So... Unreal Tournament 3. I picked it up for my PSTriple, along with the new Ratchet and Clank game, yesterday at EB with a combination of store credit and Christmas gift cards. BTW, for all you Canadians out there, now would be the time to trade your old shit in... they add on $10 if you trade in 3 games, and $20 if you trade in 5. I managed to get $9 for my 360 copy of King Kong that I bought for 10 bucks, $7 for a free copy of Superman that came with Mass Effect... not bad amounts when you consider the shittiness of the games and EB's usual cheap assholery.

Anyway, I've become sidetracked already. My only experience with the UT franchise comes from a demo version of the original that came on a PC Gamer demo disc years back. It only had like 3 or 4 maps, and due to either a lack of an internet connection or just total noobness, I only played against bots, but still, I played the shit out of that demo for months. However, I never actually ended up buying the game, due to a combination of never going to a store that carried it (happens when your town only has about 4000 people in it), and the fact that the demo barely ran on my old computer and its mindblowing 333 MHz Celeron processor. Still, I loved that game from what I played of it.

Needless to say, I was pretty excited to pop in UT3 when I bought it, and did so right when I came home. The menu booted up, playing the same music that I'd come so accustomed to hearing from my old demo. Awesome. I jumped straight in to the multiplayer section, and... nothing. Couldn't find any game. Searched again. Nothing. And Again. Nothing. I tried one more time, and actually managed to get into a game... sweet! Until I started playing. The lag was absolutely massive, with shots coming out of the guns a good 3 or 4 seconds after they were fired. I quit and looked for a different match. No matches again. Agh! When I finally got into one, the lag was again terrible, and though I played until the end of the match this time, it certainly wasn't enjoyable.

Frustrated, I decided to try out the campaign mode. Not that I had particularly high hopes for a campaign mode where you just play multiplayer gametypes on multiplayer maps but... wow. It's like the game is trying to set videogame storytelling back by about 10 years. The dialogue is pretty hilariously terrible, and the voice acting is the same. Say what you will about Gears of War's story, but at least they hired some awesome voice actors who sold the shit that they were reading. On top of that, UT3's audio is fuzzy as shit, like I'm listening to it over a fucking radio, and sound effects sound similarly crappy. The single player cutscenes look like they came straight from Gears, with excessive slow-mo, zooms, swearing and 'spolsions. The main character looks like Marcus Fenix with Baird's goggles, facepaint, and a red cape. A motherfucking cape. Brilliant fucking idea, space marines really should dress more like Doctor Strange. And as far as the actual SP "missions" go... yeah, they're just some lame botmatches.

So, to summarize: disappointing. But I hop back into the game soon after posting this, I'm sure, and hopefully things will get better. I realize I sound bitchy, but man... I was really looking forward to this game. Anyway, thoughts? Unanimous diasagreement? Let me know.