While Unreal Tournament was always synonym for quick and rock solid multiplayer violence, Epic this time also added a story. Don't expect a full single player experience that can compete with games like Halo 3 or Gears of War, but a simple story that forms the basis to explore all maps and modes of the game.

The storyline starts on the colony Twin Souls where everything looks ok until suddenly the Necris and their servants the Krall decide to drop in. You are a soldier called Reaper and together with your sister and a couple of colleagues you try to resist the hostiles. In the end only you and your group of soldiers end remain and as Ronin (soldiers without a leader) you fight with the help of your new bosses, the Izanagi, fight the Necris invasion.

All available modes get a logical explanation during the single player. Capture the Flag is a fight for a critical component that feeds the respawners on the field and accidentally carries the abbreviation F.L.A.G. A Team Deathmatch is explained by the fact that there are a limited amount of respawns and that you need to get rid of those of the enemy get depleted first. Each mode does get an explanation that nicely fits with the single player experience this way.

As you progress in the campaign you'll also get to unlock cards. These can give you an extra advantage in future combat by removing some opponents from the battlefield or give more lifepoints to your team.

Depending on the map where you'll fight, it can be that you've got vehicles at your disposal. These go from little futuristic jeeps and bombers to giant robots that seem to have escaped from movies like War of the worlds. On vehicle maps each player also has his own hoverboard. With this cool piece of technology you can move yourself around quickly and even hitchhike with other vehicles. If you play on a smaller map you'll get a pistol instead of the hoverboard and with this you can teleport over short distances.

Fighting with and against AI-controlled opponents is fun, but at a certain moment you'll want to get a real challenge and you'll have to go to Xbox Live for that. Standard the game has sixteen maps that go from areas in a snowstorm to a warzone in the middle of a tropical jungle. All these maps may be fun but you need to have a reason to fight on them and that you get from six different modes.

Five of those, like Deathmatch and Capture the Flag, will be well-known amongst the FPS-lovers, but Warfare is a new one that Epic has added to their game. You can compare this with the only fun of Frontlines: Fuel of War. Both teams have an energy source that needs to be defended at all cost and they're connected through a series of nodes. To win you need to capture the nodes in a particular order until you're connected with the hostile energy source. In other words you move the frontline up towards the enemy. From that moment on the hostile source is vulnerable and can be damaged.
The opponent of course can try to cut the link, but the advantage is that the nodes also work as spawn place and even equip you with advanced vehicles or weaponry.

All these things are also wrapped in a nice graphical jacket that will make you drool. The game is after all developed by EPIC Games, inventors of the Unreal Engine 3.0 and the game does justice to it. No matter which environment you're in, whether it's a city that's destroyed or a frozen base, everything is taken care of up to the details and is a feast for the eye. The same can be said about the vehicles en weapons which have been finished to the finest detail, including the dashboard. Of course we can't forget the characters as we'll be staring at them a lot and it can be said that you'll see your enemies die in beautiful and never-seen ways.

Of course the graphics aren't the only thing people look at, some also pay attention to sound as this can bring additional immersion. Luckily we can say that also here the devs have done a good job. The famous oneliners where opponents laugh at you when you die are still present and if you're not careful you'll hear them more than you would like. The sounds of the weapons give a feeling of reality and when you tear an opponent to shreds with your jeep your ears will enjoy it even more.

We've covered just about everything except for one thing and that's the community. Without this a game can't survive online. Luckily I can say that there's aren't just enough players available, they're also quite mature. No irritating little buggers that are constantly shouting through their microphones but friendly players with whom you can have a decent conversation.

And still we haven't finished our review as the Xbox360 has some additional advantags compared to its PS3 brother. PThere are five extra maps, several new characters and a split-screen possibility for two players as compensation for the later release. Of course it has to be said that qua controls the PC still is the best due to the fact that Unreal Tournament is primarily developed for this platform. Though it may be mentioned that frustration due to bad controls will be minimal on consoles.