ix's demo reviews: UNREAL TOURNAMENT 2003

ixnay · September 14, 2002, 19:35

Well, it's finally here - the demo for UT2K3:

http://www.pcgameworld.com/details.php/id/3191

98 Megs

I'll just say this up front - if you liked the original UT, you will more than likely enjoy this. The core gameplay remains the same, with several nice additions and extra game modes. The demo includes:

2 deathmatch maps
1 capture the flag map
1 bombing run map

Plus 1 character model and many of the weapons.

Deathmatch and CTF are just like they were in the original. Bombing run is an interesting cross between football and capture the flag. Each team has a goal in their base. There is a ball sitting in the middle of the map. You try and get the ball into the enemy team's goal. You can't fire a weapon when you've got the ball, but you can throw it, making it possible to pass between your teammates - or even throw it at an enemy so they can't use a weapon, leaving them ripe for a kill. You score 7 points for jumping through the goal and 3 for throwing the ball through it.

Some of the additions to the core gameplay include double jumping (if you hit jump again at the right time in the air you can get more distance and air) and adrenaline. You gain adrenaline by getting kills and finding it around the map. Once your adrenaline gets to 100, you can hit a keystroke combo to get a powerup - for example, tapping forwards 4 times gives you extra speed, tapping right right left left makes you invisible. Very cool. Also of note is the ragdoll physics for player deaths. Rather than a prescripted death animation, dead bodies will fly through the air, roll down slopes, and bounce off the walls.

Most of the weapons remain the same from UT with a few changes. The link gun fires a burst of plasma, or you can use your secondary fire to hit a teammate and powerup their link gun. The lightning gun, well, fires a rather powerful bolt of lightning. Overall, I'd definitely recommend the demo if your system can handle it - i've got a P3 1.0 GHz and a GeForce 2, and the framerate really drops if there's more than 2 people onscreen at once.

Previous demo reviews:
Spring Break
Battlefield: 1942
Emperor: Rise of the Middle Kingdom
Hitman 2

Eroberer · September 14, 2002, 22:28

oops, wrong forum. heh!

Adagio · September 15, 2002, 05:40

The game looks damn good, but my computer is a little slow to run the game (I've only got a P3 500 and a GeForce 3 TI 200), but I've seen the game by a friend of mine

Footie Mad · September 15, 2002, 05:47

Its just great. I liked Unreal Tournament for its clean cut focus on the fun of blowing people up and this is just the same thing but better!

alva · September 15, 2002, 08:08

I tried it, allthough the graphics look very nice, this game just isn't for me .

Played alot of BF'42 this, this one is more fun. Still prefer OFP though.

MattyBoy · September 15, 2002, 19:33

How do these compare to the original Unreal?

I played quite a bit of that as single player and found it amazing and very scary for a short while.
(actually its worst flaw was lack of play balancing).

ixnay · September 16, 2002, 23:05

Update: there's a patch for the demo out now. It's about 4 megs and I think it contains a fix for Voodoo cards and a weapon-swapping bug.

http://ut2003master1.epicgames.com/u...patch-1rc4.exe