Well, its finally here. The next installment on the Unreal franchise has hit the 360 and let me say its not one to miss. This first person shooter offers up enough to tear you away from the Call of Duty run you have been on for so long. Of course it is the same old song and dance with the usual modes, weapons and art style. What is new to the party is the maps and the odd attempt to change up some of the previous games modes to make them fresh and new to the user. Controls might not be as good as using a keyboard and mouse, but the 360 does a nice job at trying to keep the speed of the unreal games while still giving a lot of support to keep your eyes focused for frags. So yes the game runs fast and furious but not enough to make the game hard to play. The rest of the controls feel very good, with swapping weapons being just a breeze. Visually the game looks good, while not having the best visuals out there it does have a decent frame rate with no real slowdowns at all. Same can be said about the sound quality, with the only annoyance being that they AI likes to spout out one liners that are just terrible.
Fans of course will be use to the modes and game play elements of the franchise. Newcomers wont have a problem as well getting in on this. It has a lot to offer especially in the online department, however, the single player is kind of a failure in my opinion. The very odd try at a story mode, spanning four chapters with numerous missions in between. Modes consist of capture the node and capture the flag as actual events in a war style story that is just in poor taste. I know what they are doing in a sense, getting you ready to take your onslaught online. But it would of been best to just scrap a story and just make some tutorial levels. The saving grace in single player is the addition of online co-op which makes playing through the story mode more enjoyable since you actually have someone to help you out on some of the more difficult missions. Vehicles are back and in full force as well. Vehicles made their first appearance in Unreal Tournament 2004 and the roster has only grown. Of course the controls are nothing to drop your jaw at though. Meaning that you point your targeting reticule to an area, push forward on the left stick and your vehicle will try to make its way there, and hopefully not explode. It's when doing battle in small areas that this can be a bit touchy due to the lack of movement. You also for some reason cant move the canon on the Goliath while moving which is kind of dumb, but nothing to be too concerned with. The AI throughout is very good as well, being very ruthless and cunning to keep you pushing and pushing until you finally over come them. They will flank and use all the tricks in the book to overcome you and take you down.
Online is of course where the game shines. The amount of modes and weapons is sure to keep you clutching your controller to get one more frag in before the round ends. the maps as well are a reason to keep playing. With the 360 version coming packed with all three of the maps released thus far on PS3 and PC as download able content as well as five exclusive levels. Of course they are all built for the specific mode you are playing but all have a very good feeling to them. The game runs very smooth and of course having XBL on your side your sure to get an easy connection with tons of players. Online is the major chunk of this game and it does everything right.
So this of course is a great online experience and is user to keep you away from the modernized combat zone for awhile, having you yell out MULTI KILL!! Every time you see it flash up on your screen. So go out and pick this one up and I'm sure you will enjoy. Hopefully we will be seeing some type of user created downloads to XBL for use to have another frag fest in.
Overall - A
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