Unreal
Tournament 2003
Brian Nicholas
kicks bot booty in Atari's wholesome new
game
1999: Unreal
Tournament, what a game! Fast and action-packed,
a non-stop fun-filled ride for all the family,
well OK not for the whole family but what a
game. The game that gave you the true meaning
to Deathmatch unlike Quake 2/3 that supposedly
started it off. This led to the very big disappointment
that was Quake 3 Arena which was just not very
good, the game had no atmosphere and just no
real enjoyment to the whole thing, the environments
were boring and unimaginative, just a big let-down. So thank God
Unreal Tourney came and saved
the day, a true revolution in game design, a true
classic in every way, the game had you hooked
from the word go. The
environments took you into the game, with their
nice layouts which helped you flow through the
game and with each map having a good uniqueness
to each one and nice textures helped bring
it all to life, most people's favourite was
the Sky City map where you could leap from building
to building, I must have played that map for
hours. The characters in the game were OK, nothing we hadn't seen before but
they were very good and went with the game
nicely but the best touch was all the skins
and mutators you could download and add in;
along with a great all-round package these made this
game just so good and highly addictive, winning
game of the year in 1999 from most PC game review
magazines. Now Unreal Tournament 2003 has come
along hoping to get our blood to the boil once
more and back hip thrusting like mad
after a fabulous head shot.
When I heard
4 - 5 months ago that UT2003 was coming out
I was very eager to find out as much
as I could, I downloaded video clips and I just
could not believe how good the game looked and
how much the graphics looked improved on
the old UT, but they had managed to keep that
nice unique feeling that UT gave. Then
came the demo and after playing that for a bit
I knew that we would be in for something special.
The game I got the game
home and could not believe it is three discs,
and then I looked on the back of the case and
saw that it takes up 3 GB of hard drive space,
so if you have a small hard drive I would start
to make some space right now! After the hour
it takes to install (well that's what it feels
like) and you start it up for the first time
you are greeted by the main menu which is nice
and very simple compared to its predecessor,
as the old one was window-based, this menu
just has five options which are shown below.
![[Screen-shot: UT2003 main menu]](images/ut2003.jpg)
Single player
is the game itself, where you set yourself up
for life in the arena. Here you select your
character and team you wish to belong to, you
can add what name you want to call yourself
and also that for your team, it will also show
you tutorials on each kind of game type - Deathmatch,
Team Deathmatch, Capture The Flag, Double Domination
and Bombing Run.
Deathmatch Match Always an instant
piece of fun, the AI of the bots in the game
is quite challenging when you get to the mid-level of the bot skill levels you can choose
from, that means everyone out there can find
a level to suit them. When you get better
simply go up to the next level, and with eight skill levels to choose from you will definitely
find a level to suit you. The bots can be quite
tricky, coming at you from all angles, they can
really surprise you and they are not that predictable,
if you think they will come from one direction
they might change their minds and come back
at you from where they just came from which
can throw you off guard and may get you killed!
Also if they are close to death they might choose
to run away in the hope that they can get a
health pack and carry on with their attack,
but most times when they try to do this you just
kick their ass and finish them off!
Team Deathmatch Like Deathmatch
but you can't kill your team mates, you set out to kill the other team where you can
go solo and just kill opponents or work with your team to try to take
them out faster.
Capture The Flag On the map, usually
at each end of it, are the team flags, one red
and one blue each corresponding to the team.
Each must try to get the opposite team's flag,
take it back to their own area where their flag
is to score a point (but your flag has to be
in place for that to happen or you cannot score),
in this format you can be offensive or defensive
it all depends what you want to do. This game
type was my favourite in the old UT, I just loved
to get the other team's flag, kill all that
got in my way and get that valuable point and make the
other team look silly.
![[Screen-shot: UT2003 15]](images/ut15.jpg)
Double Domination This is a new
game for UT2003 like Capture The Flag but at
a much faster pace, this is frantic and in this
game you will have the longest ten seconds of
your life! There are two areas that have a focal
point on the map, once you have control of both
points your team must hold them for ten seconds
in order to score a point. This is great for
people who love to hold back the enemy and be
a hero! I was playing this game for a long time
and it has become a favourite of mine.
![[Screen-shot: UT2003 14]](images/ut14.jpg)
Bombing Run Another new game
added to UT2003, this is a cross between American
football and soccer but with a UT
twist to it of course, if you want to find out how to
run for you life under fire this is the game
type for you! This is another team event; the
maps have a goal point at each end and a ball
spawn point at its centre. The idea is to get
the ball in the other team's goal by either
throwing it in or jumping through it, this gets
you the most points. Simple you might say but
when you have the ball you cannot fire your
weapon, the only advantage you do have is that
when you have the ball your life recharges if
you get hit. You will have to drop the ball
or pass it to another team member in order to
be able to fire and blow their
heads off. This adds a new element of game play
and tactics depending on the skill of the bots
you are playing against and with. Knowing where
your team mates are is a must and watching that
health bar is one thing you will also be doing
a lot of because if you have that ball it can
go very fast. I think this might become a good
multi-player game over the internet.
Characters As I looked through
the character selection I was taken back to my
childhood when I saw some of the characters.
To any of you who know of Games Workshop
and know what their space marines look like
then you will see a great similarity between
them and the gene boosted characters, and I
am sure that is what they are based on.
![[Screen-shot: UT2003 characters]](images/chars.jpg)
There is such
a broad range of characters that there will
be something for everyone here and I'm sure
that when new skins become available everyone
can have that personal touch.
My favourite
character in the game is an artificial life
form (robot) called Widow Maker, and that's
purely just because he is a robot and I just
think he looks cool.
![[Screen-shot: Widow Maker]](images/utwidow.jpg)
The other characters
range from Egyptians and freaks to aliens, so till
those new skin packs come out there is
enough to keep most people happy for now.
Weapons The weapons in
the game seem to have just had an upgrade but
they are classic weapons and to get rid of them,
especially when it is set just a few years on
from the original UT, would have maybe upset
a few people. Of course most of the weapons
look the same and also act and sound the same
as well, you cannot tell much difference from
the old sounds to the new sounds if any difference
at all, the biggest weapon change is the Sniper
Rifle, it does not use bullets any more and
has been renamed to Lightning Gun (that pretty
much gives away why it does not use bullets).
The zoom on the gun works exactly the same way
as in the old game (secondary fire button) but looks
very different because you use an electrical
scope, the gun has a built in monitor and looks
great when you use it to zoom in on your enemy's
head (Bah, I never use the zoom, takes up valuable
time, far more
satisfying and impressive to score a long range
head shot,
on a moving target while running or jumping
yourself, without it - Ed) and is a very nice new touch to the game.
The gun takes 2 - 3 seconds
to recharge between shots so you have to be very accurate
and on-target. At close range you don't have
a chance with this gun so be ready to change
guns quickly once you have fired and missed unless
you know you have the time to finish the job.
![[Screen-shot: UT2003 1]](images/ut1.jpg)
![[Screen-shot: UT2003 8]](images/ut8.jpg)
The new gun on
the block is the Ion Painter in hand with the
Ion Cannon, it's a very simple weapon to use
- when you get the Ion Painter all you have to
do is fire it at the area you want to completely
wipe out by holding the trigger down for about
3 - 4 seconds, the Ion Cannon in the sky then fires
down at that area and will destroy a massive
area just like the Redeemer but this is just
a much faster way to kill lots of people at
once, but make sure you are not in its way when
the Ion blast comes down or you end up dead
with the people you want to kill!
![[Screen-shot: UT2003 20]](images/ut20.jpg)
![[Screen-shot: UT2003 19]](images/ut19.jpg)
The graphics
for the gun fire has been improved - the Link
and Shock Gun have nice new touches the Link
Gun does not fire a big straight line of plasma
any more, it now has some shape and form to it.
![[Screen-shot: UT2003 9]](images/ut9.jpg)
The Shock Rifle
has a laser sight on it but don't get excited
as it's just for show and doesn't work, I
think that is a shame because that would have
been a very cool extra but what do I know? The
nice new touch I like on this gun is when after
you fire you get nice spiral decay effect when
the beam dissipates. The UT2003 team has really
tried to make the guns look a lot more real
and I think even though when you're playing
you don't notice the little extras it makes
it much nicer to have that level of detail in
a game.
![[Screen-shot: UT2003 3]](images/ut3.jpg)
Maps UT2003 has kept
its nice fast flowing maps, but on one or two
maps you can get stuck on one or two things
that are in the way, usually a step that is
maybe
too high and not aligned in the right place with
the ground or a hill that might be a bit too
steep which freezes you, and you have to jump
madly to try to get over it. Apart from that
and once you know where they are you soon learn
to get around them and they are not much of
a problem.
The maps are
gorgeous and have lots of variety to them, from
the futuristic industrial looking ones to a
forest wonderland that looks like something
out of Lord of the Rings, the textures involved
are on a massive scale and you can see why the
game is 3 GB because half of that is textures.
The detail from a blade of grass to a burn mark
on the wall is fantastic, and all this graphic
wizardry that has gone into the game helps you
to get involved and lost in the game, and the
lighting that the game has like the rays of
light on the ground through a forest canopy
just make this game special. Around the maps
you find various power-ups, these too have not
changed much from the first UT, the only new
one is adrenaline, if you get full adrenaline
you can use it to make you run fast and kill
harder! It's very useful for ambush attacks
or even running away (did I just say that?).
![[Screen-shot: More UT2003 screens]](images/thumbs.jpg)
LAN/internet
play To play on the
internet you don't need a third party program
to play on-line such as Gamespy, now it is all
integrated into the game itself which a lot
of games are now starting to do and man isn't
that great? I have 1 Mb internet connection
at home and also my home LAN with my other computer,
now when I was playing on-line I could not tell
the difference between the internet and my LAN, I
could not believe how fast it was, there was
no lag and no jumpiness, the game just flowed, it
was amazing because I play other games on-line
and I still get that jumpiness so I was very
impressed. Playing on-line is a joy and very
addictive and playing against real people is
always so much more fun because you get the
added extra of human intelligence and that combined
with the game itself you've got a winner!
PC test round-up I tested the
game on an AMD Athlon XP 2000 with 1.5 GB of
RAM with a GeForce 4 Ti4200 128 MB DDR RAM graphics
card and an AMD Athlon XP 1800 with 512 MB of
RAM with a Radeon 8500 64 MB DDR RAM graphics
card.
First let's look
at the Athlon XP 1800: with this PC the graphic
detail options cannot all be turned up, you
have to have a reasonable set-up to make sure
it runs smooth. Now with the Radeon graphics
cards I had a few problems, the graphics went
mad as you can see.
![[Screen-shot: UT2003 rendering errors on ATI Radeon]](images/fault.jpg)
I do not have
any problem with the GeForce 4 whatsoever,
I think this fault could be due to ATI's drivers,
it is not famous for producing the best drivers
in the world and the settings I had it on should
not have caused any problems, but maybe
in a UT2003 patch they might have a solution
for all of us who have this card. Unfortunately
this fault happened a few times but when it
was running normal it ran great.
On the Athlon
XP 2000 I turned up all the graphic and sound
options to the maximum settings on a resolution
of 1,024x768 in 32-bit colour, and had no trouble
whatsoever, the game ran smooth all the time
but unfortunately what the game has is bugs,
and lots of them, I think I have sent about five
to six bug reports off to those nice UT2003
design people (nice of me don't you think?)
so let's hope that some of these problems will
be fixed fast, but expect a meaty patch to come
out to cure all those ills because I think there
is going to be a lot of them. Although the game
does have these bugs they seem to get better
each time you run the game, I still have the
odd one or two crashes but not very often, when
they do happen your PC will more than likely
crash. There does not seem to be any bug that
affects game play at this time.
The
maps have a few small faults and the cheesy
announcer's voice sounds like he should be in
a supermarket telling you of this week's special
offers, I mean he just doesn't sound right, he
sounds like he is trying too hard to sound mean
bless him. The game is just fantastic and all
the cons the game has which are minor can't stop
the overwhelming pros that make this another
classic and it gets a big 5 out of 5.
Verdict |
Name: |
Unreal
Tournament 2003 |
Publisher:
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Atari
|
Price:
|
£30
|
Requires:
|
- OS: Windows 98/ME/2000
SP2/XP
- Pentium
III or Athlon
processor, 733 MHz or better
- 128 MB RAM or better
- 3 GB
hard drive space
- CD/DVD-ROM
8x speed
- DirectX 8.1
compatible sound card
- 3D accelerator card with 16 MB
VRAM
- For
mulitiplayer: internet (TCP/IP) and LAN (TCP/IP and IPX) play
supported, internet play requires 56 kbps or faster modem
|
Pros: |
- Excellent
graphics
- Action-packed
game play
- Good
AI
- Quality
maps
- Built-in
connection to play
on-line
- Original
new game modes
- Lots
of characters to
choose from
- Map
editor/constructor
|
Cons: |
- Some
layout faults on
some maps
- Annoying
announcer voice
- Bugs
- Some
graphics cards might
not work correctly
|
Rating: |

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