Unreal Tournament

aka: Tournament, UT, UT99
Moby ID: 587
Windows Specs
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Description official descriptions

Unreal Tournament is completely different from Unreal: it is now mainly based on multiplayer, like Quake 3.

At the beginning, you have to play classic deathmatch rounds. After you have successfully won some of them, a new game mode becomes available, domination. In domination there are about three or four different areas scattered around the map to be controlled by your team. For a certain amount of seconds you control one area, a point is added to your score. The more areas you control, the faster your team's score rises. When you or the other team reaches a certain score, the game is over. The third mode is called capture the flag, every team has a flag to defend and tries to capture the other team's flag to score a point.

The fourth game mode is called assault. This mode requires completion of real missions, such as attacking an enemy base and destroying a specific object in it. Again, there are two teams, the defenders and the attackers. You have to complete the mission in a certain time, for example five or ten minutes. If you were successful, your team has to defend this time and the other team attacks. But the attacking team now only has as much time as you needed to attack.

All these modes are either playable in single or multiplayer mode. If playing alone, you have a large menu with orders you can give your bots. Also, all weapons were redesigned, and some new ones are added.

Spellings

  • アンリアル トーナメント - Japanese spelling
  • 浴血戰場 - Traditional Chinese spelling
  • 虚幻竞技场 - Simplified Chinese spelling

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Credits (Windows version)

89 People (88 developers, 1 thanks) · View all

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 89% (based on 76 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.8 out of 5 (based on 325 ratings with 11 reviews)

Brings everything great about multiplayer deathmatch into a one player 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.

Windows · by Matthew Bailey (1257) · 2000

Okay conversion of a great game

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.

Dreamcast · by Ace of Sevens (4479) · 2006

I sincerely believe this game is better than Quake 3, I'm not lying, and to the best of my knowledge, I'm not stupid.

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.

Windows · by emerging_lurker (160) · 2000

[ View all 11 player reviews ]

Trivia

German index

Unreal Tournament is on the Index of the BPjS in Germany. This occurred on 28.02.2002, over 2 years past release. More information about the topic can be found in the game group.

References

If you manage to collect a chainsaw (can only be found in custom made maps or via cheat code), you get instead of the expected "You got the Chainsaw". message actually the following message: "Its been five years since I've seen one of these." The sentence clearly refers to DOOM II, which was indeed released just a bit over 5 years earlier then Unreal Tournament was.

Version differences

The Dreamcast version does not have assault mode as all the maps save one were too large to fit in Dreamcast's memory. It is replaced in single-player by a new challenge mode, which is a series of one-on-one battles.

Awards

  • Computer Gaming World
    • March 2000 (Issue #188) – Action Game of the Year
    • March 2000 (Issue #188) – Best Level Design of the Year
    • October 2004 (Issue #243) – Introduced into the Hall of Fame
  • GameSpy
    • 1999 – Game of the Year
    • 1999 - Special Achievement in Artificial Intelligence
  • GameStar (Germany)
    • Issue 03/2000 - Best Multiplayer Game in 1999
  • PC Player (Germany)
    • Issue 01/2000 - Best First Person Shooter in 1999

Information also contributed by Ace of Sevens, Monkeyhead and Xoleras

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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by robotriot.

Macintosh added by Kabushi. Dreamcast, PlayStation 2 added by Adam Baratz.

Additional contributors: Brian Hirt, Trixter, Eric Barbara, Unicorn Lynx, Jeanne, Wizo, Paulus18950, Patrick Bregger, Plok, Rik Hideto.

Game added December 17, 1999. Last modified March 24, 2024.