Unreal Tournament

"One man, One gun, One world...One game"

After the initial release of unreal for PC, epic games had high standards for the second coming of the smash hit series. Did the series strike popularity by luck? Epic wasn’t going to leave it to chance. After a year or two of hard work, many teasers to insure a fan base, Unreal Tournament was released. Did it disappoint? No. Did it leave a mark in all deathmatch games forever? Yes. What could be different from Unreal Tournament from Quake 3 that made it so much more popular?? Read on to find out.

Many modes of play bless Unreal. From the start you’ll be told to create a player profile. This profile keeps track of all the stats that you accumulate as you play. From there you can do what ever you want. Feel like getting online and getting smeared by pros? Click online play and choose your poison.

Unreal is like a black-market, many poisons to choose from. Starting from deathmatch. Deathmatch, as its name proclaims, is a fight to the death. Mighty warriors are pitted against each other in a battle of brawn and brain; only the strongest survive. To fight off the others and prove yourself as one of the upper echelon, you must be able to masters the usage of weapons. There are a big range of weaponry for you to bestow. You can go in there slangn’ a 9, or help raise the death-birth ratio. Admittedly, slangn’ a 9 isn’t going to get you very far, but a few shots from a flank cannon will. That, young grasshopper, is only a portion of what you need to become the master of frags. A dodging skill is a must. Fire power can’t help if you’re getting rained down on by bullets, with no way to move. This is where the factor of agility comes in. The game lets it to where you have many ways to hide, run, or outmaneuver your opponents. Playing possum might save your ass one time, but the next it’ll require that you side-step dozens of times. Knowing the levels, which are vast and diverse, comes in play too. Since each level has it’s own little hiding spots, if you don’t know where you’re going, you’re probably already a dead man. Now, young sensei, you must master the game modes.

With your newly acquired skills, you must be able to take out others that are as smart as you or smarter. The usage of strategy plays a big part in such game modes as Capture the Flag and Team Deathmatch, my personal favorite. While being able to retaliate with heavy fire power and run circles around your opponent is all that’s required to be a skilled player at invasion. Where you have a series of missions in which you must complete before the timer runs out. Then the opposition gets to try, if they beat you’re time then you lose.

As for what the game can look like on a high-end system? The textures on the floors are done with precision. Such as though, that is scares me. The levels are done all differently too. From middle of workshops too peoples bedrooms’. The amount of downloaded content is astonishing. Many levels, not as nice as the original ones, can be downloaded. These all look good in their own little way. Mostly all having unique items to them. Such as in the middle of a garage, you’ll see a car. No where else in the Unreal series is there a car in any other level, but that one. It’s obvious they spent a lot of time planning each of them. Every level seems to have it's own mood, feeling, and textures.

If your on a space level, you will hear only space suited music. Such as clanks and little suspicious sounds. If your in a big deathmatch. The really loud, and awesome rock music that plays sometimes gets you pumped up to open a can of grade A whoop ass. Then you got the soft music. I don't like the Mozart symphony playing when I'm trying to desolate some guys ass from the board to win a match. Just not me., Seems a tad pannzysih, bad Epic Games, bad. Only reason it got a point off. Then you got the good'ol sound effects. You got crude taunts. Though, with the Mozart theme playing doesn't go threw well. Such taunts include ''Die *****''. It's the only one I remember anyway. Most level sound effects are good. Such as elevators going up and down. If you have 3D sound, it helps. For you can pin-point were a fight is going down on that level. Nothing like the sound of masters as I fill him with lead online......ahh...

The A.I always seem to know what your going to do on higher levels, that our I suck. One good thing I noticed is that, unlike on other FPS. Unreal A.I go after each other more. That means less stress when you only are packing a pistol. The A.I are also efficient with weapons, maybe to much so. On higher levels. If you use the ''strafe'' movement a lot. They shoot rockets and/or guns so it will hit you anyway. They jump a lot, which adds to the challenge. Its not enough for me to deduct points as it doesn’t bother you that much. Only requires more practice.

Final Verdict
Gameplay= 10
Graphics = 10
Control = 9
Sound = 9

Final = 9

Rent or buy
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This isn't needed to be answered, as for it's only 10 bucks now and one of the greatest games ever. You make the call, it shouldn’t be a hard one.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 11/26/02, Updated 07/29/03