Over all: I really like this game, but it is not perfect. Here is why I like it, I’ll give the good first. It’s fast paced. It’s old school. It plays just like Unreal Tournament 2k4. The same weapons with a new look. The controls are great. The sixaxis controller works really well, it might take some adjustments, it defaults to a slower smoother sensitivity, but if you want it to be twitchy like the pc version you can make it so. The graphics are indeed amazing. Not in the way we have come to expect though, this is gorgeous grime. Ut2k4 had this glassy glossy metallic look to it. This looks like they threw mud and oxidation on that and up’d the textures and bump maps. With cobble stone ground in some areas. Some of the more sci fi space maps are simply mind blowing. The good thing is that there are a lot of levels, and they vary immensely depending on the game type you are playing. To big and open to tight and claustrophobic, it is all here. The single player is decent enough and lets you get your head around the levels before going into multiplayer. I recommend playing the single player for a while honestly, I’ll explain why later in the cons. The new vehicles are amazing, The hover board adds a lot to the ctf levels. The Necris vehicles are where it is at though, The Necris Darkwalker is fracking amazing. There is another tentacle vehicle that rolls up into a ball, this is a blast as well. The aliens look awesome and intimidating. The cut scenes look great and high def. I also like the design of the new levels. This makes it a huge step up from 2k4. Below, to get the video trailer to play please click on the “Unreal Tournament III - Sinlge Player Trailer” text in the player window.

Now lets talk about what i don’t like. There is this strange future orient theme to some of levels that I don’t care for. I don’t like the gears of war meat head roided out super dumb military jock(all they need to add is a football helmet) characters that dominate the single player story, no neck Barry Bonds anyone? If mankind’s future is in the hands of these dumb jocks, please help us. They all look like they are wearing over sized futuristic moonboots as well, and does not fit well with how fast the game is, nothing that big and bulky and clumsy looking could possibly move as fast and nimble as they do. I think the art direction is way off here. Maybe it worked for gears of war, but it does not work at all here. Gears was a slow game. One good spin though, I am not stuck playing these characters in multiplayer, I can choose to play as the aliens, and then I get to shoot these dumb jocks, so there is a reward after all. This plays more like a cracked out quake. What is hurting the multiplayer more than anything is this rushed release and limited supplies. So when you get on a death match server its fine, but ctf is barren, hardly anyone playing, and the pings suck. I think this will pick up when the supplies are better and more people buy the game. After xmas things should get better. Everyone is still playing call of duty 4. This feels a little dated but I don’t care. They catered to much to the die hard unreal fans, and I think this may hurt them a little in the end. The 16 player limit is annoying. Seriously, some of those ctf maps are so huge, and only 8 people per side makes it feel like a barren wasteland with no one to fight at times. They should of slimed down the levels once they limited the player count to 16(maybe they plan on expanding the player limit later, who knows). Honestly, I think they wanted everyone to use the hover board more in these areas, so that makes sense and takes some getting used to. I am willing to bet, once the server are more active, this will not be as big of an issue. The documentation does not explain how in game voice chat works with your head set. I’m still trying to figure this out, I have read, that it is in this game. I hope it is.

So much is done right though. This plays extremely well, it’s tight and solid. The framerate is good even when a lot of stuff is going on. I recommend doing the full install, many people have reported bugs when playing it from the blueray dvd disc, so in the options do the full install, this may help relieve some of the problems from what I have read on various forums. Oh and let us not forget MOUSE AND KEYBOARD support on ps3. This is amazing. I thought I was over mouse and keyboard controls because of how used I got to the sixaxis in resistance and call of duty 4. Then I hooked up my USB mouse and keyboard, and started playing this. Oh man. I missed this control scheme so much. And playing this hd game with these controls on my 34inch trinitron xbr hd tv is a dream come true. This is what I was waiting for the whole time. I am going to demand this feature from now one in all first person shooters on the PS3. UT3 has it, now all the other fps games need to patch their games to have it as well. This is a MUST! Granted, I had to set up a tv tray to put my mouse and keyboard on, I didn’t care.. ahahha.

What sets this apart from other first person shooters? I think the warfare mode (used to be called onsalught in 2k4) is what sets it apart from the others. Ok I think the mechanics win out, and I prefer the fast game play, I get annoyed with how sluggish cod4 feels sometimes, this is the perfect cure for that. Warfare adds a lot to the team work and strategy of multiplayer fps games. You must take over nodes that connect to the enemies hq, once you have a path built and maintained and connected to the enemy hq, you can attack the hq core, once that is destroyed, your team wins. The nodes are cool. You have to guard them, and heal them with the link gun’s alt fire mode. This is my favorite multiplayer mode of all time, and what made me keep coming back to the dated unreal tournament 2004. I prefer the new version in UT3, They improved on it. This makes me very happy.

6.5 Presentation
The hd graphics rock, the art direction screwed up the humans to make them all look and sound like stupid jocks. The menus are last gen, I prefer how call of duty handles it’s online stuff. But it was cool that my buddy joined me when I thought I was playing single player campaign mode.

8.5 Visuals
This game looks amazing on a good 720p display. Explosions rock, the new giant vehicles rock, the bigger tanks rock. The space themed maps are amazing. The weapons look great. The textures are nice and gritty. Dystopia industrial hell look to everything. The animation is spot on as well. This is what they got right.

4.0 Audio
This is crap. The music blows. The Audio quality sounds so compressed, the visuals look so amazing, and the sound is so crunchy and awful, there is no excuse for this. Don’t even get me started on the voice acting and dialogue, beyond awful, the way they use swear words is annoying and I usually am a fan of the crass as well, so that is really saying something. The bots swear at you and act like douche bags, and you cannot turn it off. This is so annoying.

9.7 Game Mechanics
This is old school gaming. Plays just like UT2k4. The sixaxis controls are spot on. But where this game simply pulls away when compared to other first person shooters on the ps3 is MOUSE AND KEYBOARD support. Way better controls than the sixaxis. Not kidding. Every fps should support MOUSE AND KEYBOARD on PS3. Sony needs to pressure the developers to add this to their games! This will give it the edge over any console, even the WII.

9.5 Replay
Multiplayer Capture The Flag with vehicles, there is nothing else out there like this, simply amazing. This is fast and frantic, makes other games feel like they are stuck in quicksand. Even Call of Duty 4 feels sluggish after playing this. Sony has opened up the ps3 development unlike anyone else. Epic will put out tools soon to allow users to make their own maps and graphics for this game. This game has a bright future, this is only the beginning.

8.3 Total Score.
(out of 10 / not an average)

And on my final note. I bought my ps3 because of this game, even before it came out, they announced the mouse and keyboard support, so for me, this is a system seller if you are rabid 2k4 fan like me. This is what sets the ps3 apart from the 360 as well. Mouse and Keyboard support. Finally the pc gaming experience in the living room. This is the first to deliver it. This game is not that innovative in the game play department. It feels old school, but the first to give us pc old school in the living room. That is fine by me, because unreal tournament 2004 was my favorite multiplayer fps ever made. If you loved ut2k4, then this is perfect for you. If you like call of duty 4, or graw2 or rainbow 6, this might totally throw you off. But these should not be compared, because they are totally different game experiences. The new vehicles give me enough to look past the fact that it is pretty much a retread of 2k4 with updated graphics. They changed onslaught mode to warfare mode, pretty much the same. The graphical updates on the CORES you blow up really convince you that you are damaging it, in 2k4 it was hard to tell visually, there are a lot of new details like this that refine the game above 2k4. I really like this game despite some of it’s short comings. I say this is a buy and not a rent because the user created content will be coming soon. Go buy it: Click here to buy UT3 for PS3.

After playing more, I’m adding this to the review. With mouse and keyboard control, there is no way to lower the raptors altitude, you can raise it by using the spacebar. I cannot find a key to lower it back down. I even checked the keyboard settings. No crouch control. So this totally sucks for playing those types of vehicles with mouse and keyboard. On the sixaxis you press in the analog sticks to raise and lower the raptor.. WTF.. I keep my sixaxis close. If I need to go down in the craft I just use the sixaxis for a sec. Another way is to eject and fall and hit e again to re board as your falling, cause the craft falls too. Also, your comrade soldiers have horrid AI, I mean as stupid as door nails. Ok, I forgot to mention the orbs, in warfare mode, you get these orbs that will take over a node with full health if you get it there without dying. The other soldiers always grab the orb, and then don’t deliver it. I’ve seen them with in 2 feet of the node, just standing there, or chasing after something else. More than anything i want to grab it, but they do first. Sometimes I just shoot at them for grabbing it, to bad there is no friendly fire. The most idiotic and frustrating thing i have seen in a video game for a really long long time. It fits right in with the art design, ball hog dumb jocks. Must of been how they wanted it. They had better fix this, it’s so damn annoying. Also, In the more advanced levels, it starts to slow down when there is a lot of action. Sometimes even the enemies will be napping, I mean dead still staring into oblivion, sometimes they jump to life, sometimes the just get shot and die with out reacting at all. I’m going to lower the score from an 8.6 to an 8.3 because of it. In multiplayer it’s not a big deal, but in single player campaign mode, it’s a huge deal. They had better fix these issues with a patch soon or I will be very pissed off.

Music Listened to while writing this review: Cocteau Twins - Blue Bell Knoll, Treasure, Pinkopake.

PS: The only reason call of duty 4 gets a higher score, is because the single player in cod4 is a must have experience. The art direction is better in cod4 as well. and the sound in cod4 is better too. Buy cod4 first, then this. Well, unless you prefer face paced action and mouse and keyboard, then its a no brainer, UT3 all the way.