/ Previews / Shooters / Unreal Tournament / Page 1
Will Quake 3: Arena have a run for its money???

by Edward Umheiser
(2/11/98)











When it was released back in May of 1998, Unreal got many mixed reviews and was heavily criticized. Fans of the long-awaited game claimed that it was the best FPS ever made and had one of the best Single-player experiences to date, not to mention that most advanced 3D engine ever. Meanwhile, there was a rather large group of people who complained that Unreal was nothing more than an eye-candy rich memory hog. Who was right??? No one will ever know, but there is one thing that both sides agreed on: Unreal multiplayer sucked. There were no questions asked; when it came to Unreal deathmatch, it was the most lagged experience ever. Epic Games (formerly known as Epic MegaGames) released patch after patch attempting to put right what they had originally done wrong: put multi-play aside to create a richer single player experience.

The Goods
Quick Peek: Epic goes at it again, this time with Multiplay in mind. Can they bring down the king of all FPS's... id?
Release Date: Quarter 1 1999 Developer: Epic Games
Publisher: GT Interactive
Homepage: Unreal Tournament
Comments
Comments on this article?
Tell us at 3DChat.Net!
web | newsreader
However, a breakthrough was achieved in patch release 2.20, when Tim Sweeney, the programmer for Epic, finally managed to bring Unreal netplay to the Quake/QuakeII level. Player warping and high pings were a thing of the past. So the question now comes down to... why isn't anyone playing Unreal online then? The answer however, is simple. Although Internet performance is vastly improved, the fun of Unreal deathmatch just isn't there. Unreal lacks the powerful weapons of Quake2 and doesn't have a vast array of mods available. In short, Unreal deathmatch is slowly being forgotten, overshadowed by newer games such as Blood2 and Half-Life. Slightly disappointed and still striving to achieve perfection, the Epic team starts over, this time with only one objective... to make the best damn DM experience anyone has ever seen, and hopefully will ever see. This was the birth of Unreal Tournament.

Many felt that id Software was crazy for making a deathmatch only game, especially since everyone was so looking forward to their next technological marvel… Trinity. No one expected them to announce Quake 3: Arena. However, everyone stood by their side, knowing that id has never made a dud and was well known for leading the pack in gaming developments, and most importantly, had the most online played game ever… Quake II. However, the announcement of Unreal Tournament came quite as a shock to everyone else, who thought that Epic's next project would either be the Unreal Level Pack (which we have yet to see…) or Unreal 2. After all, what does Epic know about making DM fun? The truth is… quite a lot. Epic has learned quite a lot from their past mistakes, and with the knowledge of their failure, they set out to overthrow the online gaming community.

Enough history... tell me about the game already... (next page)