Unreal Tournament III

Unreal Tournament III - (PC)
Developer: Epic Games
Format: PC
Genre: Shooter

The mother of all firefights returns

Over three years we've been waiting for this and finally UT delivers in all the frag-fest glory you'd expect. But it does come with a strangely lacklustre single player campaign hindered by a mind-clucking storyline. That aside, what you get is the superb game engine deathmatches, tournaments and dizzying arenas of combat.

The graphics this time round are eye-popping and combined with the level of frenzy that a good tournament insists upon, this is the expected rush for your reflexes. Fight it out with a choice of weapons in the usual gothic-like arenas, twisted alien cityscapes, planetary environments and for the best, the decaying spaceship complete with several sections of varying gravity that will test your aim and your tactics completely beyond your expectations.

Onslaught mode's been renamed Warfare and it's here that you'll probably spend much of your time. It's the set-up of two teams attempting to capture and hold the power nodes but with nifty additions. You'll be able to carry an orb and with it, its ability to take down the nearest enemy node. Perfect if you're finding yourself dug in against an opponent and you need to even the killing field a bit. It also lends a bit of martyrdom to the tactics when the match is in its tense moments. Other stalemate busters include orbs that allow a team to perform other special abilities, such as a power drain or moving structures. It's overwhelming, especially if you're a newcomer to the series, but totally enveloping.

Fans of tanking it round the scarred landscapes in vehicles will be jumping for glee. There's a host of transport, from the one-man hoverboard (a kind of Back To The Future skateboard) to airships and the awesome Darkwalker - a souped-up tripod with devastating firepower. That's not forgetting the strange Scavenger, allowing you to sci-fi Zorb it round the arenas.