The highly anticipated Unreal Tournament 3 on the Xbox 360 has been released in the UK today and is certain to prove one of the bigger hits of the year. Bizarrely, though, some of the bigger headlines concentrate on the fact that we, in the UK, will also receive an exclusive Gears of War 2 promo video. Obviously the Gears of War 2 release is big news but the Unreal Tournament series has certainly never gone unnoticed and warrants its own plaudits, or otherwise.

New features in Unreal Tournament 3 include split screen multiplayer mode, for those that don’t want to play online. There are also 5 exclusive and newly designed maps, and 2 similarly unique characters are included. All previously downloadable content is also included making this a fairly serious bumper pack of gaming.

Windows and PS3 versions have already proven to be extremely popular, shifting over 1 million units since their release. One of the biggest things about the Unreal Tournament series is the gaming engine that it uses, in this case the Unreal Engine 3. All releases have met with critical acclaim and many developers scramble for a license to use the engine in creating their own games.

No matter how popular Gears of War was (nearly 5 million units sold, in case you’re wondering) and how hotly anticipated the sequel is, we still find it unlikely that many people will buy a full priced new game solely on the basis of bagging previously unseen footage. However, we would credit those that buy the full priced game because it’s Unreal Tournament 3.