Unreal Tournament 2003

"UT2003 Review & Mods reviews"

UPDATE: I have included in the review my opinions on the ''Speech''-menu and botsupport features, as well as mini-reviews of the major mods released up until the close of the Nvidia Make Something Unreal Contest. (07/17/03)

Let's just say that, although Deus Ex is a better pc game, the only thing more fun than internet play with Unreal Tournament 2003 is the multiplayer mode of Dynasty Warriors 4. But there's more to a game than multiplayer.

You have to understand that Unreal Tournament 2003 is not really a game. Instead, what you're buying is the Unreal Warfare engine, with the promise of downloading mods and bonus packs that will make UT2003 a great game. And it works...assuming you have a broadband internet connection.

PRESENTATION - 5

GRAPHICS - 9
Big props for scaleability. This runs on my Radeon 7500 laptop video card, with speed variant on the specific level requirements and my settings.
Superb in every way. I mean that. The levels range from gray sci-fi corridors to an absolutely breathtaking nighttime forest-arena. Strangely, Unreal Tournament 2003 looks much better than the derivatives thereof that are suposed to be based on its engine (Postal 2 looks way too muddy).
Tiny points of light glow, making lightbugs for one level, and trailing upwards in a parallel sequence to show you which direction a jumppad will launch you.
Background stuff, like moving fans and sharks swimming in an aquarium, complement certain levels.But the best part about the backgrounds is how smooth the textures look, how clear everything is even during hectic gameplay, and how THE GRAPHICS NEVER OBSTRUCT YOUR AIM OR GET YOU STUCK IN MOTION.
All the game's characters and weapons now have more polygons and look ultra-smooth. My favorite improvement is the individual short light trails at the end of each Flak Cannon primary fire.
The initially selectable characters now look much cooler. I had always given Quake III the edge over Unreal Tournament 1 in this department, but now we have humans, Egyptian humans (?), Fat gene-boosted humans, cool-looking aliens with tails, and robots.
But the best, best, best part about the graphics is its ''Karma'' Rag Doll Physics engine (see the graphics section of my review for Hitman 2). Not only is there a very good implementation thereof, but the UT2k3 engine improves upon past games such as Hitman 2 and Minority Report in three ways:
One) the injured part of a character's body spews blood, alien blood, oil, or electric sparks as appropriate.
Two) all of the characters have RDP, inluding the robots and aliens. The aliens even have an extra calculated joint for the tailbone.
Three) individual HALVES of limbs and the torso get blown off. Often, the lower leg or arm will spew blood as your corpse flies off. If hit dead center by an explosive, only your pelvis and an upper thigh might remain.
This implementation or Rag Doll Physics increases your fun tenfold. It makes your kills far more satisfying, and it takes the sting off of your deaths. There is even a cool Mutator that makes corpses go into slomo upon death. One level (a copy of an Unreal Tournament 1 level) even has pit that, if you fall into it, the corpse will bounce and slump down multiple I-beams. The effect is really cool.

AUDIO - 3
The announcer guy is cool, and the weapon sounds are good. But the bg music is all forgettable (I play with my Eminem Winamp 3 playlist running in the background and Unreal Tournament 2003's music muted--sound fx and voices still running).
That takes the score down to a 4, just barely below average. What takes the score down another point is the fact that there are only the same number of boasting quips as in the original. Given how long you're going to be playing this game in its single player mode, and how many years they had to build a sequel, you expect more.
Still, there's nothing exceptionally annoying about any of the sound that's here.

STORY - 3
Well, there's really not much here. There's a blurb on each of the prefab characters explaining why they're forced to risk their lives in deathmatches, but nothing significant. The only addition is a 1 minute cutscene intro that sets up the single player mode as a galaxywide reality-show sporting event with two teams strutting through to the transport chambers past roaring fans the way wrestlers walk to the ring. I'm not saying Story is crucial to this type of game, but it couldn't hurt to TRY.

CONTROL - 8

BUTTON ASSIGNMENT
Standard First Person Shooter controls
WASD movement
mouse for aiming and shooting
Spacebar for jumping, double-tap for double-jumping
Mouse wheel to switch weapons

CAMERA - 8
It's the standard first-person view, but it gets bonus points for having a useful, nonobtrusive HUD, AND for letting you customize the targeting reticule. You can customize virtually every aspect of the HUD as well, from individual window dimensions to opacity.

FEEL - 8
Perfection. The movement is smooth, a noticeable improvement from the orignal's. There seems to be a marriage of the advantages of Quake III and Unreal Tournament.
All the weapons return (except the starting weapon:Enforcer pistol is replaced by an automatic rifle with a grenade-launching attachment), and you can customize their priority to you. The rocket launcher is now almost impossible to lock on with, and doesn't have the grenade-launching secondary fire. The sniper rifle uses lightning (which gives away the firer's position) and cannot automatic-fire. Personally, I like the toning down of the sniper (it's still useful...I got 3, then 4 headshots in a row on one board), but my roomate preferred the older version.
The new link gun is the only real addition, because its secondary fire in team deathmatch can be used to bolster an ally's firepower if you're both using Link Guns. There's also an Ion Painter that can mark areas for Satelite Strike, which is another version of the included redeemer that requires you to hold down the marking laser over an area not covered with a roof.

GAMEPLAY - 9

MECHANICS - 7
Take a first-person-shooter where your only goal is to run around in circles and kill everything. Is there anything better?
The problem, though, is that not enough has been added. There aren't enough boards, they didn't add enough modes, and the single player tournament ladder is woefully short. Sure, you can set up more games with bots in the Instant Action mode, and you'll be able to download more levels, but I expected more out-of-the-box.
In the single player campaign, there's the attempt to let you ''draft'' a team, and you can issue orders before the match to individual teammembers to protect another individual, but it's not handled very expertly.

LEVEL DESIGN - 7
What's there is good (Tokara Forrest, with its tall trees and wooden catwalks is great), but only 2 levels from the original have been translated with this version. Given the absolutely gigantic fanbase of the original Unreal Tournament, I actually expected ALL of the original levels to be making a return, PLUS new ones.

ENEMIES - 9
The prefab characters are cool, but why can't you choose WHICH bots will appear in a level. A patch should fix this, but again, why isn't such an obvious correction available out-of-the-box? (Update...see Bonus Packs)
There are 6 difficulty levels, showing varying degrees of humanlike intelligence, and the harder ones ARE better than you. The best, though, is setting the bots to adapt to you as you play, trying to EQUAL your skill level.
UT2003 has a wide vareity of speech commands/taunts. By binding the most important ones, you can order Bot teammates to protect you, hold a position, retrieve your flag, attack at will, etc. These speech commands can be used as taunts in multiplayer, or commands that only your team will hear. The bots, unlike human teammates, do not disobey. Better yet, unlike humans, they generally avoid killing you or getting in your line of fire. They're not quite Half Life 1 AI-quality, but they come close.
Also, I've noticed that most maps (even user-made) have botsupport, meaning the designer has preprogrammed certain spots as good sniping spots, defense places to hold, or other waypoints.

VALUE - 8
The true king of Unreal Tournament 2003 is its internet multiplayer. My favorite is the 8 on 8 Team Deathmatch, but there's also regular deathmatch, double domination, and a sports-like addition, bombing run. I'll admit that UT2k3 runs as smoothly as any other game I've ever played online, and with its manic pace, that's a necesity.

However, you'll notice an awful lot of bots in many of the servers and far fewer servers out there than you'd expect for what should be such a popular game. Why, you ask?UT2k3 requires that each player have his own cd key to authenticate himself and get online. That means that only those who purchased the full version can play anything but the 2 demo maps online. While you might say ''yeah, well, thieves shouldn't get things for free,'' what this means is that a whole slew of individuals who would be playing online, modding new levels, weapons, and skins, and otherwise helping the community, are still going to stick with the original Unreal Tournament. What you have to understand is that the majority of mods come from those resourceful enough to have ripped, cracked, or otherwise gotten the game itself for free.
Unreal Tournament 2004 is coming out soon, with all the additions that should have been in this one. Thus, many hardcore Unreal Tournament fans feel slighted.
Still, there will, of course, be skins and mods and levels. Unfortunately, though, there isn't nearly the abundance of said goodies being created as there was for the first game.
Unreal Tournament 2003 is the best first person shooting multiplayer game ever made. If you have a computer, you must play it. If you don't have a computer, you must steal one, then play it. People who say the original was better just don't want to upgrade their 4-year-old computer.

UPDATE - Bonus Packs Review - 7
There's an official no-Cd Patch, the Epic Bonus Pack, and the Digital Extremes Bonus Packs. You'll need them all if you want to play the Total Conversion (and most other) mods. Who cares? They're free.
The bonus packs include a few new maps, plus the cool Bot config menu, which lets you not only specify which bots appear in an Instant Action or Hosted Multiplayer stage, but also lets you increase/decrease 4 skill sliders for each bot. Also, a couple new gametypes: Last Man Standing, Mutant (points only for killing the Mutant, after which you become the Mutant), and my favorite, Invasion.
In Invasion, you and the other teammembers work together in a level as wave after wave of various aliens spawn and try and attack you. This is usually played with the ZoomInstagib shockrifle mutator and/or with the gamespeed pumped up. My only complaint is that none of the aliens (from headcrab-like spiders to Skaarj to rocket-spewing flying thingies) come with Rag Doll Physics.

MODS MINIREVIEWS

(there are others, and I don't remember the authors, but look for these):

SKINS WORTH GETTING:
1) The Bender (from Futurama) skin, which looks excellent (and reflective), and comes with a ton of context-sensitive speech responses. The Rag Doll Physics on this mod are particularly impressive.
2) The Homer (Simpson) skin, which looks great, and has a separate speech file you can download.
3) Neofin, a dolphin in a yellow robotic exosuit. Looks incredible, and has a just-plain-cool design.
4) Master Chief, an apparently direct port of the Xbox model, now with slightly reflective surfaces and Rag Doll Physics.
5) Agent 47, a direct port of his appearance in Hitman 2, except without the tie moving.
6) Aida from Unreal 2. A direct port, now removing totally the reasons for playing that game.

WEAPONS:
1) WoRM2k3 SS6 - a Mutator which allows you one by one to replace each of UT2003's weapons with the custom mod of your choice, then save and load that preset at will. This does what Epic should have done to begin with.
2) MP5 - my favorite weapon. This is a powerful machine gun (UT2003's Assault Rifle is weak) with a great feel (pulls up naturally), look, and sound. Secondary fire is the grenade-launching attachment that fires a rocket if you tap alt-fire, and a grenade if you hold alt-fire a bit.
3) The Benelli Shotgun - shoots a buncha flak for primary fire, an instant explosive round for secondary.
4) Firechucker - not quite as good as Unreal 2's flamethrower, but not bad. It comes with 2 colors (blue for blue team in Team DM) and lights up the surroundings.
5) Sniper Rifle - essentially a copy of the original UT sniper, which I much prefer.
6) Crowd Pleaser Minigun - substitutes flashy red and blue lines for the bullet effects of the minigun. These colors are team-specific during team games.

TOTAL CONVERSION REVIEWS:

DEATHBALL (version 1.8)- 9
Excellent, excellent mod that turns UT2003 into a fast-paced, sweet-looking team Soccer game (though it uses UT2003's skins). Your only ''weapon'' is the ball launcher, which passes with altfire, drops with primary fire and shoots by holding alt then hitting primary. You can knock opponents/allies when you're not holding the ball, catching is automatic, and you kill the ball carrier if you hit him and he's not a goalie. The stages even have giant ''screens'' that show an angle of the game being played, like at a sports stadium. A supremely excellent ingame HUD, ''I'm open'' icons above your team's heads, and awesome-looking light trails make this infinitely playable. The 9 is because this game lacks true botsupport (though there's always someone online).

Faceoff (alpha release) - 8
A realistic Spec Ops vs. Terrorists TC. Comes with lean keys with appropriate animations (bind to Q and E). At each respawn, you choose 1 rifle (SMG, AutoShotgun, Sniper, FAMAS, Grenade Launcher), 1 pistol, and either body armor, 3 grenades (Teargas, Smoke, Nail, Frag), or the Flaregun. Teargas and the Flaregun are useless, but the Grenade Launcher has been nicely toned down so that it's better for flushing people out than dominating a map. The Nail grenades pop up and spin, shooting bullets everywhere. The Pistols are great for when you don't have time to reload after emptying your FAMAS clip, and work at any range. This mod looks excellent, runs more smoothly with less lag than normal Unreal Tournament 2003, and sports some of the best maps I've seen (although there are only 4 right now). FO-Takaban.ut2 is the best Unreal Tournament 2003 map I've ever seen. My only only complaint with this mod (-2 points), is that the sniper rifle is so weak as to become useless, which sucks given the great sniping opportunities of this mod.

CONQUEST MARINES (alpha release) - 8
Imagine Halo crossed with Tribes 2. You pick one of 4 classes, and set out across 2 (so far) expansive levels to reduce the other team's resources and increase yours by killing enemies, taking over energy generators, and destroying the enemies'. What sets this mod apart is the driveable vehicles, the swoop bike and the Hovertank. I WOULD be playing this more than Faceoff....if only there were people online to play against.

JUNGLE WARFARE (version 1.2) - 7
Another class-based, realistic mod, except class affects your main weapon more than the role you'll play for your team. This is a sniperfest set among tons and tons of foliage for you to hide in. 1 torso hit with the sniper or 3 with any other weapon is a kill, so getting a point is a matter more of hiding while finding the opponent than dodging. While I love the feel of this game, it suffers from the odd decision to make players sit out the round once killed...boring. The Sabotage mode is much better, where the goal is to destroy (shoot) the enemies' oil barrels while protecting your own...except no one plays this online.

GODZ 2003 - 6
A pretty cool Dragonball Z-inspired game. Instead of weapons, you scroll through 4 or 5 character-specific techniques that drain your rechargeable chi/ki/qi with various effects. You can also fly at the press of a button, and only a few hits kills anyone. The differences between the 4 available characters are marked and cool, but 1) the Single Player ladder tournament with promised cutscenes isn't there yet 2) Not all of the features from the UT version have been transferred yet 3) No one plays this online.

JUPITER EFFECT INFLUX - 3
Anime-inspired transforming mecha combat. It's improving, but it's still slow and laggy, and impossible to score a kill without the lock-on missiles.

UNREAL SPEED - 2
The cars have too-floaty control, not to mention the fact that the bot AI isn't quite there.

TROOPERS - 2
The Star Wars mod that isn't. It looks great, and has 2 great maps, and the laserfire light-giving, spark-yielding, smokey-not-bloody corpses effects all look good. But all the laser projectiles are so slow that combat is ridiculous and boring. And where are the drivable vehicles, cool objectives, or anything else that was promised?

DOMAIN, GLOBAL WARZONE, and POE are all too buggy to be played in any capacity.

AIRPOWER looks very promising, but without a map to test it in, it won't grade it.

FRAGOPS looks VERY promising...

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 06/16/03, Updated 07/18/03