This is a bit longer than I'd like, but hey its UT2003 and Im a big FPS fan and well if you're thinking about getting the game read this review first aight!
Not that it’s important or anything, but the original Unreal Tournament was my favorite game of whatever-year-it-was-released-in (I think it was 1999). It was really the first multiplayer-focused title out there (it came out maybe two weeks before Quake III), and Epic really did a great job with it. The game was loaded with gorgeous graphics, awesome weaponry, lots of fun gameplay modes, and great AI bots (perfect for practicing offline). To top it all off, it had a great interface and an amazingly cool stat-tracking system. Now, three years later, we have the sequel. Epic, unfortunately, played it reeeallly safe here, and didn’t really do much that sets the world on fire. It’s pretty much the same game from 1999, albeit with some tweaks, modifications, and much better graphics. Ultimately, this is nice, but more probably could’ve been done.
The core gameplay is pretty much what you’d expect – I mean, shit, it’s a first person shooter, what else could be done? However, there is a LOT of differences for those well-versed in Unreal Tournament. For one thing, the game is a bit faster, I think. That’s a good thing. Second of all, most of the weapons have been changed. This is both good and bad:
01. The rocket launcher’s secondary function has been toned down, and I think it’s weaker. But it’s more usable if you ask me, so score.
02. The flak cannon have some more “bounciness”, which works, but I think it’s weaker.
03. The Minigun has a longer delay when you first use it. Not a big deal, if you ask me.
04. The link gun, which was my favorite from the old game, is practically the same. Score! This weapon rocks.
05. The shock rifle seems to be a little bit more powerful, and not as useless as it once was.
06. The bio-rifle is still a useless piece of shit.
Okay, so the weapons are different, but not THAT different. There is one big gameplay change, though – adrenaline. In each level there are a lot of pills floating around, which add 3 to your adrenaline level. Each frag adds five. When you get up to 100, you can press some keyboard inputs and get a little bonus like speed, invisibility, regeneration, etc. While its not a huge factor (because it’s not altogether common), adrenaline is very cool and it does work. If you know how to use it (speed+minigun = lots of kills), it adds a great dimension to the gameplay and it’s a good implementation.
Ultimately it’s up to you to decide whether you like these changes or not (duh). If you ask me, the weapon's subtle minuses are canceled out by their subtle plusses and the end result is pretty cool. Adrenaline is also good stuff. There is one problem with the weapons on the whole, though – they don’t look as cool!
Epic messed around with the play modes, as well. They took out Assault, I guess because it didn’t work great in an online environment. They also changed up Domination, which was my favorite play mode from the original (*sniff*). The new mode, which has only two capture points and forces you to hold on to both for ten second or so, is a lot of fun, but I miss my old Domination. The new mode, Bombing Run, is okay in short doses. The other modes, which are Team DM (I *love* Team DM), DM, and CTF are exactly the same as they always were, which is okay.
The levels in the original UT were all gorgeous, and mostly playable, and it’s pretty much the same story here. A lot of the themes are the same, but Epic also threw in some amazing outdoors Halo-esque levels which are just massively impressive. Most are very playable, all are fun, and it’s all good really. There are some rehashes from the original (and sometimes they are tricky; I recognized one level as being a lot like one from UT with just a different look), but that’s okay. I like playing familiar levels in new games.
Unreal Tournament has always been an example of high quality netcode, so this isn’t any different. The netplay is smooth and totally playable, but obviously better if you have broadband (and most gamers do, right?). But what if you have nobody to play with? Well there’s always the bots, which seem to be significantly revved up from the original. They are ruthless and mean and a lot harder than the original and all of that. One thing I don’t care for is the new taunts – a lot of them are silly, the voices are annoying, and they seem to be vulgar just for the sake of being vulgar. It’s just more juvenile. Oh well.
The graphics in Unreal Tournament 2003 are fucking amazing. They really are. Epic went all out here and the end result is a stunningly beautiful game. The texture work is great, the character animation is great, and there are lots of little special effects which are impressive. Best of all, it can work on a lot of hardware. I have a 1.3ghz PC and an old Radeon 32 meg card and it works great. I actually want a GeForce 3 or something like that because I know that the game would look a lot better. In a day and age when the original UT still looks impressive, it’s good to see Epic still pushing the boundaries. For what its worth, the sound effects are great too.
Yea, but not everything is perfect. Like I said before, the game is just too similar to the old one. It provides loads of fun, and it’s comfortable when you first begin playing it, but Epic really didn’t do much to push FPS gameplay forward. I suppose that maybe not much could be done, but who knows. I mean, they tried to make it more like a sports game, as it has you drafting bots for your team in single player mode and all that (including stats!), but its half-assed and lifeless. One more complaint: Epic made the in-game interface more “game-like”, moving away from the Windows desktop-esque interface in the first UT. I don’t like it.
But, all in all, this is a great game. If you dig multiplayer FPS games (and I love them!), then you owe it to yourself to get this. It really is a lot of fun and there’s a ton of game for your money. Good effort from Epic, I like it. It’s just not Game of the Year material like the original was.
I realize that most of you, for some weird reason, dont play PC games but Id like an opinion on my review pleeeeaaassseee. :)
