A New Shooter for the Next Millennium?

As avid gamers, we can't think of a better way to welcome a new millennium than with a fresh generation of first person shooters. Unreal Tournament spearheads this brand new era of first person action games; it's Epic's pride and joy, as well as GT Interactive's Christmas cash cow. You've heard all the hype, you've read the previews, and you've probably played the demo. And what a demo it is! Over the last several weeks, the Unreal Tournament demo has clearly sent shockwaves through the hardcore death matching audience. All of a sudden, many of the same snooty gamers who mercilessly derided Unreal were now proclaiming Epic the new kings of deathmatch. Is it really possible that the makers of a game so harshly criticized for its multiplayer facet could learn so quickly from their mistakes?

The GUI makes it easy to customize

This is a CTF map called November

The short answer is yes. Building on what was good about Unreal and the feedback of their fans, Epic and GT are boldly targeting the hardcore and highly critical multiplayer audience with Unreal Tournament. There's no beautiful single player campaign to fall back on this time. UT's single player component consists of several tiers of bot matches (multiplayer style matches played with computer AI instead of human opponents) rather than a cohesive storyline like you would find in a game like Half Life. To further cement their focus on multiplayer, Epic has included a number of teamplay oriented mods into Unreal Tournament, including Capture the Flag, Assault, and Domination (more on these later). Clearly, the message sent with UT is: multiplayer or bust.

He's dead alright

Narrowly dodging that shaft

Epic did have a number of factors in its favor going into the development of UT. Foremost among these was being able to use the Unreal graphics engine without having to start from scratch. The Unreal engine was truly ahead of its time, capable of colorful, intricate scenes that far outpaced its competitors in terms of visual flair and flashiness. A typical gaming rig at the time could barely handle it, but today's hardware is definitely ready to tackle the challenge and give a decent framerate for competitive play. Epic also cashed in on its devoted fanbase for suggestions and feedback. There are dozens of websites devoted to Unreal news, and many more have cropped up as news of Unreal Tournament spread around.