[Flipside]

Got this a few days ago. Very pretty, smooth gameplay, and fun, if you like Unreal, it's worth a go, even though the Flak Cannon still uses the nerfed alt-shot.

My only complaint is that lack of content to be honest. There's surprisingly few maps that come with the game (though that will increase with the user-editing base that Unreal has) and the campaign is...short, and suffers from 'Sequel Syndrome', I won't ruin the game by saying more than that, however.

All in all, a good successor to Unreal Tourneys of the past, not a waste of money, but I think this was, despite the claims, totally oriented to online play, which I'm not a huge fan of, I won't be getting any more if it carries on in this direction.

[Unknown Target]

All of the UT series have been multiplayer-orientated. You're buying it for the wrong reasons if you bought it for the single player campaign, sorry. I like it best of all the UT's so far, it's more like UT99, is very pretty, and the weapons are all well-balanced (the alt shot isn't nerfed, it's almost a one hit kill if you nail someone with it).

[Inquisitor]

Yeah, UT has always been about the multi.

I thought the PS3 version was "ok" not great. Rented it, returned it. I MAY have grown out of UT...

[Flipside]

True, the game has always been based around a multi-player experience, but there have been bots since Unreal 1, multi-player doesn't always mean multi-human player. It's there that support has lowered to a roughly 20-mission campaign rather than the much longer tourneys.

As for the Flak Cannon, I'll agree to disagree there, you could use the original flak cannon to clear walkways above your head etc, you'd kill yourself if you tried that with the newer one.

[Dark RevenantX]

My biggest gripe with UT3 is with the UI.  Everything else that I care about is just fine.

[Wobble73]

UUhmmm! Unreal Tourney's have all been multi-player based, but the original Unreal had quite a Single player campaign!

[Flipside]

Unreal 1 was an engine demo to be honest, it had a multiplayer mode that was extremely enjoyable.

As for the multiplayer, as I said earlier, multiplayer doesn't mean multi-human. Sometimes it's fun online, if you don't mind respawning every 5-10 seconds, but sometimes I prefer a challenge where you stay alive a little longer, and I'm not always online thanks to a dying hard-drive on the server, so I like the ability to have an engaging single player set-up as well.

[CP5670]

I think the game itself is pretty good. The crappy UI and lack of maps is a problem, but you get used to the menus after a while and an active community would have rapidly made custom maps of similar quality.

The real issue I have is that UT3 has flopped in sales and there is hardly anyone playing online. My brother has it and I remember seeing three (populated) CTF games at peak hours one weekend, only about two months after the game's release. This is a typical situation from what I'm hearing and is pathetically low activity for a recent and high profile game. UT99 had several hundred games of each type running at the same point in its life, and even now I hear there are more people playing that than UT3. Another six months from now, there will probably be even fewer people playing.

It's hard to say why this has happened. The game has its flaws but is not that bad at all. I suspect that the UT/Quake gameplay style, which has always been unforgiving to noobs, has unfortunately fallen out of style in favor of the slow paced, quasi-realistic gameplay seen in most modern FPSs. Going by Epic's recent rants against PC gaming, this will probably be the last UT game and the last major example of its gameplay style as well.

[Flipside]

Yes, I noticed the same thing, loads of games, but only two of the were populated, there was about 40 people playing the game online when I last checked, and that was all.

[Unknown Target]

It's because of the massive, non-stop *****ing on all the official and unofficial sites. If you saw that, you'd probably be inclined not to buy.

[Flipside]

That's a pity, it's certainly not a complaint-worthy game, the matches I did play were great fun, there just wasn't enough of them, but that's not going to change unless the community creates them, which is less likely if everyone is too busy complaining about it...

[Nuke]

i played the demo but it didnt flip the getmegetmegetme switch in my head. quakewars was by far more fun to play.

[haloboy100]

UT is hella fun. But I doubt I'll get into this one. UT2004 is plenty for me.

Besides, I'll be beaten senselessly by fan boys before I give a **** about battling online. The whole time I've ever played any UT was with bots, and even now I still give a wing at it, 4 years later.

I still listen to the kickass 2004 soundtrack too. It just never gets old.