So we were at Midway’s Gamers’ Day in Vegas and outside by the pool there were loads of 360s set up and running Unreal Tournament III, so we had a little go. And guess what? It plays exactly how you think it would – all about running around in circles strafing and shooting people in the head.

Now maybe it was the heat of the Vegas sun, or the fact we could have been getting drunk with TNA wrestlers (we eventually did and it was awesome), but we just felt rather blasé about it. There are more contributing factors of course: we were playing it while standing up, because Mark Rein stole our seat, was one. But that shouldn’t count, not if we’re supposed to be objective about it, and it’s not like we couldn’t have gone and got another chair.

Anyway, it’s more the fact that Unreal III has been out on the PS3 already – it had a timed exclusive thing going on. And being in the magazine world we had it in the office before Christmas last year, a couple of months before it came out on PS3, so it’s not like we’re unfamiliar with the game as we get to play with the other mags’ stuff.

So when you play something you’re already familiar with and it looks exactly the same only it’s running on a different console, and you’re in Las Vegas, then of course you’re not going to be overwhelmed. That’s not to say we were underwhelmed, just not very surprised and very accepting.

On the PS3 Unreal III got scores in the mid-to-high 80s out of 100. And that’s on a machine that is pretty bereft of first-person shooters. Strangely though, even in the saturated genre pool we can pretty safely predict that it’ll get the same scores when it’s reviewed for the 360. It won’t be as popular as Halo 3 or Gears or Call Of Duty but it could give them a run for their money.

Mainly because of the superb graphics, you can see for miles and every laser bolt lights up the screen with extreme vibrancy. Futuristic killing fields have never looked so beautiful. The sound too, with the iconic “KILLING SPREE!” announcements, and every shot and scream projected out of the HDTV will draw you in. Then, of course, there are all the wonderful weapons to kill people with, as well as all the different vehicles to cause more destruction with and even the hoverboard can be seriously entertaining and handy when you need to cover some ground.

It’s not all the same as the PS3 version though, the 360 gets a few extra good things. Split-screen multiplayer was completely absent on the PS3 but we’ll get it removed of the previously staunch stance of being a one-player multiplayer game. There will also be five new maps to play on and all the downloadable content that was released for the PS3 will be on the 360 disc too. There are also two exclusive characters to play, but they won’t matter a jot because all the mod content will be available too, enabling you to play as loads of different characters such as Master Chief, Solid Snake and Samus from Metroid. And it’s all this that makes Unreal III on the 360 just that bit more special.

Tim Empey