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Unreal Tournament 3
Author: Joe MartinPublished: 23rd November 2007
Vehicles, Weapons and Monster Kills
So, vehicles first. Team matches are confined to just the two teams – Terran (read: human) and Necris (read: goth aliens) and each team has a different selection of vehicles. The vehicles are ostensibly well designed and balanced and for the most part there’s a good counter for every attack, but in actual gameplay it quickly becomes apparent that the Necris have superior vehicles by far.The vehicles run the usual gamut on both teams, though the Terran machines are more recognisable – tanks which are slow and powerful, jeeps that are fast and weak, and aircraft which are zippy but forever vulnerable. There’s some very interesting and unique vehicles throw in on both sides, like a Terran deployable cannon, but in almost every game I played the Necris vehicles were the key to my defeat or victory.
The Necris get a few vehicles which are far too over-powered, such as an invisible mine layer. It doesn’t matter that the vehicle is slow moving or mildly difficult to drive – it’s invisible!
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By far the most exploited vehicle in my experience though was a massive strider like vehicle which fires what can only be described as a death-ray. It’s an easy target to hit and is quite slow moving, being able to only fire in short bursts, but the laser it wields can eat through armour and health faster than a Borg can slaughter a ship full of red-shirt wearing trekkies.
The weapons are, thankfully, a more perfected affair and I didn’t have any troubles with them in any of the levels I played on.
The same familiar UT arsenal is back, from the controversial Bio-cannon which leaves blobs of goo everywhere to the awesome Flak Cannon. All the same fire modes are back too and weapons often have three or four types of attack. The Shock Rifle for example, which happens to be my weapon of choice, can fire either an accurate laser, a slow moving energy orbs or can use a gravity well attack by shooting the latter attack with the former.
That the weapons haven’t changed much isn’t as much of a weakness as it is with the game modes. Instead, it serves as a testament to how fantastic the array of weapons is, though new ones have been subtly reintroduced. The Stinger Minigun for example is actually different to the old minigun as it is more precise over range and has an anti-vehicle secondary fire.
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The thing I’m most grateful for though is something which never really stood a chance of leaving the game – the various taunts and commentaries. Not only can players shout pre-scripted taunts at each other and do scripted animations (watching someone do a pole-dancing impression when they capture a flag successfully is hilarious) but the game still responds to play actions. It starts of small with a “Double Kill!” every now and then from your chosen female or male announcer.
Just like in the old games though, if you build it up with dozens of consecutive kills then you’ll get a massive scream in your ears as the announcer yells “GODLIKE!”.
If you’ve got a female announcer selected then you’ll note that she sounds practically orgasmic when she yells that. I don’t know what sort of woman gets off on multiple fatalities, but I know what I like.