Unreal Tournament

Unreal Tournament is a crazy game. At first glance you may just see a run of the mill first person shooter, you would be glancing inaccurately however. After it's release back in October of 2000 on the PS2, it quickly gained a reputation of being an overall great gaming experience. Rolling with this momentum, and stable franchise tucked under their belt, the developer decided to branch out into the online world of the internet where they really earned credibility. Any way you slice it, this game delivers. Even though it could never compare graphically, nor does it have multiplayer via online play, it does have hours of gameplay and multi-tap support.

When you start playing, you will immediately notice the first problem, if it can be called a problem, the control scheme. Though it does its best to cater to a dual shock, it takes a bit of tweaking, and a lot of playtime, to get used to the weird controls. You may find yourself staying away from the alternate zoom for the sniper rifle for a while, if you go with it at all. At any rate though, it has a solid feel to it and you will find yourself mowing down enemies in no time. The weapons featured, about 12, all handle well and carry with them two modes of fire, primary and alternate. The alternate is more damaging but balanced will with the reload time or accuracy. None of this will matter vary much though because of the tempo the game revolves around which is fast, very fast. At the speed of the game, you really don't notice the overall look of the game. Though it is definitely not up to par with modern FPS, remember that it is all compressed onto a plain old CD. That said it really isn't all that bad either, some of the backdrops are really nice to look at, if you get the chance. Along with a very small pocket of slow down or two, this game really doesn't have very many problems and offers quite a package.

You will be blazing through 38 different levels organized in five ladders. The first is your standard free for all deathmatch where the first to a certain number of "frags" wins the match. This is followed by domination in which two teams fight for control of certain points on the map. There are usually three points in a map and the more you control the faster your score goes up, as you would imagine first team to reach a certain number is the winner. Then we have capture the flag. For anyone who is not familiar with this regular in the world of multiplayer, your team has a flag and your opposing team has a flag. The objective here is to get through the opponents base, capture their flag, return to your own base and drop it at your flag all without getting killed. Anyone who is killed carrying a flag drops it wherever they are destroyed at, if the matching team gets to it first it is returned automatically, if the opposing team manages to get to it, they pick it up and can continue on to get the point. First team to three points claims victory. Next up we have assault. This truly is an amazing little match type. You have an attacking force and a defending force. The attacking force tries to accomplish a certain objective, or objectives as fast as they can. All the while the defending force if trying to wipe out their efforts. You play the attacking force first, then if successful the roles are reversed and the new attacking force tries to do the same objectives in a shorter amount of time. All of these ladders lead up the ultimate contest: Champion. This is a one on one match-up with the best of the best. There are only four matches each getting consecutively harder, leading to the ultimate fight that takes place on a speeding spaceship in space in low gravity, talk about awesome.

So keeping everything in perspective, Unreal Tournament offers quite a lot of gameplay. It will take you at least a few days to get through depending on your skill and the difficulty selection. Along with the support of the multi-tap, you could say this is the best package of its time. If you are a fan of FPS and want something to get you by for a bit this title will satisfy your needs. There really is no down side to it. It received a 9 out of 10 in my rating scale that grants it the honor of being, "Above and Beyond" and at the very least worth a play through.