How anyone can say this is better than 2K4 is beyond me. Sorry.

User Rating: 7.5 | Unreal Tournament III PC

I'll try to make this review short. As a UT fan, I was totally expecting UT3 to be 2K4 but with fancy visuals and effects. Or at least, that's what I hoped for.

First, the obvious and good. The Graphics are nice and the game scales extremely well for any grade of PC. The action is UT. The weapon balance is great and vastly improved. DM is the same, fast and fun.

But so much has been taken out it's unbelivable. Onslaught has been replaced. Domination is gone. For some reason they made Vehicle CTF. (What the hell?) The menu system is ATROCIOUS. Honestly. There is no customization, no graphic options - and somehow, these lack of settings SOMEHOW span 50 different screens. You select one option, then click next, then select one more option, and repeat. A lot.

You cannot create an offline account without creating an online one. (ie. Settings will return to default on game exit)

Another extremely strange thing is the SP campaign. UT2k7 was renamed to UT3. (for multiple reasons) It uses Unreal Engine 3, and it's the 3rd installment of both the Unreal and UT series. (Even though it's the 4th) So they hyped up this SP campaign like it was supposed to be some type of "Unreal" campaign. It's not. At all. It's just Team matches with cut scenes. It doesn't make sense. Unreal Tournament has always had a competitive Multiplayer focus. WHY they worked on a SP campaign that offers NOTHING and is, overall, entirely a waste of time, and then boast about it, is so confusing. In so much as they trashed so many MP game modes and options while they wasted their time on this.

I don't believe that UT3 even tracks your stats. (Like 2K4. Time using specific weapons, accuracy) I could be wrong. But I'm almost certain it does not.

OBVIOUSLY, I am comparing this to 2K4. On it's own, (and if you overlook the rancid menu's and submenus with no options in them - Think console) UT3 is pretty good. While the game may deserve an 8-8.5. In terms of what 2K4 had, and what they RIPPED OUT AND GUTTED from it, UT3 is not so good.

All I wanted was "UT2K7". None of this "Trying to add a SP campaign" and some weird urge to cater to the console owners while neglecting the PC owners crap. It seems as though it was entirely made for the console, and was ported to PC 10 months later missing tonnes of content the original had.

- M.T.Out