Unreal Tournament III Collector's Edition

List Price: $29.99 Discount Price: $26.00

Features:

• Detonate your opponent from a distance with theShock Rifle or blast away at close range with the Flak Cannon. Over two dozen weapons and vehicles have been enhanced for maximum killing potential.
• Fight side-by-side with or compete against new and returning characters from the Unreal universe, all with enhanced abilities. Enhanced Popular Game Types: Including Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, Capture the Flag, an all-new Warfare mode.
• This is Unreal Tournament like you've never seen it before! The Necris invasion has begun, and your clan was one of the first to be slaughtered. Head to the front lines and join this Epic battle to defend humanity while taking your revenge.
• Online Innovations: Unreal Tournament 3 brings back all the award-winning online features of previous Unreal Tournament games, plus seamless loading on servers, improved matchmaking, and co-operative campaign play online.
• PC version bundled with the award-winning Unreal Engine 3 Toolset: Build your own levels, game types, and more, or download the latest mods from the massive Unreal community.

Accessories:
PC Gamer (1-year)	Games for Windows: The Official Magazine

Customer Reviews:

Awesome gameplay, but you need the power to run it !  [Posted on 2007-12-24]
Although it has some of the feel of UT2004, it has a lot of changes to make it oh so much better. It's a really addictive game weather you're playing against the bots, or playing online. The bots are using a much better AI this time as well. The only downside is that it is kinda making me want to upgrade my system due to some choppiness at times. I still give it 5 Stars just due to the addictive action. My specs are below in case anyone is curious.

My current system

OS - Vista Ultimate - (UT3 runs better in XP than in Vista for me...FYI)
CPU - Athlon 64 X2 6400 - 3.2GHz (Athlon 64 X2) - Below the recommended specs, but does ok.
Memory - 2GB (Upgraded from 1GB, thinking I need more)
Video - ATI X850 XT (256MB) - In XP...make sure you have the most current driver (Catalyst).

Outstanding Gameplay, but... [Posted on 2007-12-27]
I've been a UT fan since the moment I saw the original Unreal game run on Glide via a Voodoo card back in the late 90s. It has been a long time waiting for UT3. Was it worth it? Absolutely! The look, feel, and gameplay of UT3 is a total win for Epic and Midway. I especially like the added realism obtained with a PhysX card and maps designed to exploit it, of which there are currently two from Ageia, with the promise of more to come.

But... I don't care for the user interface that you use to set up the game. Even with the v1.1 patch. Many of the settings are only adjustable via the command line or by editing ini files. It shouldn't have to be that way.

And... why all the foul language? I wanted to show my kid some of the game and I unplugged my headphones so she could hear the sound effects. I was totally embarrased by the cursing and swearing of the AI characters (yes, offline AI characters)! This also is supposed to be controllable by editing ini files, but it hasn't worked for me yet. Totally unnecessary. Do Epic programmers think foul language makes the game better??!

As for the extras included with this collector's edition, the bonus DVD is awesome (as usual), but the mini-hard covered book of concept art has low value for me. I would have rather it been full of maps and tips/tricks and weapon details and storylines, etc. to add to the UT3 universe, its lore, and improve my overall gaming experience.

I call this game INSTALLATION NIGHTMARE... [Posted on 2007-12-28]
Why Midway would release a game with so many installation bugs is beyond me. I have TWO state-of-the-art computers created specifically for gaming and neither of the systems will play this game. It won't start at all. And then... Just to add to the annoyance, it appears that Midway's customer support team took the week after X-Mas off, so there's absolutely no help on that end. Good job guys. You just lost another customer.

UT 3 review [Posted on 2007-12-29]
Been looking forward to this game for a long time. a loyal gamer to the UT series.The modding tools are one of the best there is.The gameplay mechanics are solid. However the single player campaign and the new orb feature for warfare are extremely lacking and annoying. The graphics are gorgeous. too many of the wanted game types from older UT games are missing,leaving an extreme workload for modders. The engine is still hands down the best yet.

More Bang for Your Buck! [Posted on 2008-05-08]
At the time of this writing, May 8, 2008, UT3 ROCKS!

First, the bad (and NOT much about this game is bad!):

1) There were some bugs that I found with the initial install of the game on my PC, namely some menu item issues and some video features issues, but as far as I can tell ALL of these issues were resolved with the 1.2 patch. This patch is available for download, for free, so no worries. Just update the game, and v1.2 works slick as heck.

2) The second issue is controlling vehicles. It's either that I am just no good at keyboard controls, or the vehicles were designed to work with a controller. If this an issue, I would suggest trying to remap keys or maybe adding a joystick controller. I haven't bothered to do either, mainly because the war maps are just as fun on foot or on hoverboards as they are in vehicles. I found these maps just as fun no matter how you decide to play them.

3) Another issue - if you could even call this an "issue" - is that the Deathmatch game mode has a very familiar feel to the previous UTs, namely UT99 and UT2004, however, I think this iteration of UT has some of the best look and feel to the game, even better than UT2004 which I enjoyed quite a bit. I actually like the gameplay of this version of UT more than any previous version of the game.

The Good:

This is definitely, far and away, the best looking and feeling UT ever. The artwork and graphics are jaw-dropping on a decent machine (I have a core 2.4 duo and an Nvidia 8600m GT with 256mb RAM and 2GB system RAM). Load "DM-Ferarless" for just one example. The levels are all interesting, quite different, and very fun to play and that's just the deathmatch part of the game. If you get into warfare or capture the flag maps, the game offers some very different game experiences and seems to be to be a vast improvement over UT2004 in almost every conceivable way. Everything is done top notch. I was fairly happy with UT2004, but got bored of it rather quickly - mainly because of the game play and some maps that got boring rather quickly. Not so with UT3. In this version, the more I play it, the more I love it. I didn't expect that reaction when I bought this game, but after playing hour after hour, I can really feel how much love and dedication went into making this game. When I first played it, I expected to just play a map or two for about an hour. I ended up playing the game for about 6 hours the first night - just to see more! If you are a UT fan, you'll more than get your money's worth.

After owning and playing every version of UT so far, UT3 takes me back to how fun and engaging the original UT99 was when it came out - but this is oh so much better at the same time. Epic has taken all the best aspects of previous versions of UT and elevated the "frag fest" high-paced action of traditional FPS games to a new level. The audio is stellar, the game effects are awesome (such as hot gases physically warping your view of in game objects), the weapons are all great, and this game definitely has the nebulous "fun factor" nailed.

But that's just the game itself...

The very BEST part about this collector's edition package is the additional bonus content DVD. This DVD includes some 20 hours of instructional videos detailing EXACTLY how to use UnrealEd 3 (the actual Epic map / level editor) to create your very own custom UT3 maps / levels using anything and everything that ships with UT3, including every texture, every model, and every feature that you see in UT3. If you take the time to learn it (I've been learning for about 3 weeks, about 2 hours a night, so far), you will find out that UnrealEd 3 is one of the easiest and best level editors ever made (and yes, I have been a professional Mission Designer for PC games), so there you go. For the additional $10 bucks you get hundreds of hours of fun not just playing the game, but creating content for the game itself.

You will need to go to Epic's forums to find out how to actually publish and distribute your custom maps or mods, but if you are serious about doing your own maps or levels, all of the resources are available either in this game itself or online. Also, Epic changed a couple of features of the editor itself after the instructional videos were made, but these issues are very minor, and I know why Epic changed the editor slightly: To make sure that every map created with UnrealEd 3 will work on every installation of UT3. (A rather nice touch if you think about it.)

The bottom line? Buy this game and feel good about having it in your game collection.

If you have never played UT, this version is arguably the best version of UT so far and you'll totally get your frag-fest money's worth by buying it. If you are a UT fan already, I think this game will speak for itself once you play it for a few hours and see much of what the game has to offer. To me, this is one of those games where the more you play it, the more you feel like you got a great bargain at $50. This game is definitely not sitting on a shelf - like some other PC games I bought recently.

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