The Unreal Engine renders beautiful scenery, although I had to turn some visual details down to get a consistently high framerate (on my P4 1.6ghz, 512mb RAM, GeForce 4 Ti 4200 128mb). Some of the levels are really, really pretty - and really pretty big! The Unreal engine's handling of outdoor areas continued to impress, although it is still obvious that tricks are used to ensure that you can never see too far away (occlusion culling keeping framerates high); on the few levels where this isn't the case, framerate stutters. Sound quality is crisp (despite awful voice acting!), especially the music which is excellent (the intro music really made me want to play Deus Ex!). Control is reasonably sharp, but has the 'slightly squishy' feel that dogged Unreal 2 (but not the original UT); it is less like QuakeWorld's fast turns and tight air control, which is more realistic but also more frustrating.
The game itself is a mixed bag. Double domination (like Domination from the original UT, but tweaked) and Bombing Run (basically rugby with guns; it reminds me a lot of Urban Brawl from Shadowrun!) are both great, CTF is decent, and deathmatch isn't bad - but the squishy controls prevent it from feeling great. The instant action mode is nice. League play feels like a bad attempt to squash EA Games style management into an FPS; if the bot personalities were a bit more differentiated, it might be worthwhile. As it is, they universally suck - so it really doesn't matter who is on your team. In one Bombing Run game, neither side's bots ever actually found the ball!
Map design is mixed. All the maps are beautiful, but there are fewer 'flavour' maps than in the original UT; no ships, flying fortresses, or low gravity maps (at least that I've found so far). Maps instead focus on being balanced. This leads to solid, predictable games; fun, but not as fun as flying around a low gravity parking lot!
Weapons are a very mixed bag. The bio-rifle is back (ugh). The flak-cannon has a slightly less spammy spread than the original UT, but is still nice. The shock rifle is about the same as before, albeit slower moving (MUCH easier to perform combos!). The sniper rifle has been replaced with the lightning gun, the single most stupid weapon ever: its zoom is slow, it has a recharge time, and it looks goofy. It also seems to require less precision than the old sniper rifle, while having a little lead time on firing. So you are more likely to hit, but less likely to get a headshot. Sadly, a lone sniper can no longer hold a base in CTF!
Overall, this game would be good for $20, but isn't worth full price. It is a really hard product to place; it is heavily tournament oriented, quite balance obsessed - but lacking much required skill to make yourself noticed (lots of spammy weapons, reduced emphasis on headshots!). Epic have announced that UT2004 is coming out - maybe it'll be better!
Mood: geeky
Music: Ozzy Osbourne: Crazy Train
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