Unreal Tournament

The Good
The original Unreal Tournament was one of the most out-right addictive games I've ever played. Every time I play, I find myself itching to go just one more map. Even back when I first started playing it, when I only played on a cruddy dial-up connection, I loved the game. Now I play UT2004 when I need an Unreal fix, but the original started it all.

UT came out with some of the sweetest graphics yet seen. From the detailed models and textures to fantastic lighting and translucency, it was a treat for the eyes. Even today, when I look at the game the graphics aren't bad. All that in a game that was tightly coded enough to run well on my Pentium 200.

One of my favorite parts of UT is the weapons. Epic managed to come up with an arsenal that was both balanced and interesting. There are more standard weapons, such as the rocket launcher and the mini-gun, or innovative pieces like the flack cannon and the pulse rifle (some of these weapons actually had their debut in the first Unreal). Every weapon has a secondary fire mode that adds a great deal of depth to gameplay. The shock-rifle, for instance, fires a low-damage beam as primary and a medium-damage ball of energy as secondary. To make things more interesting still, if you fire off an energy ball and then hit it with a faster moving beam shot, it will cause a powerful energy explosion that tears many enemies to bitsies. Even the rocket launcher is innovative in that rather than just firing off shots, you can hold up to six rockets before firing. In secondary mode rockets can be launched as grenades, again allowing you to fire of six of these little bouncing messengers of death. You can kill with pretty much any weapon in the game. Even the starting pistol can be effective in the hands of an experienced player.

Speaking of blowing stuff up, this game is also very visceral. The weapon effects, sounds, and character death animations all create a very gritty and satisfactory experience. There's nothing quite like filling an opponent with mini-gun rounds or blowing them away with a flack cannon shot at point blank range.

The game plays fast and hard, with plenty of over-the-top action going on at any given time if you get a decent number of players. It's exactly the kind of thing you want in a game like this.

Gameplay modes in UT reach beyond the usual deathmatch and CTF, adding in Domination (teams fight over crucial control points) and Assault (one team assaults a series of objectives while the other defends). While Domination is fun, the latter is the truly innovative addition. A good game of Assault with a group of people playing reasonably like a team can be a great experience. Of course, it can be hard to find people who play anything like a team online. But that's not the game's fault.

Then we have mutators. Playing with the various available mutators can give the game a whole new life. From low-grav mode to fat-boy (where-in a player gets more and more obese the more he kills), there's a lot of variety to be had. For a crazy time, try fat-boy instagib.

AI bots are challenging opponents to practice against before you play online. They sometimes play almost like human (sometimes better on higher levels). As with any AI, they have their moments of stupidity. But it's better than most.

No wonder it's so addictive.

The Bad
Well, my only gripe is this: There is really no great first-person experience here. There is no quest, no character progression (in the true sense), no cool scripted events, and there is only a base excuse for plot-line.

The Bottom Line
Online gameplay at its best. Buy this one and soak in all the fragaliciousness.

The Good
Unreal Tournament has to be the pinnacle of "1st-person shooter" games. There's just too many reasons why, so I'll cover some of the reasons I think other reviewers have touched on only briefly:

• The editor. UnrealEd is not only fully-functional and chock full of features, but the rendering system (not based on BSP tree compiling) makes it really easy to quickly "compile" and test your map. Half-Life, by comparison, uses BSP trees (which compile in about 3 minutes) and light maps (which compile in about 3 hours).
• 45+ maps right out of the box. 'nuff said.
• Music! The music is based on 'scene "tracking" files/editors (similar to Amiga music modules) and ranges from okay to great. Using this custom music format also allows for close to 2+ hours of interactive music per game with plenty of space left on the CD. And since the CD isn't required to play any more (see below), you get music all the time if you want it.
• Patch level 432. With 432 and above, you don't need the CD in the drive to play any more.
• Feigning death. You can lie down and play dead if you want to. ;-)
• Works on low-speed machines. In addition to the many hardware tweaks you can make (type "preferences" at the system console to access that menu), Unreal Tournament also has a high-quality 32-bit software renderer as well -- and by "32-bit" I mean it renders 32-bit color (24-bit color with an 8-bit alpha channel). Many older, simple video cards can support 320x240x32-bit color with no hassle. The end result is that not only does the software rendering look decent, but you can play UT on more platforms than you can other games *cough*Quake3*cough* because UT will fall back to software rendering if your 3D hardware isn't supported properly, like in Linux or Windows NT. The end result of all this is that even if you have a Pentium 166, you can still tweak the game enough so that it runs at 20 fps on your box. And if you think 320x240 gameplay sucks, try doing it on a 32-person LAN in one of the teamplay modes. Doesn't suck now, does it? :)
• Attitude. Some of the auto-taunts are priceless ("Sit down!", "Try turning the safety off!", "I'm sorry, did I blow your head off?", etc.)
• Bots! If you want to hone your m@d k1ll1nG sk1llz at home before going online and getting the crap kicked out of you, you can play practice games of any type with any number of 'bots of varying skill levels. You can even give the 'bots personality, like fixing the skill level of each 'bot individually, changing their appearance, even their preferred weapon. You can even have the 'bots auto-adjust their skill level based on your performance.

But most of all, the gameplay is balanced. What does this mean? It means that each weapon has been tweaked to be just as powerful and effective at killing as every other weapon. A player can specialize in any certain weapon and, if he or she is good enough at it, can be just as lethal as any other player. Massively-powerful weapons (like the Redeemer, a miniature nuclear warhead) are offset by their refire rate (the Redeemer is an incredibly slow missle, for example).

Balanced gameplay is good. You want balanced gameplay, trust me.

The Bad
The expandability and customization features are lacking and undocumented. This doesn't mean you can't expand UT -- just the opposite, you can. But it's not made very easy for the end-user, and documentation on doing it is very hard to come by (the only docs I could find on the subject were written by other UT fans, which makes me wonder where they got the info). In fact, I didn't even know it was possible to upload your own sounds until I came across an Internet deathmatch server that had custom sounds.

With the exception of the Sniper Rifle, the weapons are not "traditional" weapons. (Last I checked, guns that 1. spew rotary saw blades, 2. emit a continuous stream of energy, 3. pummel human flesh into pulp, and 4. spew toxic green goop are not considered "normal".) This is offputting to those who are used to "normal" weapons, like those found in Half-Life/Team Fortress/Counter-Strike.

The "balanced gameplay" design falls short in one area: The original gun you start out with. It's pretty wimpy compared to the rest of the weapons. But even this is remedied if you manage to pick up another one, because then you can wield one in each hand for some John Woo-esque action.

The Bottom Line
There simply isn't a reason not to like this game! It's balanced, it's expandable, it comes with a great world editor, has tons of dedicated fans/fan sites/mods, and it has solid networking code. What's not to like? The original version at the time of this writing was $29.95 US, with the "gold" edition right around the corner with even more extras, so pick this game up! What are you waiting for, Daikatana 2?

The Good
Its just plain fun to play. It is a sheer joy and never gets boring. The Graphics are superb, the AI is tremendously smart and witty. The levels are great as well as the different modes of play. Its a great game to play when you only have 15 minutes or so before you got to go. The single player alone is great with awesome bots. It also has very memorable weapons and terrific music. I want the soundtrack its that good.

The Bad
I don't have to many complaints, i just wish that there were more character models. Some of the maps are not as solid as others also.

The Bottom Line
Overall this is an insanely fun game to play, and that is what matters the most.

The Good
Unreal Tournament offers endless playability with 6 different game modes, or variations of each other. If you just want to blow people up, you can go for a Tournament Deathmatch, a Team Deathmatch, or a Last Man Standing, in which you have a set amount of lives. Capture the Flag is another awesome mode, no matter how unoriginal, and is probably my personal favorite. In Domination, you need to take and keep control points which are spread around the map to gain points, and in Assault, the first team must try to complete their objectives while the other team tries to stop them. Each game mode has plenty of excellent maps to go with them, and more maps have been put up for free download. One of the best things about Unreal Tournament is its A.I., which acts and plays just like human beings (although maybe not quite as smart). People who have slow internet connections don't have to tolerate laggy game play to have a good fight. And of course the game uses the beautiful Unreal Engine, and has a great soundtrack as well.

The Bad
The Unreal Engine was unfortunately made for Glide users. Running the game under Direct3D or OpenGL will often give you low frame rates.

The Bottom Line
An incredibly fun, endlessly playable first-person shooter.

The Good
t's Unreal Tournament...on Dreamcast. That in itself is pretty impressive. For a long time, console ports of FPS games were always compromises. This did a great job of showing the DC was, for the time at least, able to keep up with the latest games. Of course, that's only part of the equation. Unreal Tournament on Dreamcast has a rather complicated history and must be judged not only on its merits, but relative to its PC and PS2 counterparts as well as its Dreamcast rival, Quake 3.

Quake 3 was its nearest competitor and the easiest comparison to make. Unreal Tournament really shines here, basically doubling all Quake's accomplishments with eight players instead of four, 71 maps instead of 32, 12 weapons with two functions each instead of 9 single-function weapons and an extra game type, domination. The translocator in the Capture the Flag and Domination games greatly changes the game as well. Basically Quake 3 has little in the way of significant gameplay advancements over the original Quake. You merely jump, aim and shoot, whereas Unreal Tournament has much more complex and inventive weapons as well as numerous new options.

Most of the options from PC are here, including practice with bots, the deathmatch, capture the flag and domination game types. It actually comes with more maps out of the box, with a good number of additions in the deathmatch section. Graphics are quite good by Dreamcast standards, looking about what a fairly mid-range PC could accomplish.

It also edges out the PS2 version in terms of sheer number of maps and the textures look somewhat better. More importantly, it supports Internet play with up to eight players while the PS2 was limited to four players via split screen or LAN. While the PS2 is limited to the default controller, Dreamcast allows use of a keyboard and mouse, which are general held to be the preferable method to control a first-person shooter.

The Bad
Unfortunately, only one each keyboard and mouse are allowed per system and they take two controller slots, limiting you to three players per system, tops. More importantly, it limits other players to the controller, which unfortunately is pretty sucky. A lot of this is Sega's fault for making such a limited controller compared tot he PS2 or really any other controller that's come out since 1996 or so. As you need to be able to move in two axes and aim in two axes, the single stick and face buttons are taken to begin with, leaving you with nothing but the D-pad and two triggers. As each weapon has two triggers and you need to be able to jump as well, so something important is going to inconveniently go on the D-pad.

The developers don't really help the situation by only giving you three control options (plus axis-inversion) rather than letting you customize things to your liking. The only option that gives you both triggers on the controller triggers is Goldeneye-style, where the stick move and turns you. I didn't want that. Besides the lack of buttons, the feel of the stick just isn't precise enough for this kind of game, leading you to have to use ridiculous amounts of auto aim.

While the Dreamcast's textures look a little better than PS2's, it doesn't measure up graphically to that version, much less the PC. The problems are mainly in the effects. The overshield belt is now opaque instead of the translucent effect seen on other platforms. The swelling effect is gone, which means the vaccuum chamber in Pressure produces a rather unspectacular death and the fatboy mutator is out.

Other areas have been simplified as well. Armor is now a straight number rather than the separate armor for head, torso and legs seen on the PC and PS2. There is no more ducking, either. Both are presumably because of the control compromises. More importantly, instead of the five character models seen on PC and PS2, there is now only a single model: male soldier. While this model has a nice variety of skins that largely do a decent job of hiding that's it's only one model, the loss is very much felt. This is made even more annoying by the fact that the Skaarj character Dominator is depicted on the cover, despite not appearing in the game along with many other cool bits added in the official free expansion packs, even though these were available well before the Dreamcast version hit. You also won't be able to play rune games, for instance.

The loss that is felt the most is assault mode. Apparently, the existing maps didn't fit in Dreamcast's memory and rather than redesigning them or comign up with new maps, the mode was cut all together. While this still leaves it with one more mode than Quake III, it comes up short compared to other versions of Unreal Tournament.

While the game itself supports eight players, many maps have an actual limit that is lower than this presumably because of memory constraints again. Only five out of the forty-six deathmatch maps support the full complement and only about half the domination and capture the flag maps. Well under half the maps support four-player split-screen as well.

A lot of the appeal of the PC game was its expandability. Of course, this being Dreamcast game, there isn't anywhere to put downloaded content and it unfortunately didn't ship with enough to make up for this loss except in the area of maps. You'll find the list of mutators pathetically short, I've already explained the problems with modes and character models and you might even find yourself wanting for Domination maps.

There are also a few problems that really apply to every version of the game, such as the sometimes-wonky script-based AI. For instance, in the map Pressure, there is a vacuum chamber with a rocket launcher inside that has a button on the side that will kill anyone who enters. The bots repeatedly saw me standing by the button, but ran right in anyway.

Unfortunately, as Sega.net is no longer operating, all the good points of online play are moot since it doesn't work anymore. More annoyingly, two maps are locked until you log into Sega.net. As I had broadband Internet and was unable to find the elusive broadband adapter, I never did this and now can't play these maps.

The Bottom Line
Unreal Tournament is a good game that unfortunately got a bit cramped when Secret Level tried to stuff it into Sega's little box. The lack of system memory and poor controls when trying to use the standard controller make it the weakest release of the game. On the other hand, it holds up quite well compared to other first person shooters on the Dreamcast. While Quake III handled a little better thanks to needing fewer buttons and had a good variety of player model, the sheer number of options (as well as marginally better graphics) make Unreal Tournament the winner out of these two.

However, this isn't terribly important now as the game is rather old and anyone who's reading this almost surely has a PC that can run it quite well unless there's some die-hard out there using the Dreamcast web browser. The PC version is better in every imaginable fashion unless you really like split-screen. The only real reason to buy the Dreamcast edition is to see how well the port went. This answers is that it went about as well as could be expected considering the system's limitations. It's still a very good game, but buying this particular version doesn't make a lot of sense unless you're just curious.

The Good
Where to start?

-The AI is terrific. I felt like I was playing a human player. Also, the AI is extremely adjustable - there is an enemy for a player of any skill. I mean, if you pump up the AI enough, you can REALLY get your ass kicked. The AI is great, surprisingly considering I expected this to be mostly multiplayer. Great for practice!

-Modes galore! No matter your preference, there is a mode for it.

-Brilliant graphics if you have a good enough PC and 3D card. I mean, the graphics can blow your mind if you can pump them up. I mean, just check out the screenshots and drool. OK, so Quake III's engine is better. These graphics, however will suffice.

-Excellent multiplayer, which of course is the reason for the existence of this game :) I, personally, cannot comment on ping because I have a cable modem. However, the game's multiplayer is so sweet it's Unreal(horrible pun, I know). Constant fun, this plays wonderful. I mean, it really is awesome online.

-Cool taunts.

-Awesome weapons. Especially the redeemer. Of course, I'm biased towards big booms.

-Cool music. I mean, the stuff that really pumps you up to fight. Some of the best I've heard ever.

-Pretty damned good level design. I mean, it really kicks Q3's ass here. Q3 really pales in comparison.

The Bad
Well, it runs perfectly on my personal computer(but then again, I do have a 1Ghz Athlon), but I can't deathmatch my brother on his 200 mhz with 64 megs of ram - it runs too slowly on his machine, so I kick his ass and he gets pissed.

The Bottom Line
Better than Q3. Much better. I mean, really whups Quake 3's ass. Almost a flawless game.

The Good
Ever since the dawn of time, well since Doom was released anyway I have loved a good game of Deathmatch. Unfortunately the price of the internet, lag time and the fact that you can never find anyone of the same standard to play with this was no possible for long periods every day. This is where Unreal Tournament steps in with the greatest one player deathmatch you are likely to get. yes even better than Quake 3. While the one player is good it reallt shines in multiplayer and now that internet is almost free unlike in the days of Doom multiplay is getting more and more accesible. The best weapon in the game by far is the Redeemer which is a mini remote controlled missile launcher. Another new thing is the assault mission which see you trying to take over a boat, castle or train. These mission are tremendous fun and unlike capture the flag you really have to work together. It also has the best sniper rifle ever. By Unreal Tournament now!

The Bad
Takes ages to load even with a decent PC

The Bottom Line
Enter the tournament of a life time. Enter Unreal Tournament.

The Good
Good gameplay and variety.

The Bad
I was never able to play it online with a 56k modem.

The Bottom Line
UT, if you think about Q3 comparing is graphically inferior. It do has awesome graphics, but can't compete with Q3. It's slower, like many Q3 lovers complain, exclusively because Q3 runs on Open GL. UT in Direct 3d. If you look around the web, you'll find good Open GL drivers for UT and it'll be as fast as Q3.

The stages are way better designed and varied. Q3's are good, but lack theme variety. UT also has a lot more of game types and if you say: What about mods? Comm'on! We're reviewing a game, not it's community!

Weapons? UT's got a lot more, and even if you say only a few are useful, Q3 runs around only 3! Rocket launcher, Railgun, BFG! Sometimes the Shotgun. And UT's are, at least, more creative...

So... you'll probably have lot's of fun with both games, but with UT It'll probably last longer.

The Good
Loki did a fantastic job eliminating the bugs that had been creeping into UT since its original release. The installer is fantastic, and the game play is functionally the same as under Windows. It's a very smooth experience under Linux; I was happily surprised.

The Bad
It took a VERY long time for the Linux version to become fully playable. Epic and GT had slow development/release cycles in the beginning, but Loki solved all that.

The Bottom Line
A great skinable first-person shooter with great network play.

The Good
While I find UT an extremely annoying game, it does have some things going for it. I'll try to sum them up.

• Good-looking (albeit horribly slow) game engine. Don't get me wrong, the graphics are really quite good, but compared to Quake 3 the game engine is simply outdated and slow, and the only thing that truly shines is the flare effect, which is every bit as good as it was in Unreal.
• Good assortment of weapons (my personal favorites being the ASMD and flake gun).
• Overall good level design (although nothing matches DM17 in Q3).
• Outright terrific music! Thumbs up to Alex and Michiel (along with the legendary Necros and Skaven). Amazing work indeed!

The Bad
I'm sorry, Unreal Tournament just isn't better than Quake 3. Not even remotely better. Almost everything said about Unreal Tournament is a complete lie. Want examples?

• Everyone will admit that the Quake 3 engine is better, but what they will not tell you is that it is WAY better. It looks prettier, it is more responsive and it is a hell of a lot faster. Unreal Tournament crawls. On my machine (P2-350, 128mb memory, Riva TNT 1) I can run Quake 3 in 800x600 16 bits with texture and geometric detail levels set at maximum and still get 30ish frames per second. Unreal Tournament in 640x480, 16 bit and lowest texture detail will grind to a 4 fps crawl in even the most small action sequence. It is SLOW. A big battle (e.g. deathmatch in the Liandri map with 6 or 7 opponents) will run so slow you wouldn't be able to aim before you died. That sucks.
• One of UT's most hailed features, the multitude of battle types, is complete hype. While I will admit that Domination is cool, CTF and deathmatch are just as good if not better in Quake 3, and Assault is outright CRAP. It's just no fun, especially with the computer. Furthermore, every kind of game can and has been MODed into Q3. There is even a project in place that aims to convert UT to run on the Quake 3 engine. The results look promising, and runs MUCH faster on Q3 than on the Unreal engine. So what does that say?
• Speaking of AI, another one of the completely overhyped features in UT is its "much more advanced computer AI compared to Quake 3". Bullshit. Unreal Tournament's AI sucks every bit as much compared to Q3. Where a level increase in Q3 results in better aim and quicker reflexes, a corresponding level increase in UT would result in completely erratic behaviour by your computer opponents, which will run like hell in humanly impossible ways, dodge your bullets and release hell at you a lot faster than a human opponent can possibly click the mouse. Along those lines, the friendly AI (that is, the computer players that are on your team) get worse and worse with every level increase, which in most cases means that you will run desperately with the other team's flag, get shot at repeatedly and wonder just where the hell are your team members and why aren't they helping you. So how exactly is UT's AI code better than Q3's?!
• UT's network code is far inferiour to Q3's. Even with an extremely low ping (in Israeli terms) of about 80ms, I still can't aim properly because there is a ridiculously long delay between me pushing the button and the shot actually being fired. With Quake 3 running on a server right next to the one I played UT on (both located in an Israeli ISP) I get the same ping and gameplay is a LOT smoother. And yes, I still use goddamn 64k ISDN dialup. Shoot me. You can't get ADSL/cable/sat. in Israel.
• As for weapons, I think one of the chief complaints regarding Q3 was that its weapon assortment isn't as good as in UT. Huh? Where did that come from? In UT you have four chief weapons (out of ten!) you can actually DO something with (ASMD, flake cannon, rocket launcher and the Redeemer). How is that better than Quake 3, where you have Railgun, shotgun, rocket launcher, plasma cannon etc. that you can use? And in UT you even have the utterly useless impact hammer whereas in Q3 you automatically get the machine gun, with which you can still kill.

In short, Unreal Tournament is simply inferiour.

The Bottom Line
With marginally better single player action, the internet multiplayer-oriented Unreal Tournament falls completely short of Quake 3. Unreal Tournament's chief rivals looks better, plays better and is much faster. In short, Quake 3 is the better game, hands down.

The Good
Probably one of the best aspects of this game is the many types of gameplay and the many stages for each, although some levels are very poorly made (eg' Lava Giant. (WHO WANTS TO CTF IN THAT CRAPPY LEVEL??)

On the other hand, some levels are great to play in, like the Frigate, which I found to be very fun. Some game types were also very good, like domination.

The Bad
Here we are :
Very slow, hard DMers will hate the slow choppy gameplay
Graphics suck. Not colorful, instead just a few slabs of models put together<
Single player tournaments hard and annoying
Game finding process slow and unproductive, most servers fail to connect

The Bottom Line
Look, UT is decent, but it is not a solid DM game! If it was a single player, okay fine, but this game is just lousy. You want something good, go to Quake 3, Arena & Team Arena. I give Unreal Tournament a slow and poorly deserved (4.5/10)