Unreal Tournament III review (X360)

Arriving so long after the PC version you might think Unreal Tournament III on Xbox 360 is something of an afterthought. Especially as even after the long delay UTIII arrives on the Microsoft console without the mod support enjoyed by both the PC and PlayStation 3 versions of the game.

But UTIII does deserve some of your time, most notably because it offers something all too rare in the current games market. And that is a quick blast of fun without worrying about save games, checkpoints and badly told stories.

Storytime

That's not to say Unreal Tournament III doesn't have a story tacked on to it. It certainly does. And it's amusing to see the various silly plot points unfold that somehow require you to engage in a capture the flag battle with the enemy.

However Instant Action offers all the same content in a more easily digestible package. It's a testament to Epic's programming skills that we have AI bots that even make this worthwhile. Often UTIII is at its most satisfying is when you can boot it up for five minutes and enjoy a frantic team deathmatch with bots. A great compact gaming fix with much of the flab of so many of this generation's so called classics.

Ticking the boxes

As you'd expect Unreal Tournament III runs very well on the Microsoft system. Just like the PS3 version it runs at a pretty constant 30fps with very little in the way of slowdown or tearing.

This version of the game does share the same problem as the PS3 game in that sometimes levels seem too detailed to be shown at 720p and thus details can come across as rather messy.

But with the action being so frenetic and constant it's less of a problem than this would be in a slower paced game.

Sound-wise it's exactly what you'd expect from Unreal Tournament. For those of us who have been playing since the first game the announcements of "headshot", "killing spree" and "multi kill" are as comforting as an old pair of slippers.

Online

Take the game online with friends and it is multiplayer fun of the purest kind. I'm not so keen on the warfare mode though. Such large scale conflicts are better handled by the Battlefield franchise.

For small scale nonsense, be it deathmatches of CTF you'll struggle to find a better simple multiplayer game.

For those of you who have always loved Unreal Tournament but no longer game via your PC than there's really no need to deliberate. You need UTIII on console, and either the X360 or PS3 versions will scratch that UT itch in a very satisfying way.