Our friends over at Epic were hard at work bringing us Unreal Tournament for the Xbox 360. UT3 for the 360 has great looking visuals that really go hand in hand with the intense pace of the game.

You can play UT3 in single or multiplayer modes. In single player mode, you are paired up with bots to achieve certain objectives while you learn the buttons and new weapons. There are plenty of matches to experience, such as Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, Capture the Flag, Vehicle Capture the Flag, Warfare, and Duel. Single player serves its purpose for you to get a feel of the game by showing you different maps and game types, but really gets kind of old quickly. The bots that assist you during single player action can be less than helpful at times and matches like CTF can become long and boring because of the lack of support.

UT3 really shines in the multiplayer where you can jump online and get into some good old-fashioned UT fragging with 15 friends or enemies. There are plenty of game types to keep you entertained along with different awards you can get for getting a certain amount of kills with a rocket launcher or any specific weapon. Some modes are interesting like the mode where you have to destroy your opponent’s power node. Here, the other team has a node that can only be damaged when you control a central power terminal. It is like attack and defend, but with an interesting UT twist on it.

The game runs fast and smooth for the most part. I only ran into some stuttering a few times during single player action, which I found a bit odd. Controls aren’t overly complicated, the Left Trigger is your secondary fire and the Right Trigger is your primary fire for each weapon, A jumps and X uses your hover board. The hover board is a nice way to mix up speeds in the game, as you can jump on your hover board ala Back to the Future 2 and zoom over to a flag and then zoom back out. There are also plenty of weapons for you to choose from, but once you find the rockets you really don’t need anything else.

The Xbox 360 version has 5 exclusive maps that were not released on the PC or the PS3. Unfortunately, like its PS3 cousin, there is a lack of user created maps so you will be limited to use what Epic gave you on the disc.

If you are a Unreal Tournament fan this a must buy or if you are a fan of fast paced Quake style action this also a must buy. Don’t expect much tactical shooting in this one, just fast paced adrenaline action. There is also a nice bonus is on the disc as well in the form of a video on Gears of War 2.

Overall: 8 out of 10

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