That large scale though (obviously) could not but then, you could play 1v1 or small 4v maps that kept it tight and close... many still do that.
 
I was a pretty big fan of the original UT online MP play. I didn't play a ton, as when I was into it, I didn't have my own PC. I would play when I could on my step dad's PC, as his was the only one that could actually make it run good. This what when it first came out.

Then when I got a little older and had my own PCs, I got into UT2k3. I thought that was awesome. I played so much of that. Great controls and the graphics were nice, but not too nice that it would affect performance at all.

Never ended up getting 2K4, though I always think about grabbing a copy of it.

All this talk, I think I am gonna break out 2K3 and see how that one is holding up...
 


Pretty dead, thats how it is holding.
No one plays it, its totally useless.
I couldnt look at it in any other way that a shameless and unfinished atempt of a ut1 sucessor..

And small maps are pretty much necessary for a fast paced deathmatch, whether it is a 1on1 or a 4on4 tdm game.
Also gameplay is undoubtly important, which ut1 and quake3 were Pros at it in its time.
UT2k3 had boring and gameplayless maps, which made it quite bad for the competitive community.
 
I don't understand everyone who is defending this release of UT. To put it simply, UT3 stinks!

Yes, The graphics are nice, but they are nothing to write home about. But that's where the improvements.

The game play is sorry. I read all of the posts comparing this game to UT2k3, but that is NOT what this game should be compared to. UT99, and the 2k series were special in what they brought to the gaming table.

New graphics, new engines, new combat.

UT3 is none of that. It is not even a logical progression of that.

The thing I find interesting in reading through the posts is that not one of you alleged UT fans has mentioned the obvious parallel to UT3.

It was a game that used the UT engine, and was the first game where we got to experience the Skaarj. It also had a pretty sorry story line, and a stupid ending that left you hanging. And did Epic ever do anything else with it? NOPE! It simply faded into Unreal non-existance...

That game was Unreal II, The awakening.

That is the game from epic that is most like UT3. The rating of 8 for this game is high. I have invested thousands of hours in all of the versions of Unreal. I think it should be rated more like 6 - 6.5, and at that you may have to deduct a point for the cheesiness factor.

UT3 is Midway's latest console release. Midway has never cared about computer gaming because they have always believed that consoles would rule the gaming industry. It's end-looser syndrome. And the people who built the franchise by buying the games, and playing them, and running the servers, and writing the mods, and offering suggestions, and finding the bugs, just got crapped on by the same company that took all your quarters from you in the 80's to play their "console" games in the arcade at the strip mall.

This is the Idiots version of Unreal. I feel like I got ripped for $60.

Hey, Epic and Midway, can I have my money back to buy a real game?




 
uhh... epic did not make unreal2, Legend did (atari shut them down soon after) and for a single player game OF THE TIME, it was decent... better than many, not as good as some.

no where near the first one, but just ok.

UT and Unreal have always been different games, no comparison needed beyond the engine usage and similar art style. Any Unreal fan knows this.

Looking back at UT2k4's numbers... they did not do that well either. sitting around that 80% mark. This one is about where the others (after '99) have been.

quit whining.
 


The only similarity between Unreal Tournament 3 and Unreal 2, The Awakening is that Unreal is in the title. You simply cannot compare these 2 as they are 2 different. UT's focus is on the multiplayer arena style play, which U2's is not. I dislike nothing about UT3 and have probably put in just as much time playing all of the games in the series...even the console ones, which were terrible! Even if they would have charged $100 for this game I wouldn't have felt I was ripped off.

Best,

3Ball
 
Did any of you guys play Unreal 2 : eXtended MultiPlayer (U2:XMP)? Now that was a fun online game type! Unfortunately the UT conversion didn't seem to capture the magic as much as the vanilla U2 version.
 
Indeed, you can not compare both games, you're comparing a sp game with a true game of hardcore competition.
UT real addicteds dont really want all those fancy graphics on screen (actually, when in real competitions, graphics are turned to their lowest leves possible, same thing for quake3 tho) nor story lines.
Unreal 2 would have been a good game, it it wasnt actually called "Unreal" 2, it should have been called Intergalatic War or something like that, because it had really nothing (but the skaarjs) to do with the original unreal!
Unreal 1 was really awsome for its time, i was expecting a great sequel in unreal2, and LEGEND (not epic) failed me in that perspective, although XMP was actually quite fun to play online in my opinion.
UT3 doesnt fail at all the players (or most of them) who play ut for competitive ends and not for the play_a_game_for_the_sake_of_playing_it_and_it_was_fun_and_lets_head_to the_next_game_now etc..
 
Yea for sure this game appeals to the hard core competitors many who probably still play UT99 from time to time. I recall too turning down all the graphics settings etc. to get the best FPS, view of the enemy, etc.

Someone looking for the Call Of Duty or Half Life 2 single player experience won't enjoy UT3, those wanting to furiously chase around you friends in multiplayer will have a hoot.
 


Myself being a "true gamer" of many years... I have just bought an XBOX 360 a few months back, and I must say that your comment is completely false. Watching Gears of War or COD4 on a 42" Sharp Aquous in 1080P with home-theatre-based Optical surround sound rivals PC gaming at it's finest. The main reason I bought a console is because I can't and won't afford $1000 a week to keep my hardware up to date in my PC to play games like Crysis at good framerates, BUT the console costs me a fraction of what a nice video card costs now-a-days, and lasts for at least three years or more. So don't call us retards, because when your "down-and-out" you may pick up a console one day as well. Kthx.
 
not calling you a retard per-se... rather that the majority of the console games are made on a more 'simple' level. Whether it is b/c that is truly what the console market WANTS, or it is what the game industry THINKS they want... it is still simplified. Complex gameplay is a hallmark of the PC (think Morrowind, the Original Ghost Recon/Rainbow Six and DeusEx) and every game (with very few exceptions) that has been moved to the console over time is eviscerated of that complexity in one form or another.

Those games I mentioned... each one represents a pinnacle of brilliant gameplay in different styles. Each one sold very well, and each one was ported (nearly) unchanged to the console to very good sales success... what happened next? Each one was followed by a console-centric sequel that removed all the very things that made them great. From interface to plot to forced contrivances in everything... completely ruined the franchise.

Now some games are making moves that take them back closer to what a PC game is (cod4 being a wonderful example), but there are still too many stupid 'hand-holding' elements that remove some of the mystery and actual suspense/difficulty that makes PC gaming so great.

I have played many console games. I own an xbox mainly b/c most fighting and sports games are console only (and some racers) and I enjoy it at times. platform/adventure (tomb raider, hitman etc.) games are also better (IMO) there.

But to say that your console lasts three years? My previous comp gamed for me for 4. My current one is 2 and will probably last for 3. The same thing plagues both consoles and PCs... the older it gets, the further down the performance curve it gets. You think just because ppl still use a ps2 means that it looks good? no! That console has not looked good for the last 4 years! They just code to its limitations and sell you that circa 1999 quality game at full price. A console is trapped in time at the point of release. 'nuff said on that...

Whether or not you have 'home-theatre-based Optical surround sound' (...I'll leave that alone) is irrelevant. I too have a digital surround system. Your 1080p is still well below what a pc can run as well. I agree that a 42" @ 1080p looks good, but that resolution is still not as fine as what a PC can run. Even the fine example of CoD4 shows up so much nicer on a PC at higher res... plus I can game with more ppl online... for free.

Leaving your ludicrous '$1000 per week' comment alone... Most ppl neglect to mention all the other costs for that "cheaper" console. You have your 'optical surround sound' system 😉, your not-cheap-at-all 42" TV and that lovely $50 per year fee for online gaming all on top of the console cost and the more expensive games. THAT adds up... even for one year I come up with a number that is MUCH more expensive than my PC... and you get the dumbed down games for your effort...

...yup, you are the smarter one for sure...

'Kthx'
 


Someone looking for a Call Of Duty or Half Life 2 single player experience alike in UT3 doesnt really knows what UT3 is at all.
About the bold part of your sentece, yes UT3 is all about that.


 
Hah, you think your so smart. Sorry to say, but PC gaming has become a joke. To be honest, you are right about the quality on PC games, and the "better graphics", but I guarantee you didn't play all of the latest games at perfect framerates for four years on a PC, impossible. You had to have upgraded at least a video card in the machine. If you are saying that ANY machine from four years ago can play Crysis (at perfect frames), you are sadly mistaken. You seem like a very smart person, but I'd rather play my games from a lazy-boy in my living room, watching my beautiful TV (which I purchased for other reasons than just my XBOX 360 btw). With regards to the "optical surround sound" comment; if you are hooking up a full-blown amp/receiver through optical to your PC to achieve 5.1 surround sound; you are wasting your time.

The $1000 comment is obviously an overstatement... What I am saying is that the console is consistant for four years, theres no degradation in performance whatsoever, and when a new console comes out; you buy it. A PC however, you buy it as state-of-the-art, then a month after; a new video card comes out that plays games much better, then one year down the road a game like Crysis comes out, and you have to buy a better video card or more RAM or a better processor to play it "smooth like butter".

All in all; consoles provide a nice way to sit in your lazy-boy with a beer, have an always "smooth like butter" experience, stare at your beautiful TV (regardless what you say about Video cards having "nicer" video... not worth it buddy, hook that card up to a 42" monitor, then see how pixelized it is...), and play your games on your home-theatre surround sound that you probably already have.
If I had the money to go back into PC gaming, I absolutely would NOT, not because it doesn't look better "because it does, just on a smaller screen", it would be because Consoles offer a better OVERALL experience.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Latest posts

Moderators online

Share this page

COMPANY
RESOURCES
FOLLOW
Top Bottom