Unreal Tournament

"The only computer game you'll ever need..."

UT is the best computer game ever. I'm not fiercely loyal to UT, I've played tons of computer games and I have a lot of favourites, and I haven't spent years playing every aspect of UT, online and offline. But overall, if I had to choose only one game to play for the rest of my life it would be this one.

Above all, games should be fun. I don't play games to be educated, or to watch movie cutscenes, or to hear great music. These things should always be secondary to fun and immersive entertainment in a game, and UT definitely keeps this in mind. It's pure, visceral joy to rampage around with cartoonish weapons and obliterate your friends in the middle of some exotically unlikely fantasy location without fear of recrimination. It's the perfect way to vent your frustrations built up in real life, and the best part is that there's no fannying about. You just jump in and play immediately - the tense, fast action starts the instant the round begins, and it's a damn good feeling when your name appears at the top of the scoreboard when the game is over. Ten seconds later a new round in a new map has begun, and you have to try to do it all over again.

One thing which a great many people have picked up on is the balance of the weapons in UT. Future FPS game designers should use UT as the hallmark. This is how to balance weapons. They are all, without exception, FUN TO USE. The game doesn't need more weapons but neither does it need fewer. Each weapon can be mastered and can beat any other if you use it properly, which means that there is no one uber-weapon which is stronger than the rest. This is immensely user- and noob-friendly. If you don't like the minigun then go and find a rocket-launcher and you can be guaranteed to still score points.

The maps are extremely numerous and there are still tons of people playing all day and every day on servers all over the world. There are whole communities built up around this game, and with even meagre skills you can easily find a clan to join, which opens up whole new realms of fun and development. The game is so full of tricks and features that there's always something new to learn - who knew a game this shallow could end up being so deep?

Deathmatch is simple: find anyone else and kill them before they kill you; do this enough times in the round and you win. Then a new map comes up and you do the same all over again. It's the map design that makes the difference here, as the winner of one map can have serious problems in others, depending on their style of play. I can do damage in wide, open maps, but tight, corridorish maps are my best route to 0 points.

Domination is Deathmatch with control points. Touch a control point to take control of it, and this will slowly give your team more points. If you control all three of a map's control points then your team is getting all the points and the opposition is getting none. You can be the best DM player in the world and still lose, because if you don't touch or hold control points you're in trouble. The team with the most points is the team who has controlled more control points for longer, so really Domination is just a Deathmatch with three very important locations in it.

Capture The Flag is an extremely popular sub-game which involves running into your enemies' base and nicking their flag. Get it all the way back to your flag and you score a precious point, but you'll have to make sure your enemies haven't nabbed your flag while you were trying to get theirs. Defend your base or attack theirs: what do you do? Combat often comes second to strategy here, and many rounds are desperate battles swinging one way and then another. You may currently have more points but does your team necessarily have the advantage?

Assault is my favourite and I've been playing it online for years. Your team must attack a base filled with various objectives, while the opposition does their best to stop you. The more time you take to attack in the first round the more time the opposition have in their round, where you swap sides and they attack your defense of the same base. If they do it faster than you did you lose.

There's bound to be something amongst all this which you'll find fun, whether it's thinking your way past your opponents, tricking them, or simply blasting them to hell with a superior aim, well-timed powerups and better weapon selection. It's non-stop and it's insanely fun.

I don't care if you don't like FPS games, I don't care if you don't like computer games, and I don't care if you don't like computers. Get this game and there will only be one other thing in life you will enjoy more. And you won't find reviews about that on GameFAQs.

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 08/03/07