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Unreal Tournament 3
Developer(s)	Epic Games
Publisher(s)	Midway Games
Distributor(s)	Valve Corporation (Steam)
Designer(s)	Steven Polge
Composer(s)	Jesper Kyd Rom Di Prisco
Engine	Unreal Engine 3 with PhysX
Native resolution	720p
Version	2.1 (May 4, 2009)
Platform(s)	Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360
Release date(s)	Microsoft Windows[1] NA November 19, 2007 EU November 22, 2007 PlayStation 3[2] NA December 11, 2007 EU February 22, 2008 Xbox 360[3][4] AUS July 3, 2008 EU July 4, 2008 NA July 7, 2008 Mac OS X[5] 2009[citation needed] Linux[6] Release Date Unknown
Genre(s)	First-person shooter
Mode(s)	Single-player, split-screen, Multiplayer
Rating(s)	BBFC: 18[7] ESRB: M PEGI: 18+
Media	Blu-ray Disc, DVD, Download
System requirements	Microsoft Windows XP/Vista 2.0 GHz single core CPU (2.4 GHz dual core CPU or faster recommended) 512 MB RAM (1.0 GB RAM or greater recommended) 8.0 GB hard disk drive space NVIDIA 6200 or ATI 9600 video card (NVIDIA 7800GTX or ATI X1300 or faster recommended) DirectX 9.0c compliant sound card Internet (TCP/IP) and LAN (TCP/IP) play supported.

Unreal Tournament 3 (UT3) is a first-person shooter and online multiplayer video game by Epic Games and is the latest installment of the Unreal series after Unreal Tournament 2004. It is published by Midway Games and was released for Microsoft Windows on November 19, 2007, PlayStation 3 on December 11, 2007, and on Xbox 360 on July 3, 2008. The Linux and Mac OS X versions of the game are planned to be released as downloadable installers that work with the retail disc. As of August 2009, this is yet to be released. However, Ryan Gordon has uploaded screenshots of the game running on both platforms.^[8][9] Recently as a reply to a twitter post Ryan Gordon replied that the UT3 port for Linux was still being worked on.^[10]

Unreal Tournament 3 is the fourth game in the Unreal Tournament series and the eighth Unreal game, but it has been numbered in terms of the engine it runs on. The original Unreal Tournament uses the original Unreal Engine, while UT2003 and UT2004 use the Unreal Engine 2, and 2004 incorporates all of the content from 2003; therefore they are considered as the same generation. UT3 is subsequently part of the third generation, because it runs on the Unreal Engine 3, and does not reuse any content.^[11] In March 2008, Midway announced that UT3 had sold over a million copies worldwide.^[12]

[edit] Gameplay

Similar to the previous entries of the series, the game is primarily an online multiplayer title offering several game modes, including large-scale Warfare, Capture-the-Flag, and Deathmatch. It also includes an extensive offline single-player game with an in-depth story, advancing from the simple tournament ladder to such concepts as team members with their own individual personalities. The following game modes are included:

• Deathmatch
• Team Deathmatch
• Capture the flag
• Duel: A one versus one gametype. It uses a queueing system, the winner stays, and the loser goes back to the end of the queue. A typical match lasts fifteen minutes with the winner being the player with most frags.
• Warfare: An amalgamation of Onslaught and Assault. While basic game rules are equal to those of Onslaught, Warfare adds unlinked nodes which can always be captured (supplying the capturing team with vehicles and a spawnpoint) and countdown nodes (which, after being captured and defended for a certain period of time, create a vehicle or trigger an event helpful to the capturing team) as well as the orb, which can be used to instantly capture and defend nodes.
• Vehicle Capture the Flag: Capture the Flag, with vehicles as part of the map; this exists as a separate game type to Capture the Flag, above. Also, players are given a hoverboard rather than a translocator.
• Betrayal: This Instagib game type places "freelance" players on teams and, as the members of the team kill enemies, a pot with that team grows. Anybody on a team with a pot can 'betray' the rest of the team by shooting them, thus taking the pot, but they must defend themselves from the betrayed teammates for 30 seconds after that, else the previous teammates will cash in on extra points.
• Greed: Greed is a game that (like the UT2004 mod of the same name) focuses around collecting skulls dropped from dead players and capturing them in the opposing team's base. For Greed, the game uses all Capture the Flag and Vehicle Capture the Flag maps.

Modes not returning from the previous Unreal Tournament games include Invasion, Mutant, Onslaught, Bombing Run, Last Man Standing, Domination, Double Domination, and Assault; Assault was removed from the game during production.^[13]

[edit] Features

[edit] Vehicles

In this installment of Unreal Tournament, the vehicles are split into two factions, the Axon vehicles and Necris vehicles. The Axon vehicles are the same vehicles from UT2004, but several have significant gameplay changes. In addition, every player is equipped with a personal hoverboard on vehicle maps, which is a skateboard-like device that allows players to quickly traverse large maps and grapple onto other teammates' vehicles. However, the hoverboard is very vulnerable to attack, and any kind of hit will knock the player off the board and disable him or her for several seconds, thus being highly exposed to be killed by nearby enemies. Additionally, the player cannot use any weapons while on the board.

[edit] Teams

Unlike the previous Unreal Tournament games, the single player campaign does not follow a plot based around the Tournament Grand Championship, and therefore several of the teams within Unreal Tournament 3 are not Tournament competitors.

[edit] Limited Collector's Edition

On October 26, 2007, a limited collector's edition of the game was announced to be released on PC. This version of the game features an exclusive collector's edition tin and a hardcover art book. A bonus DVD is also included, featuring more than 20 hours of Unreal Engine 3 Toolkit video tutorials, the history of the Unreal Tournament series, and behind-the-scenes footage of the making of Unreal Tournament 3. The Limited Collector's Edition is being sold in the United States, Latin America, Europe, South Africa, Australia and most other territories.^[14]

[edit] Expansion

On March 5, 2009, a free update called "Titan Pack" was released for the PC, the PS3 version of the pack was released on March 19, 2009.

The pack includes a large amount of new content such as the five maps and two characters that were previously exclusive to the Xbox 360 version along with 11 brand new maps, two new game modes ("Greed" and "Betrayal"), the Titan Mutator (as a player does better, they can grow in physical size while also carrying a modified homing rocket launcher and a modified shock rifle, a Berserk powerup and UDamage powerup, as well as considerably more health and armor. From there, after attaining more points, the Titan can grow into a Behemoth which is twice the size, twice as powerful and dies with a redeemer blast after 40 seconds), a new power up (a version of the slow field deployable now in power up form), a new vehicle, two new deployables and the addition of stinger turrets. A new patch was also released in conjunction with the Titan pack, which allowed for various AI improvements (especially in vehicle modes), networking performance upgrades and added support for Steam Achievements (PC) and Trophies (PS3). It also adds a two player splitscreen mode (previously exclusive to the 360 version) and mod browsing for the PS3 version.

[edit] Differences in the Console Versions

[edit] Xbox 360 Version

On its release, the Xbox 360 version had five exclusive maps, two exclusive characters, two-player split-screen multiplayer mode, and all the downloadable content released by Epic already on the disc. With the release of the PS3 and PC "Titan Upgrade" patch on March 5, these versions offered the previously Xbox 360 exclusive content plus more.^[15] The Xbox 360 version does not support user-generated mods, and additional content will have to be verified by Microsoft before being released. In addition, it is the first Unreal Tournament console port to not offer keyboard and mouse support. The PS3 version supports actual mods ^[16] that can be uploaded and downloaded to the PS3's HDD or external media, and then activated through the menu.^[16] The Xbox 360 version supports a two-player split screen mode^[17]; however, split-screen was added to the PS3 version in the 2.0 patch.

[edit] PlayStation 3 version

The PS3 version supports both mods and keyboard inputs, and was said to be graphically superior to Gears of War by Mark Rein, vice president of Epic Games. The first patch 1.1 is about 44MB and was released on March 21, 2008. It adds the possibility for players of both the North American and European version to play together, fixes problems with some USB headsets, and now displays best ping servers on top of the list. Some updates are only applied on the North American version, since the PAL version released in March 2008 was partially updated.^[18] The 2.0 patch was released on March 5, 2009 and adds better PC mod support, smarter AI, 48 attainable Trophies, server-side improvements, an improved map vote, improved multiplayer support (aka split screen), and a new-made UI. The Titan Pack was released two weeks later, and includes 11 maps and a new game mode.

[edit] Reception

Unreal Tournament 3 received generally positive reviews from critics. The Windows version received an average score of 84% based on 38 reviews on the review aggregator Game Rankings,^[19] and an average score of 83 out of 100 based on 40 reviews on Metacritic.^[20] The PS3 version received an average score of 86% based on 41 reviews on the review aggregator Game Rankings,^[21] and an average score of 86 out of 100 based on 41 reviews on Metacritic.^[22] Xbox Magazine rated it 8.5 out of 10.^[23] Midway announced in March that they had shipped over 1 million units worldwide.^[24] GameSpot gave it a 8 out of 10 for the Xbox 360 version and 8.5 for PC and PS3.^[25] PlayStation the Official Magazine gave it 5 stars out of 5 in its February '08 issue and states "UT3 looks great, but it's every bit the stunner under the surface."

[edit] Music

Soundtrack

Unreal Tournament 3: The Soundtrack was written and composed by Jesper Kyd and Rom Di Prisco and released at the end of 2007.^[26] It was released on November 20, 2007 by Sumthing Else. It features Sandhya Sanjana as a guest vocalist.

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• The official UT3 website