At this years NY Comic Con I was able to get my meat hooks around one of this years most anticipated games coming to the XBox360, Unreal Tournament. Gamers all around the world have been clamoring over the recently announced news that Unreal III would not only be making its first appearance on the 360 later this year, but it would also have exclusive content for Xbox Live Subscribers, i.e. user created MODS of in game maps and levels.Speculation is that Epic's (the developers of the Unreal series) Unreal Engine is better suited for the 360 and makes the development process much easier for the people responsible for developing the games exclusive content. However, in my opinion, a Play Station 3 re-release with all content is inevitable and will happen late this year, perhaps Q4. Now, enough of the console war jargin and onto my hands on experience with this FPS juggernaut.
In the past, I have
played the Unreal series on my PC...especially in college at a few LAN parties I held in my dorm room. They were fun, fast paced FPS's that were extremely popular in the early 2000's and still pack a pretty rabid fan base in 2008. The focus of these games has always been the multi player aspect and thats pretty much it. The series has never really been big on story lines and in my opinion thats an ok thing. In a nut shell, your in the future, you wear big honking armor, pack a wide assortment of overly large weapons and speak in heavy monotone bicuspids that you usually see in movies like Rambo. This leads me to begin my dissection of Unreal 3 seeing as though the only thing I was able to play was the multi player in fact.I waited in line for about an hour to get a match in and in all honesty it was well worth it. The game (due out Q3 of this year) felt like a near final version. There was no texture pop ins, the graphics looked slick as hell and I couldn't have been happier with the sound FX. In my personal opinion sound is one of the moist integral parts to a video game. If your not totally enamored with the sound of a game it can ruin the whole experience. Unreal 3 is a perfect example of spot on sound. The best part, for me, was listening to the ambient noises while in a match. You could hear far off voices yelling to their partners, small explosions, fire fights, air ships flying overhead and even foot steps coming from afar. It helped me in the few matches I got to play before being rushed away to the next gaming kiosk.
The game play was spot on as well. It was super fast paced and had virtually no lag what so ever. I believe it was running at a smooth 60 frames per second seeing as though after a few seconds
into my first match I blurted out, "Holy shit this looks nice!" I got a laugh out of just about everyone there. The first couple of matches was a feeler stage for me, i wanted to get the mechanics down quickly and was able to do so without a hitch, which is nice. The HUD is easily accessible and the controls felt tight. Want to reload? Just push B. Want to run? Hold the right bumper. Its the simplicity of this Unreal installment that got me pumped. After getting a grasp on which button did what, I started to dish out what can only be described as a brutal ass whipping to every one there...and I'm not lying. I won 7 matches in a row and died a mere one time...from self suicide accidentally dished out to myself... by myself; not bad if I must say so myself.-Heres a Little Taste-
I have to say, there wasn't one thing I didn't like about my experience with this near finalized version. if I had to poke one hole in its brutal armor it would have to be the lighting. Make it a little brighter and I'm on board 100%. Unreal Tournament comes out (hopefully) Q3 of 2008 and will have 360 exclusive content supposedly ready on day one of its release. Here's to hopping for good things and for this shooter to get the console respect it so deserves.
-Game Hard-
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