Unreal Championship

"Prepare for the fragging of your life."

Unreal has been one of my favorites since the title baring that name arrived on the PC in 1998 and it’s amazing to see how this phenomenal title has evolved since then. What sets Unreal apart from other FPS games in its class such as Quake, Doom or Half-Life? Is it the impressive graphics? The Beautiful character designs? Or was it the luscious and rich 3D environments? The answer is no, at least not for me. Unreal seems to be the only series I’ve come across where you can blow the opposition into tiny little bloody chunks. It’s the simple things like that that often make or break a series.

Unreal seems to keep its lasting appeal no matter how or outdated its graphics become, to me the gameplay and humor of the game more then makes up and the latest incarnation of the series, Unreal Championship is no different.

Gameplay - 10

The best way to describe Unreal Championship is unreal. Let me start of with the controls, this to me demonstrates just how unique this game is. It might seem overwhelming, but UC uses every single button on the Xbox controller. Even down to the left and right analog sticks. And these controls are fully customizable, and I do mean fully. To give you an idea of what I mean, say your sick of using the left and right analog sticks to move, you can switch it to using the faces buttons (X, Y, A, B such as Turok classic configuration) or whatever you want. You can make it so that the right shoulder button moves you forward if you were so inclined to do so. Also, you can adjust the sensitivity so that you can configure the controls to your own perfection. Once you get the controls all fine tuned, this game is a pleasure to play. One thing to note is that you might want to change the action of the left analog click, by default it’s set to jump. I don’t know about you, but when I’m fragging or running with the flag, I tend to get a little carried away and sometime inadvertently click the left analog stick causing myself to either plummet into a pit or become roadkill.

There are six modes to choose from ranging from total non-stop fun to just down-right insane fun.

* Deathmatch: just your regular everyday free-for-all deathmatch. No teams allowed for some heavy fragging action.
* Team Deathmatch: like deathmatch but with teams.
* Survival: compared to a survival mode on a fighting game. It’s just you against the world, one player at a time.
* Capture the Flag: steal your enemy’s flag; return it to your base. Sounds simple right? Well if only that were so.
* Bombing Run: like Unreal? Like football? Check out this interesting combination of the two. This mode is definitely worth a look.
* Double Domination: those of you that have played the classic game Unreal Tournament will recognize this one. Basically, you control two points on the map by passing through it leaving your team color and not letting the other team do the same. You must control both points for 10 seconds in order to get a point. First one with the most points in a given amount of time or reaches a certain amount of points wins.

The Bombing Run mode is an incredible, I mean, football and fragging? Genius!

Now, here’s something odd in a first person shooter, when selecting your profile (mainly picking your character) you have to be kind of picky. There are six character classes in all and each has different characteristics that none of the others have. Such as the Juggernauts have superior armor (just look at them) and have a greater amount of health. But the Automatons can jump higher and are more agile. The manual does a poor job of explaining what each class posses that the other lacks, so you’ll have to do some investigating. Also, different people have different affinities for weapons. These affinities reflect your starting weapon and your favorite weapon. The A, D and F stats by the affinity value stand for ammo, damage and fire rate. As the ammo value increases, the amount of ammo that character can hole for that weapon increases. Same thing goes for the damage and fire rate values too.

Another nice touch is the concept of adrenaline. There are a couple of ways to increase adrenaline. You can grab pills, kill enemies, capture and successfully return the flag (capture the flag) or ball (bombing run). When your adrenaline is full you can then through a series of moves on the controller trigger regeneration, berserk, invisibility or agility. The instruction manual doesn’t really explain what these combos are (all of which use the left analog stick). I can tell you that move the left analog stick downward four times will activate regeneration.

Of course, one of the best features of any FPS is the weapons. Of course you got your usual components of any good arsenal such as the assault rifle, rocket launcher and minigun. But where’s the fun in executing your opposition with these normal everyday weapons?

* Shieldgun: generates a shield in front of you that will reflect any flying projectiles coming your way.
* Flak Cannon: (one of my favorites) shots out grenades that shot up at an arch and deliver punishment above to any enemies in its path, or you can fire smaller projectiles that are incredibly effective at close range.
* Lightning Gun: takes the place of the sniper rifle. With this weapon you can zoom in and frag your enemy with a lightning bolt even Thor would be proud of.
* Shock Rifle: just an all around cool weapon. With this baby you can shot out an orb of plasma knocking your opponent into next Tuesday. To increase the damage, you can fire a photon beam into the center of the plasma ball and increase its destructive power.
* The Link: is a very interesting and unusual weapon. The primary fire shoots out rapid shots of a green energy orb. But the secondary is where this weapon really gets interesting. Target an enemy and it emits an energy beam which locks onto an enemy within your sights and keeps that lock as long as the enemy is within your sights. But, team play is when this weapon really shines. Lock onto a teammate (don’t worry, you wont hurt him) and his weapon will do extra damage to an opponent. Get more players in the link (using the Link Gun) and the damage goes up. Also, there is a mutator which allows you to heal your teammates with this weapon.

Those are just a little sampling of the weapons this game has to offer.

One thing that really sets unreal apart from the others is mutators. Mutators are for spicing up your unreal experience. There are mutators to decrease the effect of gravity, there’s one to only make the arena have one weapon, one hit kills, even one that gives everyone an enormous hit (makes head shots easier I guess).

Lastly but surely not least, this game supports online play using Xbox Live. Playing over Xbox Live is like a dream come true for any FPS fan. When first starting out, I suggest going into a team game so that you don’t have so many people after you and your teammates will hopefully watch your back. Of course, one good thing about live is the communicator. With this you can talk to your teammates and worn them about the sniper on top of the hill.

As if that weren’t enough, this game also offers content download. If this is like past installments of Unreal, downloads include additional maps, character skins, mutators and general patches.

Graphics - 10

Nothing I say here can possibly do justice to this phenomenally beautiful game. The environments are perhaps the best I have ever seen on any FPS to date (maybe even Unreal Tournament 2003 for the PC). The character designs are likewise awe inspiring and there are a lot of character designs in here.

In intense action this game maintains a constant frame rate with no hints of slowdown in sight. Truly amazing that the PC version requires nearly triple the processing speed and still doesn’t do as good a job as the Xbox.

However, the one thing I am disappointed in is if you get more then one player on the screen. Having two players or even four isn’t a drastic hit in graphics or frame rate, but it is a little bit too noticeable.

I’m also disappointed in the fact that the unreal trademark of flying body parts is absent in this game. There is a little to some extent, but only if you blow your enemy apart at close range. Also, one huge inconvenient aspect of this game is that everyone has indicator arrows above their head. This is pretty bad in multiplayer but especially bad in online play. The enemies will be able to spot your arrow before they spot you. I really hope one of the first bits of downloadable content will be a patch that will let you turn this annoyance off.

UC also supports HDTV and widescreen which considering it looks this great on just your standard TV must look that much better on a widescreen HDTV. Someday, but until then, I can always dream.

Sound - 10

The sound effects are another area that really sets this game apart from the others. With its mature taunts and downright rudeness, you’re almost guaranteed to find yourself snickering at some of the things they say such as the “stop running and I’ll make this quick” to the “You’re programming is inferior”. I’ve even had a rocket wiz by my head and my character responded with a “holy $#%@”. Of course, the taunts aren’t nearly as bad as what you’ll most likely hear playing over Xbox Live.

The weapons are also dead on. True, there is no Link Gun or Lightning Gun in real life, but if there were I would imagine this is what they’d sound like.

Of course, the taunts and voice rely on the race that you choose and whether your character is male or female. You can turn mature taunts off, but why?

The background music is a little unusual, ranging from some cool sci-fi music to odd beats set to music. But the music seems to fit into the levels somehow.

The one thing that would have been nice is the option to use your own soundtrack, but to be honest; even if it did I probably wouldn’t even use it.

Replay - 9

Unreal Championship is a great game that’ll last for years. There are even people playing Unreal Tournament for the Dreamcast online still, and that game is nearly two years old. There are ample modes, maps and options that’ll keep you interested. Plus the downloadable content will hopefully spice this game up even if you do get bored.

Closing Comments

First of all, any parents who bought this game for there kids or anyone that doesn’t like all the mature taunts or gore should know that you can turn it off.

Unreal Championship is a great game that should be one anyone’s shelf and especially if you have Xbox Live.

Overall – 10

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 11/24/02, Updated 11/25/02