unreal tournament review
The Pinnacle of an eraPC version
In spite of all its immense qualities, Unreal presented a particularly crippling defect, to the point that its developers thought it would harm its sustainability (1): its net code, to say the least, made online gaming very difficult - a real problem at the very end of the 20th century when a game worthy of the name had to offer multiplayer over the internet. Its creators therefore decided to distribute an extension exclusively oriented multi to remedy this, while developing the resolutely innovative artificial intelligence of Unreal for players who did not have an internet connection; but over the months this add-on became so important, in terms of development as in terms of final content, that it became a title in its own right: thus was born Unreal Tournament.
It was a properly monumental slap for everyone in the video game world of the time.
Before continuing, it may be necessary to specify that the only lasting franchise in the FPS sector at that time was Quake, whose second installment in particular occupied all the telephone lines of the moment. It was the benchmark, the living God, the idol that no one would ever have thought of even trying to shake his pedestal. The creators of Unreal didn't just think about it, and not only did they try it, but they were also close to success. So much so that the FPS players quickly found themselves split in two: on one side the Quakers, on the other the players of Unreal Tournament. Nobody had ever seen that.
So my problem is knowing where to start to explain how it happened ...
By the game modes, maybe - the gametypes as they say. To the classic Deathmatch, Capture the Flag and Team Deathmatch, Unreal Tournament added the Last Man Standing: each player begins the game with a certain number of lives, which they lose as they go measure that they are frying by an opponent; the last player living at the end of the match wins. Simple, clean, efficient. However, this mode did not find the place it deserved, perhaps because of the waiting time it involved for the first players to have exhausted their lives before starting the next: it was not very fun ...
Team play modes, such as the Capture the Flag or the Team Deathmatch already mentioned, enjoyed much more popularity. To these, Unreal Tournament added Domination: players must occupy hot spots in the arena by passing a volume and spinning symbol which thus takes on the color of their team until an opponent changes this color passing through in turn; the longer the symbol stays in a certain color, the more points it gives to the team in that color. It is up to the players who have marked a symbol to prevent opponents from taking it from them - with rockets, machine gun bursts and laser rifle as their best allies.
On the subject of team play modes, it should be mentioned that Unreal Tournament was extending the number of teams available to four: to Red and Blue standards, it added Green and Gold. This detail may seem anecdotal, but it could considerably upset the course of a Domination or Deathmatch game as a team. Only the Capture de Drapeau did not benefit from this innovation, for obvious reasons - although amateurs developed special levels, however without real success. But in the end this addition quickly proved to be quite anecdotal and less and less servers proposed it, until it almost disappeared ...
The last game mode, in a rather paradoxical way, remains the most exceptional but the least innovative at the same time although it offers the game experiences that are among the most intense that I have ever had: the Assault, which when you look closely mixes the multiplayer and the solo at the same time, which is original to say the least, consists in giving a team the task of conquering a facility defended by the opposing team through taking of several successive objectives in a given period of time. Once the allotted time has elapsed, the game begins again but the positions of the two teams are reversed: the attacker becomes a defender and vice versa - the team which accomplishes its objectives faster than the other wins the match.
If it remains relatively little played, the Assault is nevertheless characterized by unique games of their kind where teamwork reaches heights of coordination, because one cannot conquer or defend alone. Especially since once an objective is pressed, this evolution of the game is final: the spawn points for each team move to the next area in order of conquest to ensure that none is sees divided and that the carnage continues at a satisfactory rate. As the name suggests, The Assault is actually a perfect little war game - and the ancestor of many successful titles today ...
Attractive, right? But it didn't stop there, because to all this we could add mutators - a kind of mod.
The most popular of these mods, which quickly became a gametype all by itself, is the Instagib: each player has at the outset a single weapon, the improved Shock Rifle, but this kills instantly from that it hits a target, thus making the various items useless so they do not appear in the arena; matches of this type are characterized by very ... aerial movement techniques, which make games to say the least unique. Many clans quickly specialized in this mode of play which was quickly accepted as a ladder apart in official competitions.
Another mutator allows you to play in Low Gravity, which allows you to reach areas of the arena normally out of range, but also to lose less health following a fall. The Fatboy makes the players grow bigger as their score increases, which makes it possible to quickly identify the best of them; conversely, those who lose points - for example by committing suicide - lose weight. In Stealth, everyone is invisible - which has a certain charm - while in MatchSaut all players are equipped with boots that allow you to make tremendous leaps - there is little difference with Low Gravity however ...
There is also the possibility of removing all the power-ups from the arena, or even the Redeemer only - this super-weapon making it possible to fire a miniature nuclear warhead, which can be remote-controlled if need be elsewhere. Thus, the outcome of the games becomes less a matter of chance - or luck if you prefer - than of the players' skills since they can only rely on the simplest elements of the game. We can also launch a part with only one type of weapon available - Chainsaw, Cannon DCA, Shock Rifle, Rocket Launcher, Pulse Rifle or Sniper Rifle - so that everyone has exactly the same options as the opponent, for example.
Regarding the weapons, one of them is very practical: the translocator, a teleporter which launches a module with which one can move where he has lodged - and which kills the one who is nearby: a very humiliating way to frage ... Generally banned from Deathmatch games, it remains an essential element of the Flag Capture for the tactical aspect that it adds to the game: if we can not teleport with the flag, it is used to catch the one who stole yours, like the Quake 2 grapple. But it can also be used to place oneself in otherwise inaccessible areas, in order to monitor the surroundings from where one does not see you.
Subsequently, patches and Bonus Packs added other options in addition to the arenas and additional character models. Relics allow you to distribute objects in the arena giving special abilities to the player who picks them up, and without limitation of time - or more precisely until he is frage. Another option, developed by Digital Extremes, makes the ammunition explosive: it is detonated by firing on it, which injures all those who are nearby and, possibly, rages them; a similar option allows you to do the same with weapons elsewhere ...
In short, once all or some of these options combined with the basic rules - whose quantity of possibilities they offer already has enough to make you dizzy (2) - you are faced with a mass of settings and customizations parts bordering on infinity. In fact, it's almost impossible for Unreal Tournament not to please, unless you run into someone in bad faith - which happens - or who lacks imagination - which is not uncommon either.
On closer inspection, however, all these options are never more than a sort of gadget: they allow you to vary the pleasure but do not change anything in its deep nature. And the deep nature of Unreal Tournament is that it is a thoughtful game - or at least much more thoughtful than most of the other multiplayer games of its time: the “tactical” dimension (3) takes it much more space than in the Quakes. While these offer a relatively instinctive and rather simple style of play, Unreal Tournament offers two firing modes for each weapon, which in turn greatly varies the possibility of responding to a given situation.
The Shock ASMD Rifle, for example, makes it possible to fire a very fast beam but doing little damage or a fairly slow plasma ball but causing big damage: the first cannot be dodged but requires good precision while the second can be avoided but will take away a lot of health if it affects; it is up to the player to choose what type of attack he wants to launch according to the situation and his skills. In addition, a combination can be achieved by first firing a plasma ball which is detonated in flight with the beam: the resulting deflagration produces very large damage to all the targets around.
Or the Rocket Launcher. A perfect weapon, it reaches heights of subtlety here. If repeated clicks on the fire button make it possible to launch the projectiles one after the other, a long press makes it possible to load up to six rockets which can be fired as a fan to water an area or else concentrate in a bouquet grouped in order to cause massive damage on a specific point. In addition, by “aiming” at an opponent with the reticle for a certain period of time, it will turn red, signaling that the rockets will behave like homing missiles which will follow the movements of their target. Finally, secondary fire turns rockets into grenades capable of bouncing off the walls.
Or the Minigun, the heavy machine gun: its main shot, fairly precise, does little damage but allows it to fire from quite a distance in open areas, while its secondary fire, more approximate, is much more devastating, especially in hallways. The DCA Rifle functions as a sort of pump-action shotgun which launches molten shrapnels capable of tearing any armor at close range, or bell-shaped projectiles which concentrate these shards on a much more distant area and allow to shoot over obstacles from a secure point: very formidable in confined places.
But also the Ripper, who shoots spinning blades capable of decapitating an opponent or, by bouncing against the walls, of shooting at targets who believe they are safe; secondary fire makes these blades explosive on impact. The Bio Rifle shoots balls of unstable Tarydium mud - a toxic material - which can stick to the walls and the ceiling, and which explode after a certain period of time or when a player touches them - the ideal weapon to "mine" »A zone or a passage wholesale -; as for secondary fire, it loads a greater quantity of mud, which can kill in one blow an opponent in full health.
"Basic" weapons include the Hammer, a pressure hammer, and the Cleaner, an automatic pistol. The first constitutes the primary equipment of the space miner: keeping pressed the main fire contains the pressure of the piston which releases itself near a target, while the secondary fire causes weaker damage but at a high rate and makes it possible to return certain types of projectiles towards the adversary. Finally, the physical engine of the game gives the possibility of using this weapon to increase the range of jumps, in the manner of "Rocket Jumps" of Quake.
As for the Cleaner, it uses the same ammunition as the Minigun: its main fire has a slow rate but good accuracy, while its secondary fire is faster but less precise; the latter is characterized by holding the weapon tilted 90 degrees inward, to the "gangsta" in a way, which always has its small effect. But a player can also pick up a second Cleaner - taken from a dead opponent for example - and use both at the same time in the purest John Woo style: the rate of fire and the amount of potential damage then become quite impressive. ..
If no other weapon than the ASMD Shock Rifle can combine its shots, the diversity of attacks of each of them nevertheless brings a touch of subtlety which had never been seen before in any quake-like - except Unreal premier of the name of course, since all the weapons of Unreal Tournament are drawn from it, but with a significant makeover in addition. On this point moreover, the work of the developers brings a certain modernization to the aspect of the models of the original game whose somewhat old-fashioned appearance is well suited to its solo part but is a little irrelevant in its "suite" - for lack of a better term.
There are not only weapons however, there are also, and of course, arenas - or levels, or maps, or boards. They testify here to a know-how at the very rare time, where the level of reflection required to conceptualize such overlaps of passages, rooms, differences in height, placement of weapons and other objects attains a mastery and a complexity without any common measure with any of the other titles which precede Unreal Tournament - and Quakes including for that matter ... But they also reflect all the first inspiration of Unreal, all the originality, the personality , the strength of his universe.
Thus the ruined temples rub shoulders with abandoned factories, orbital stations and military bases, reconstructions of theaters of operations from the past as well as those of the future. Players can launch games aboard hyperspace-destroying spaceships or Nali castles floating in the air, around temples built on asteroids in orbit or in the meanders of submarine bases, at the peaks of archeology if high that gravity is low enough to be able to make tremendous leaps there or even in extraterrestrial installations so titanic and with technology so prodigiously sophisticated that their primary purpose eludes us.
All these arenas were presented as environments which each exploited in its own way all the richness of science fiction and space opera instead of focusing only on a very specific theme. So that through the various events of this Grand Tournament, Unreal Tournament especially allowed to deepen in a considerable way the original universe of Unreal, to strengthen its tangible aspect, to give it a depth, a credibility as we rarely saw them at that time. It was the triumph of pure imagination over banality and the boredom of unrealistic realism, and each part an invitation to a new journey in space as in time ...
Finally, the splendid musical compositions of these same artists who worked on Unreal deserve to be mentioned - without forgetting a few others: Tero "Teque" Kostermaa, Kai-Eerik "Nitro" Komppa and Peter "Skaven" Hajba, which we forgot in the credits for I don't know what reason - and which pushed Unreal Tournament to heights of musical accompaniment rarely equaled, as much at the time as since. Much more oriented electronic music - techno and industrial but above all drum and bass, plus a few pieces of metal - than that of Unreal, this soundtrack considerably accentuates the atmosphere of endless fury and ultra-violence of the game.
On this point, moreover, the soundtrack taken as a whole reflects a sum of work quite impressive: thus the slightest ambient noise, the rattling of weapons, the sounds of objects being picked up, the furious madness of explosions and detonations, the engine's ability to reproduce echoes in open areas, etc., creates an atmosphere that is both palpable and unique, which contributes immensely to immersion in the game. Besides, and to show me everything frankly, I would not be the first to say that half of the Unreal Tournament experience comes from its music in particular and its sound environment in general ...
But all this, or almost all, remains of the literature, because the real strength of Unreal Tournament lies in the faculty that it leaves to these players to modify it: if the version of the level editor UnrealEd delivered with the very first commercial edition of the game was the same as that of Unreal, that is to say a fairly unstable version, the first Bonus Pack already offered the second version; overhauled, both in terms of interface and functionality, it offered creative possibilities at the time never seen - not because of its versatility, but rather of its user-friendliness.
Because up to this point, video game editing tools remained sober to say the least, even frankly boring, whose use of such and such a function required writing entire lines of code in an environment that was not very motivating, at least for people who care about aesthetics - which is the definition of an artist, a creative. Freed from such a straitjacket, the Unreal community produced an incredible amount of maps, mods and mutators; many of these creations were total conversions, that is, games in their own right. And some even became legend, sometimes to the point of becoming commercial games.
Creative competitions were organized where participants redoubled their imagination and creativity to surpass their rivals in frank good humor. Many of these amateur level designers coveted the prestigious Ownage of CliffyB, this distinction granted to the best of them by one of the main creators of Unreal Tournament, and those who obtained it quickly saw themselves as part of an elite - which moreover played a certain role in the weakening of the conviviality of the Unreal community: so go the "powerful" who often abuse their notoriety to dismiss those whom they think they could overshadow them ...
But very few of them saw the true purpose of Epic Games behind this "gift" that represented UnrealEd and the launch of Make Something Unreal Contest, this official competition for the best mod. It was primarily for Epic to sell licenses of their rendering engine after all, and for this purpose leaving players to demonstrate the capabilities of this technology through their own creations represented a serious saving of time and energy for them. This is why many of those who have met "Epic" people in a professional collaboration, or similar, have not been taken in twice - I know something ...
The success of Unreal Tournament is measured by its sales - more than a million copies sold - as well as by its ports on Linux (1999), on Mac OS and Playstation 2 (2000) but also on Dreamcast (2001) - worth mentioning that the PS2 version allows you to play with a USB keyboard and mouse, which is exceptional for the time. Such commercial success naturally led to after-effects and other spin-offs, such as the two Unreal Championships for the Xbox, which played an important role in the design of the direct suites Unreal Tournament 2003 then Unreal Tournament 2004. As for Unreal Tournament 2007, or Unreal Tournament 3, it was created at the express request of Midway, the new publisher of Epic Games.
So this is how Unreal Tournament became a legend: by pushing the customization of the game to its limits, including in the elements of the HUD itself, but also and above all by innovating - most simply of the world. It was still that time when everything remained to be done. Since then, none of those who bore this illustrious name have ever reached even the ankle of Unreal Tournament - even if there were very good ones in the pile ...
These are also other stories, but which I will not tell you this time: after speaking at such length about the original, there would be little to say about the copies ...
(1) at the time a subject of concern for video game development studios; things have changed enough since ...
(2) Number of Frags and Time Limit, but also Available Weapons (they do not disappear once picked up and remain available to other players), not to mention the adjustment of the movement speed and air traffic control (i.e. the capacity that the player has to "direct" his fall).
(3) I use quotes because this term seems a bit exaggerated in a video game context, but the development of this opinion has no place here ...
Notes:
Although the development of Unreal Tournament has been abandoned for a long time, amateurs have been entrusted by the original creators of the title with the right to offer the public patches to perpetuate the compatibility of the game with current machines.
If Unreal Tournament is easily in its original version, a pair of reissues are also available: Totally Unreal (2001, augmented by Unreal and Return to Na Pali) and Unreal Anthology (2006, augmented by Unreal, Return to Na Pali, Unreal II and Unreal Tournament 2004).
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