Developer: Epic Games
Rating: M For Mature. Strong Language, Gore, and Intense Violence.
Systems Available: PC, Xbox360, PS3.
Average Score: 8.7/10

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PC System Requirements (Recommended): * Dual-core CPU: Multi-threading is supported and should provide much better performance

* 64-bit version to be available with better textures

* Renderers: SM3.0, 2.0, possible DX8 renderer

* HDR supported

* Physics: Novodex Physics Engine

* AGEIA PhysX PPU supported.
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Story: You are Repear, a rogue renegade fighting against the Necris when suddendly, the leader, murders everyone in your village. You must rise up in the ranks of the battlefield and hunt down the woman who slaughtered everyone you know.

The story, at best, is mediocre. Most of the action you experience isn't really noted as part of an actual storyline. Instead, you will be too busy whisking away at getting the best frags (Or kills) as humanly possible. On an 'Epic' (No pun intended) scale of battlefield. The story tries it's hardest to make the gameplay types seem realistic. But does not at all redeem itself. Capture the Flag is known in the story as bringing an abbreviated "F.L.A.G" back to your starting location to bring power back to your base. The story makes fun of this with subtle puns and not memorable at all.

As you progress through the "Story" the challenges get tougher when you soon realise that in battles you will, and I mean -will- get outnumbered. Thankfully, the game likes to throw out tokens you can use that help you in any way possible. Like more allies that fight with you, or a handicap to your enemy fighters. If you earned one of these tokens, you can easily spend them on any battle you wish. If the challenges get tough and it seems you can't progress through the main campaign, you can use them to make the game more forgiving. At times, the game will become unforgiving.



So as you can see. The story tries it's hardest to become a gripping story. But honestly, do you care? You shouldn't. The good news is that the story part of this review is basically the poor part of this review.

Graphics
This game is made using the Unreal Engine 3 kit. The same kit that is used in most of today's videogames. Including Gears of War, Borderlands, Red Alert 3, and more. So needless to say if you have played any of those games you should be expecting quality work. Even if it is a three year old game. It still holds up on the graphics department.

Physics engine remains top notch on a PhysX graphics card. And thankfully, a decent RADEON card can handle huge amounts of action on screen with no slow downs whatsoever. The XBox360 port lacks in this department. PS3 version it really depends. I'll get more into this in just a moment.

The look and feel for this game is incredible. Even on home consoles. It handles itself rather well and is maintained fairly good. Meaning you won't get hiccups on the normal game on home consoles. The only side effect I have seen on the console ports is that the audio sounds "Watered down" compared to the PC version.

But let's hop back over to the ports for a moment. While all three versions hold themselves up good. There is something worth noting before picking this game up.

If you own an Xbox360, you will NOT be getting the most out of this game. For starters, this game is modable, which I will explain more in the next section. While the PS3 and PC version support mods, the Xbox360 version does not. Second, while it's true the PS3 version supports mods, maps and mutators that are optimized for the PC version also have to be optimized for the PS3 version as well. Short story? If the game looks extremely good on the PC version. It's not going to have the same look as the PS3 version. Various reasons aside; it still holds up. Most maps and mutators that you download also come with a risk for both PC and PS3. However, downloading a high quality map for the PS3 version may include framerate issues and untreated visual effects. On the Xbox360 version; it was reported that these issues were in the game already. Again, no mods are able to be downloaded for the Xbox version.

Gameplay

This is a First Person Shooter, an extremely gory fast paced FPS game that is driven by the community. When Epic Games released the game. They announced that no patches were necessary. And gave out the same devkit used to make the game in the hands of the community. Saying "If you want the game patched: Make it yourself"! And to this day, this game is still heavily active in the PC world.

The gameplay description for this game is simple: Kill, or be killed. And with several Gameplay types like CTF, Team Deathmatch, Onslaught, and more. There are many different game types to satisfy your needs. Getting bored with the game's actual maps? There are over 310,000 maps to download and over 70,000 mods you can download to change the game completely. ALL FOR FREE!

Like to play a game with Low Gravity? Sure, done. Want to play a DM game with nothing but rocket Launchers? Go ahead, and to add silly effects like confeddi instead of blood? Awesome. Want to add more than one mutator to the map to have one crazy experience!? There is no limit on what you can do. Making this game highly replayable. Don't like the thick hulkey men you play as and want to play as the Heavy from TF2 complete with his taunts and everything? Now you are thinking! That's easily downloadable and easy to find thanks to the community.

I can honestly go on and on about the gameplay for this game but it would take months to type up everything. To summerize, the game is already fun, but if you get bored you can easily find maps and mods to spice things up a bit and get back into the action.

The Good

- Graphics are incredible even after being on the market since 07.
- Gameplay has you coming back for more.
- Community still going strong. Hundreds of new maps and mods being pumped out daily
- $20 admission fee. Cheaper on home consoles.
- Free "Black Edition" expansion
- PS3 / PC version hold up

The bad
- Story is forgettable. Boring even.
- Home consoles inferior to PC version. Xbox360 being the worst due to framerate issues.


Final Thoughts

If you like FPS games. Unreal Tournament is one of the biggest FPS games out on the market and for a good reason. it's addicting gameplay, colorful scenery, and all around grand presentation makes this game a great pick up for anyone willing to take the dive.



Time Played: Over 890 Hours on the PS3 version, 100 Hours on the Xbox360 version, and 210 Hours on the PC version. (8 Hours on Steam). Campaign missions completed on the hardest difficulty and ranks online on a K/D ratio of 13.8 and 72% accuracy. Copyright Epic Games, Vizzed, ESRB, and binaryDMG for the Youtube Videos