Unreal Tournament 3 is Easily One of the Best Online Shooters, and Possibly the Best in the Series
This is a multiplayer game of course, single player is simply a sequence of bot matches played across every map in every game mode with 4 or 5 cut scenes in between chapters. The multiplayer is rock solid, guns are balanced, maps are plentiful and varied, and the game modes are standard, except warfare, but just as solid as ever.
For starters, the weapons in ut3 are typical unreal weapons you have about 10 to 12 weapons that are all very unique in their own right, and feel completely different from one another. Some standard fps weapons like rocket launchers and shotguns make appearances in ut3, but they are unlike the typical run of the mill ones we see in games like halo due to the fact that each gun has an alternate fire. The weapons are all extremely balanced, one weapon does not completely overpower another, yet you would preffer to have certain weapons like a flak cannon, aka the shotgun, over say the standard pistol. The weapons are truly very good and part of the reason unreal has always been so good.
The maps in ut3 are quite abundant. If i had to guess i would say there are about 60 different levels to play on. About a third of them are dedicated for deathmatch and team deathmatch, another third dedicated to capture the flag and vehicle capture the flag, and the last third is dedicated to warfare. The graphics in ut3 are top notch for a multiplayer only game, and are really enhanced because each level looks and feels entirely different from the last. Great map selection has always been a strong point for unreal and it continues in ut3.
The gameplay runs perfectly on the 360, and its controller. Of course, the gameplay isnt quite as fast as on a pc, but you wouldnt want it to be as you dont have the precision aiming with the joysticks that a mouse and dpad could give. However, the gameplay is still the fastest on a console, and feels perfect.
Warfare, the semi-new gameplay mode, is an objective based game in which you must capture specific areas along the map in a sequence to get to the enemies base to destroy their power core. I am not a huge fan of warfare, but it's relatively popular online, and the maps and vehicles make it a good and unique experience.
One thing must be said however, the friendly a.i. when playing warfare in campaign is absolutely horrible. I mean HORRIBLE. You essentially will have to capture all the points yourself and destroy their core lone wolf style because the friendly a.i. is completely incapable of doing anything. In fact, it would probably be easier to win without friendly a.i. on your team because a lot of times they will take the orb, which automatically captures a point for you, and end up dying. When they die, which they inevitably will, you lose the opportunity to immediately capture a point, which makes things much more difficult.
With all this being said, this game is an online shooter and so lag always comes into question. Rest assured that even though you will find games that lag you can always quit out and find another game that wont lag. I probably catch a game that has lag 1 out of every 10 games and i simply quit and go to another game. So, most of the time it's extremely smooth and a great experience.
Last but not least i would like to mention that the vehicles found in vehicle capture the flag and warfare are all very fun and interesting to drive/pilot. There are probably 10-12 vehicles, some human some alien (necris). The necris vehicles are much more interesting but nevertheless they are all good.
Unfortunately, this game isnt quite as popular online as you would expect it to be. I can still easily find player matches online that are full, but instead of there being hundreds of games occuring online to choose from there are merely 10 to 20. Unreal always has a strong fanbase so i dont see this game ever becoming deserted online, but you never know.
Overall, the game is an amazing game that has great graphics, great weapons, great vehicles, great levels, and is an overall great game. I cant recommend it enough if you love multiplayer first person shooters. Hopefully the price will come down on it soon and more people will pick it up, but it's still an awesome game that you should play.