The campaign feels just as intense and adrenaline-charged as playing against Live opponents, but that is also its greatest weakness. Why bother blasting through hours offline of the same thing you could be doing against more skilled competition online? Still, most are not buying an Unreal title for its offline modes. The game features six different modes online, though only two of them feel somewhat fresh. You get the standard solo and team-based deathmatch games and standard or vehicle based capture the flag modes, but those are hardly innovative at this point. The other two modes offer something different from the growing swarm of fps titles.
The most unique is 'duel', where the game lines up a queue of players waiting to take the place of the one most recently killed. The game puts just two players on a map, with the explicit goal of destroying the other. The other players waiting get to sit back and watch the action, made more tolerable thanks to the inclusion of voice chat between the members of the lobby. It is more fun than it sounds, though even the smaller maps can be a little too large for these hide and seek skirmishes. The last mode is 'warfare', where teams attempt to gain access to the opposition's power core by connecting their own core to it through various nodes found throughout the map. The battle for nodes is always engaging, as you need to decide whether to try to take over a node to protect your core or head straight back for the core to battle the other team firing at it. The first team to destroy the opposing core wins.
The online play is solid, with a few minor issues. Occasionally you fire your weapon and hear it fire off shots, but not actually see the gunfire. So long as you are close enough, you will still see the damage being done, so it is a small complaint. Without a healthy arsenal, Unreal Tournament could get boring in a hurry. Thankfully, despite the lack of throwing weapons like grenades, there is a nice selection of guns to pick from; each with their own strengths and weaknesses. Weapons respawn quickly, making it easy to get your hands on your favorite weapon at any point. The variety of weapons also gets a boost from an equally deep selection of vehicles to zip around maps with. The larger maps come equipped with a nice balance of air and ground vehicles to choose from. The ground vehicles also have the distinction of offering large, lumbering powerhouses like tanks or smaller, more nimble speeders to cross the level with. Even better, many of the ground vehicles have the ability to carry multiple players, with gun mounts to work as another player does the driving. The different vehicles have their own speed and handling capabilities, making it a strategic decision as to what you use to get the job done.
Still, vehicles and good old running are not the only options for crossing expansive maps. Depending on the level, your character either comes equipped with a hoverboard or a hand-held transporter. The hoverboard controls decently enough, with some minor cornering issues when you get in close-quarters. The ability to connect to vehicles via grappling hook makes your trips a little faster, though the downside of the speedy Marty McFly device is the inability to take a hit or shoot back. Even minor damage sends you flying off your board in a hurry, and with no guns equipped when riding it makes traveling through enemy bases a rough task. The transporter has the same issue regarding the inability to equip a weapon, since it replaces any weapons you have equipped once you select it, but it is decidedly better at avoiding enemy fire. You simply fire off a disc in the direction you want to 'jump', and then press the button again to warp there. To keep things fair in Capture The Flag matches, the flag cannot warp with you.
The controls are much faster than most 360 first-person shooters, falling more in line with the twitchier Orange Box set than the less nauseating Halo 3. Still, the sensitivity and turning speed are adjustable, so those adverse to the quickly spinning fps titles can make changes as needed. While those who leave the turning speed on the original settings will have an advantage over those that ratchet it down, the gameplay feels fair enough to keep you competitive regardless of your slower settings.
With sixteen levels to choose from, you will be exploring them for all their secrets for quite some time. There is a solid split between extremely large maps for full sixteen-player action, medium sized locales with vehicles for around ten players, and smaller, compact maps without vehicles for smaller matches. Regardless of the map, they are all brilliantly designed to deliver enough nooks and crannies to please stealthy sniper players, but plenty of wide-open spaces and tight hallways for shootouts and close-quarters battles. The developers did an excellent job delivering a set of maps where there is not excessive moaning when certain ones show up.
Despite all it offers in terms of maps, vehicles, and weapons, the 360 version of Unreal Tournament III is unfortunately lacking. While PC and Playstation 3 users get essentially the same content to play with, the ocean of depth of their experience makes the 360 version look like the kiddie pool. While 360 owners get a finite experiences, other versions of the game offer infinite replay value thanks to a wealth of user created content that keeps things fresh. The gaping hole in this version takes the game from a must-own title you will play for months to a game that will last you until you tire of what is on the disc. Sadly, this also makes the game's achievement point set more difficult to swallow, with the vast majority of the points awarded for playing weeks worth of games over Live. Unreal Tournament III is a deep, rewarding game, for those can look the other way at what they are missing.
