Unreal Tournament is a first-person shooter (FPS) video game co-developed by Epic Games and Digital Extremes. It was published in 1999 by GT Interactive. Retrospectively, the game has also been referred to as UT99 or UT Classic to differentiate it from its numbered sequels. The game is based on the same technology that powered Unreal, but the design of UT shifted the series' focus to competitive multiplayer action, a trend at the time: id Software's Quake III Arena was released only ten days later.
Gameplay
Main article: Unreal (series)
UT was designed as an arena FPS, with head-to-head multiplayer deathmatches being the primary focus of the game. The game's single-player campaign is essentially a series of arena matches played with bots. For team matches, bots are again used to fill the roles of the player's teammates. Even on dedicated multiplayer servers, bots are sometimes used to pad out teams that are short on players.
UT is known and widely praised for its bot A.I., the product of programmer Steve Polge who had earlier risen to fame by designing the Reaper Bot for Quake, one of the earliest examples of an effective deathmatch bot. The player can choose a bot skill level (anywhere from "Novice" to "Godlike") or set it to automatically adjust to the player's performance. Bots can be further customized by changing names, appearance, accuracy, weapon preferences, awareness, and so forth.
[edit] Game types
Deathmatch: A classic every-man-for-himself player vs. player combat. The objective is to out-frag all opposing players.
Team Deathmatch: Teams compete together to out-frag the opponent team. Like Capture the Flag and Domination in this version—and unlike subsequent releases—four teams were allowed: Red, Blue, Green and Gold.
Capture the Flag: Classic Capture the Flag. Players compete to capture the other team's flag and return it to their base. Competitive teams must use a great deal of teamplay. Both teams must defend the base from incoming attackers and get into the other team's base, take their flag and return to base. This requires that the team protect their flag carrier very well from enemies in order to complete their objective.
Domination: Teams compete to control various control points to earn points and win the map. Standard maps contain three control points. Control of these points is initially accomplished through occupation (physically occupying the space), but control of a point continues until a player from another team occupies the space. The more control points one team controls, the faster it gains points.
Last Man Standing: Similar to Deathmatch, the objective here is to remain alive longer than your opponents, putting an emphasis on number of deaths rather than kills. Players start with all weapons available, fully loaded, and have a set number of lives. Power-ups, including health and ammunition packs, are unavailable. Once a player runs out of lives they lose and have to wait as spectators until the match ends.
Assault: This game type is played with two opposing teams, one assaulting a "base" and the other defending it. The map is set up with a number of objectives which the attacking team must complete (usually in sequence) such as destroying something, entering an area, triggering a button, et cetera. The team who first attacks then defends, and attempts to defend for the entire time they attacked. If they can accomplish this, they win the map. If the team defending first assaults the base faster than the other team, they win the map. If both teams defend for the maximum amount of time the map is a tie.
Reception
Unreal Tournament received wide critical acclaim.[4][5][8] Mainstream press reviews praised the graphics, gameplay, maps and multiplayer capabilities of the game. Computer Shopper concluded "Quake may have spawned the online deathmatch, but Unreal Tournament has taken it to the next level with its amazing graphics and fast-paced action. Online or off, this game rules!"[18] In March 2000, Unreal Tournament was second on a list of best-selling games in Computer Dealer News trade magazine, behind Quake III Arena.
At GameRankings, the Windows version of Unreal Tournament holds an average review score of 94%. GameSpot praised Unreal Tournament's graphics, noting "As good as the original Unreal looked, Unreal Tournament looks even better. The character models and skins look excellent, and there are quite a few choices to make when designing your character." GameSpot also praised the multiplayer gameplay, weapons and level design: "The first-person shooter genre is fiercely competitive. But Unreal Tournament rises above the rest with its solid multiplayer performance, from its good weapon balance to its great level design."[13] The game was similarly reviewed by GameSpy, who concluded: "Unreal Tournament raises the bar for first person teamplay games. This game is stuffed with content and polished until it gleams."
The Macintosh version of Unreal Tournament was equally praised. Macworld dubbed it the "Best network shooter for the Mac", and gave it the Game Hall of Fame award in 1999. In its review, Macworld editor Christopher Breen stated: "If the violence and hardware requirements don't unsettle you, you'll find Unreal Tournament nothing but unwholesome, bloody fun."
The PlayStation 2 and Dreamcast releases did not fare as well as the PC versions. The PS2 version has an average review score of 77% at Game Ratings. GameSpy criticized the graphics of the PS2 version, saying "Graphically, the PS2 version of Unreal Tournament seems uninspired."[20] Its conclusion stated "Sluggish gameplay, somewhat washed out colors and textures".[20] In addition to this, the PS2 version only allowed multiplayer games on 11 maps (7 deathmatch and 4 capture the flag). A novel, but relatively unused, feature is the ability to connect a keyboard and mouse through the PS2's USB ports. Players could then play in a similar manner to the PC version. This also allowed for up to 3 players without the use of a PlayStation 2 Multitap.
The Dreamcast version has an average review score of 88%. GameSpy's review said: "Well, believe it or not, there are lots of annoying features that drag the game down". GameSpy cited both slow framerate speeds and low sound quality as problems with the Dreamcast version.
[edit] Competition
Unreal Tournament was played at the World Cyber Games in the years of 2001 and 2002[23] where the title was contended for in a deathmatch 1 vs 1 environment. This is where UT was played on an international scale, where players from all around the world went head to head to see who would be crowned world champion.
Modification
Many fans have taken advantage of the chance to create mods for the game. These range from slight changes on some aspects of gameplay (such as map voting) or to total conversions. One modification, ChaosUT, became popular enough that it was included with the 'Game of the Year' edition of the game, while Tactical Ops was released as a stand alone retail product.
Another popular mod, released by co-creator Digital Extremes, is "Relics", which adds items to the game which have various effects on the player who obtains them. Relics include Vengeance (when the player holding it dies, a skull appears at the point of death and then explodes in a similar fashion to the Redeemer); Defense (which lessens the damage done by weapons); Speed (which gives the holding player a boost in speed); Redemption (which teleports the holding player to a different area when the player's health meter is at 0); Strength (which boosts the damage done by the player's weapons); and Regeneration (which regularly increases the player's health by 10 points).
As with the original Unreal, the ease with which players can create and release mods to the core game is a key factor contributing to UT's longevity. UT improved upon the mod-friendly nature of its predecessor with support for mutators such as Sniper Arena, Instagib, JumpMatch, Low Gravity and more. Further, UT clans, or gaming teams, and a score of UT dedicated clan and fan community sites continue to sustain Unreal Tournament's popularity years after its initial release.
[edit] Sequels & Remakes
The success of the original Unreal Tournament has spawned three sequels, including UT2003 and UT2004 (on Unreal Engine 2.x) and Unreal Tournament 3, which was originally code named UT2007. This yearly naming structure, based around marketing the franchise as a competitive sports title, was abandoned shortly before the launch of the third sequel.
There have also been several efforts to remake Unreal Tournament by the community using newer engine versions, the largest in scope being Unreal Tournament Revolution, a total conversion for UT2004, featuring new music by original Unreal Tournament composer Michiel van den Bos. Because of differences in the styles of the sequels, the goal of such remakes are typically to take advantage of newer engine features and graphical capabilities while remaining true to the gameplay and style of the first Unreal Tournament.
In 2000, Digital Extremes announced a game with the name Dark Sector which was planned as a spiritual successor to Unreal Tournament and "the next step in the first person action gaming experience by blending the intense action elements of Unreal Tournament with the scope and character evolution of a persistent online universe". It was to feature an early clan/syndicate support, team battles, ladder matches and Space flight gameplay. However, the game (in this form) never would see the light of day as the original plan was scrapped. The title would resurface in 2004 with an entirely new focus and being developed for the seventh generation of video game consoles.
Music
Main article: Unreal Tournament soundtracks
The soundtrack for the game was primarily written by Alexander "Siren" Brandon, Michiel "M.C.A." van den Bos, Andrew "Necros" Sega, and Dan "Basehead" Gardopée, the same music artists who wrote the Unreal soundtrack, although only Brandon and Van Den Bos remained credited for it. The game (in contrast to Quake, which used CD audio) employed tracker music, which resulted in a considerably good sound quality with very little size trade-off.
Two additional tracks were contributed: one ("firebr.umx") by Tero "Teque" Kostermaa and Kai-Eerik "Nitro" Komppa, and one ("razor-ub.umx") by Peter "Skaven" Hajba. These, however, remained uncredited for reasons unknown—Hajba's credits are in fact still intact in the instrument data in the file itself, and the original version of Kostermaa's song is available from his website, although there are various differences. Users, such as map makers, may also add custom soundtracks to maps using UnrealED. Game composer Frank Klepacki was impressed by Alexander Brandon's contributions to the soundtrack.
System requirements
[hide]Official system requirements
Minimum Recommended
Linux
Operating System Linux 2.2.x with glibc 2.1
CPU Intel Pentium II
Memory 64 MB 128 MB
Hard Drive Space 550 MB of free space
Network Internet connection required for online multiplayer
Windows[31]
Operating System Windows 95, 98, 2000, Me and NT4.0 or XP
CPU Intel Pentium 200 MHz Intel Pentium II 266 MHz
Memory 32 MB 64 MB
Hard Drive Space 120 MB of free space 605 MB of free space
Network Internet connection required for online multiplayer
Macintosh[32]
Operating System Mac OS 7.6 or higher
CPU PowerPC 603e 200 MHz or faster
Memory 64 MB
Hard Drive Space 120 MB of free space
Information gathered from:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unreal_Tournament
