Unreal Tournament (UT) is the game that truly defines the multi-player-only, first-person shooter (FPS) game. Yes, I realize it has a "single-player" aspect, but this is really nothing more than bots filling in for people. There is nothing to the tournament that unifies it. The throne room is an interesting graphical pat-on-the-back, but that just doesn't cut it as a single-player game in my book.
Interestingly enough, it was Id Software that provided the rationale for UT, as I understand it. When they decided that their own Quake III Arena (Q3A) would dispense with the single-player aspect altogether, opting instead to focus on multi-player gaming, they broke new ground. Yes, Q3A ended up shipping with a "single-player" aspect, which was nothing more than bots filling in for people. But Q3A is first, foremost, and almost without exception a multi-player game.
Since Epic Games had enjoyed such great success with their own Unreal, it must have seemed to them like UT was the next logical step. UT was thus a direct competitor to Q3A. Everything Q3A did, UT tried to do better. And in my view, UT succeeded where Q3A left the player wanting something more or something else.
Some have complained that UT simply isn't as pretty as Q3A, but I just don't get it. I do think that the character models of Q3A are both fancier and more fluidly animated, but the models of UT certainly serve their purpose. I do concede that many of the UT maps are much "blockier" in their geometry, for Q3A clearly goes farther to render curved surfaces. Nevertheless, the texture quality is good in UT—better than Q3A, in fact, if you can use the high-resolution textures—and everything looks great, even after several years have passed. Unless you're an absolute graphics snob, there is simply no way you can be disappointed with the visuals in UT.
The audio in UT is also very good. The sound effects for the weapons are very well done. The ambient sounds are interesting and varied. The music is downright spectacular in terms of variety, execution, and sheer amount of content. I'm not a real fan of the genre into which most of the music falls, but that doesn't prevent me from recognizing how much the music contributes to the overall experience.
I have only one complaint with the audio, really, and that's got to do with the degree to which it seems not quite finished. I was never been able to get the hardware sound and surround sound options working properly with my old SB Live! sound card. I went without them for years simply to avoid lockups and terrible aural artifacts. Worse, under Windows XP the whole audio system would occasionally get stuck in a very distorted mode where all sounds were clipped horribly.
The solution for all of these problems seems to have been upgrading to an Audigy 2 sound card, but that was hardly an option when UT was released originally. When it comes to these problems, I have no idea how they slipped past the developers. None of the patches issued fixed them for me. In short, be wary of the audio of this game if you have an SB Live! card. If you can get it working, it will be wonderful. If you can't, well, be prepared to suffer.
This is one area in which UT clearly stands out above its competitors. The menu system of Q3A, for example, was obviously thrown together with as minimalist a design philosophy as possible. The menu system of UT, in contrast, is far more powerful. UT provides an IRC chat window, separate windows for each game type, a news window, a favorites window, etc. Getting connected to the game you want to play has never been easier. This is a huge step in the right direction in my view.
Also, setting up a workable configuration is far easier in UT than in other games. UT gives the ability to bind speech, specify weapon preferences, configure keys, configure the hud, and configure almost everything that needs to be configured right in the standard interface. For those wanting more power, the advanced options are also available within a hierarchical format rather than by editing text files as with too many other games. UT indeed provides a powerful and intuitive interface.
This is another area in which UT clearly stands out, so let me be embarrassingly honest: when I first played UT, I thought it was kind of lame. A friend of mine got me to try the demo, and I was very unimpressed with the weapons, the maps, and the gameplay generally. But then something happened. After I played it for a while, I suddenly "got it" one day, and I realized that UT was so much deeper than other FPS games.
I think what put me off at first was that I was a long-time Quake player. UT didn't have the ridiculously fast game speed of that series of games. The weapons of UT were all complicated with their alternate fire modes. UT had this confusing translocator thingy. And I hadn't a clue what to do with the impact hammer. You couldn't even rocket-jump well in UT! What was up with that?! Didn't the developers know the importance of rocket jumping?!
At any rate, after playing for a while I realized that the slower pace to UT, the flexibility of the weapons, tools like the impact hammer and translocator, etc. give the game a depth that takes some time to recognize. It takes longer to get up to speed with UT, and it takes far longer to master the game. These factors also make the game much more tactically deep and interesting. The addition of dodging alone changes the nature of FPS gameplay greatly. Suffice it to say that I think the game mechanics of UT are simply brilliant. UT defines what it means to be a competition-grade FPS game.
In the year such-and-so, the Liandri corporation, blah, blah, blah. Who cares? Ok, I watched the opening movie a couple of times because it looked neat. I even played through the "single-player" aspect of the game a couple of times. But the simple truth is that there is essentially no story here. There are a few lines of dialogue designed to provide an excuse for folks to waste each other with really potent weapons. Not that there's anything wrong with it!
UT is a huge winner in terms of content. It ships with a dizzying diversity of maps. Whereas the maps in Q3A range "broadly" from tecno-futuristic to techo-gothic, the maps in UT are far more varied. They naturally feature the obligatory twisty high-tech corridors, as well as medieval castles, but they also include a ship on the water, skyscrapers suspended in space, spaceships hurtling through the heavens, and a host of other fascinatingly well-themed maps.
Of course, not all of them are great. There are a few lemons here and there amidst the batch. There are a few that just don't seem to have that all-crucial "flow" that some others have. I don't much like DM-Conveyor or CTF-TwinValley2, for example, but there are also some clear standouts (e.g., DM-Fetid and CTF-Face). Even with the occasional lemon, though, the maps are still very good overall.
The available game modes are also a real treat. Straight-up deathmatch is... well... straight-up deathmatch, just as capture the flag is exactly what one would expect. But the domination and assault modes are indeed something new under the sun. I particularly like the latter, though I'm sad to say it seems the least-popular mode of the game in terms of the number of servers running it. Still, all of the game modes are a blast to play and give a wealth of options.
As if the variety of maps and game modes weren't enough, the game ships with a wonderful assortment of mutators. Whereas Q3A left the development of instagib and other popular modes to third-parties, UT includes instagib, low-gravity, shock arena, rocket arena, fatboy, and a host of other interesting tweaks that can be applied to any of the game modes. Ever wondered what it's like to play instagib in a low-gravity environment with nothing more than a sniper rifle and perpetual jump boots? It's easy enough to find out straight out of the box with UT.
It just wouldn't be right to review UT and not mention the bots either. The bots of UT are a huge step forward as such things go. Yes, they're still dumb as a post in several aspects, and no, they won't replace human beings any time soon. Nevertheless, they are the most satisfying collection of bots I've seen yet in a FPS game. They make the bots of Q3A look pathetic by comparison. At their lowest settings, they're poor shots and slow movers; at their highest settings, you'd better be good to beat them. What's more impressive is that the differences between the levels amount to more than a mere change in accuracy. Their movement patters, their choice of weapons, etc. all change with their difficulty level.
It also bears mentioning that UT includes the ability to analyze games and game statistics. The ngWorldStats service provides statistics for players, and the browsers can parse log files and provide information on games played. This is a wonderful addition to the game that really makes UT feel like the beginnings of a competitive sport rather than just another video game. I know that studying my own stats helped me better understand my strengths and weaknesses as a player. That's for sure.
This is the very reason UT exists, and it shouldn't be surprising that the UT network code is great. There are a few glitches here and there—the most ridiculous thing I've seen thus far is hitting a guy in the chest with rockets and him taking zero damage, presumably because of some server-timing issue—but they are few and far between. Overall, the network code is about as smooth as it gets.
As remarked previously, the interface makes it very easy to find multi-player games, and there are a lot from which to choose. Even now, years after the release of UT, there are still thousands of servers with lots of active players. Clearly, this is not one of those games where finding opponents is difficult. Quite the contrary, finding a good game amidst all the thousands becomes the focus. Many of the servers on my list of favorites are full non-stop. That's how engaging UT is.
The only serious complaint I have with the multi-player game is that cheating is so rampant. I realize that this happens with every game, but it seems particularly bad with UT. In fact, the only game in which I've personally seen more cheating is Counterstrike, and I don't play that much because I think it sucks. The CSHP and UTPure server-side packages really help the situation, but it is rumored that a number of hacks slip by even these.
UT is a huge value for your gaming dollar. It packs a lot of great content right out of the box, and there are a huge number of interesting add-ons available free of charge on-line. UT remains so popular that there are numerous gaming ladders for various competitions, and there are even large LAN parties dedicated solely to UT gaming. As FPS games go, no gamer should be without UT. It is a game that is simply too good to be missed.
This review has been long overdue for me. I've been playing UT now for a few years, and I'm still not tired of it. I have gone through times when it wasn't all that enticing, but even today I still enjoy playing it on my own, as well as competitively with my clan, Steel Maelstrom. I've participated in hundreds of ladder matches, as well as thousands of pickup games. And despite all that, and probably more, I still enjoy the game. I still play the game. I'm still learning about the game even today. As such, I recommend it highly.
12/14/2002