Having found a home on the both the PC and PlayStation 3 late last year, we’ve been hearing promises of Unreal Tournament III coming to the Xbox 360 for quite some time now. Yesterday, Midway and Epic announced that they will finally be shipping the title for Microsoft’s console this summer.
In terms of modes and gameplay, there are no huge changes with the Xbox 360 release. It will still maintain the single-player campaign, as well as Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, Capture the Flag, and Warfare modes. The game will include two extra characters, each with its own enhanced abilities, as well as five new maps exclusive for the Xbox 360; additionally, all of the previously released downloadable content will also ship on the disc. And there’s good news for people who actually like to be close to human beings – UT III on the Xbox 360 supports split-screen play.
The game was up and running at Midway’s Gamers' Day, and there’s not too much to report. The game looks good (although not quite as sharp as the PlayStation 3 version) and runs smoothly on the Xbox 360. I do prefer the feel of the Xbox 360 controller, but that’s at the expense of the game lacking keyboard and mouse support. The extra content 360 owners will be getting is nice, but the lack of proper support for user-generated content due to Microsoft’s strict “Anti-Things That Gamers Want” could genuinely hurt this title’s appeal for some. For sure, it’ll only be a matter of days before the community re-creates all five maps and the two extra characters for the PC and PS3.
Modifications aside, UT III shipped as a pretty solid game out of the box, and at the right price point (Midway recently announced price drops for both the PS3 and PC versions of the game) should definitely be worth a look for most fans of twitch-based first-person shooters. Hopefully Xbox 360 gamers will be able to pull themselves away from Call of Duty 4 long enough to give it a go when the game ships later this year.
Contest:
6:41 PM on 04.18.2008
| 
the user-made-character-models are brilliant!!!
I'm glad the 360 is finally getting it but it's a shame they wont partake in custom mods and whatnot because Microsoft are a greedy bunch.
Sorry Microsoft, you shot yourself in the foot when you disallowed user mods. Bye bye.
The 360 is so close to losing 2nd place to the PS3, you would think they would be stewing some good PR tactics...this is not what they need.
User mods and maps are nice to have, but 99% of them are utter shit.
Uh, have you tried ANY of the mods or maps? Almost every single one of them rocks on the PS3.
I also hope for a split-screen patch for the PS3 version, also. That should have been included in the beginning, and not having it makes me want to trade my copy in for Call of Duty 4 or something like that.
Thats absurd. Have you played UT3 for the ps3 or pc? MS needs to lighten up. User generated content is too much of a risk? I think you have more chance of getting a rrod than anything happening by dling some mods for ut3....
Xbox Exodus, man ... I warned you guys it would happen one day. :-)
Bargain bin in a few months, bad time to release a shooter.
I also think Microsoft was right to halt mods as the microsoft badge is a lot more appealing for a hacker than sony. Shame though, I used to love the mods on older UT games. There should really be some sort of clearance system like XBLA etc.
Risk? Lawl big time @ you because you are a TOOL.
Mods in some form may be coming, seems like someone was listening.
http://www.xbox360fanboy.com/2008/04/19/ut3-360-will-have-mods-in-some-form/
For all of their faults, Sony's trying to make the PS3 do it all, while Microsoft actively tries to avoid things that make sense in the interests of "not being too much like a computer" or "protecting the end-user." I doubt hackers could do any more damage to a 360 than its own design flaws currently do.
bones.
It's called humor. Get a sense of it.