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Last weekend I got an invite to come to London for a game or 50 of Unreal Tournament 2003. Mark Rein sent me a mail sunday, saying I could come by monday for the test. Not only did I break a toe last week, but it woulda been impossible for me to go with such short notice anyway, so I did the second best thing. I decided to ask an english guy if he wanted the job. Luckily eVOLVE was at hand in our chatroom (#unreality on EnterTheGame), and he was more than happy to have a go at the game. (Lucky bastid) I sent him off with orders to wear something sassy, plus wink a lot to Jay Wilbur and Mark Rein, oh, and to get a lot of info. This is what he delivered to me earlier today: (Mark Rein promised us he would send along a shot or two from the game, and we will be posting them as soon as they arrive) Unreal Tournament 2003 - Hands-on Preview I never really enjoyed the previous Unreal games... Well actually I did, but I felt that Unreal Tournament 2003 is so shockingly great that you needed a smaller shock to soften the blow. Yes, that's true, on behalf of Unreality I was invited to a private room in a cybercafe somewhere near London to view and play UT2003. And you better believe it was worth it. For those of you who don't already know, UT2003 is the next planned release in the Unreal game series, intended as a kind of sequel to Unreal Tournament, and providing the multiplayer aspect to the series. Where UT had 5 player models to choose from out of the box, UT2003 will have almost ten times as many. Where UT had a pretty liberal poly limit, UT2003 has on average 100 times as high a limit. How is this possible using what is basically an enhanced version of the engine? Well, we'll get onto that later... Lets start with what really matters, the gameplay. Gameplay As far as playing the game, it hasn't changed much from Unreal Tournament, the style of play will not surprise most UT players, but it has been tweaked, enhanced and generally evened out. The movement speed does seem lower than people are used to in UT, although once in the middle of a firefight, the speed of everything was spot on. Other more obvious changes include a double jump feature, whereby if you jump while you are in mid jump, you will gain an extra foot or so of clearance, and some new/tweaked game modes. Yes, Instagib will be back as well as DM, Team DM and CTF, and a variation of the Domination gametype from UT called 'Double Domination', where there are just two control points, and your team only scores points while you control both of them. A variation of CTF was created quite by accident where the flag colours were placed in the wrong bases, i.e. the red team's flag starts where the blue team spawns and vice versa... This means that you can immediately grab the opponent's flag, but to capture, you need to break into the very heart of the enemy base, while your team reclaims your own flag. It makes capture a lot more challenging, although the flow of gameplay is much faster, with returns, captures and players grabbing the flags happening every few seconds. It is currently undecided if this lucky accident will simply be an alternative map style to the regular CTF maps or if it is too close to the only completely new gametype (so far), Bombing Run. The premise of Bombing Run is quite simple, to be honest... Pick up a bomb and get it into your enemy's base. The version I played still needed some tweaking as the ball wasn't visible enough, but the general workings of the gametype were working superbly. You pick up the bomb, or 'ball' as it is normally referred to in the centre of the map, although when in possession of the ball, you cannot fire or defend yourself in any way, leaving the only evasive control you are left with, i.e. Parent Share twitter facebook linkedin

Last weekend I got an invite to come to London for a game or 50 of Unreal Tournament 2003. Mark Rein sent me a mail sunday, saying I could come by monday for the test. Not only did I break a toe last week, but it woulda been impossible for me to go with such short notice anyway, so I did the second best thing. I decided to ask an english guy if he wanted the job. Luckily eVOLVE was at hand in our chatroom (#unreality on EnterTheGame), and he was more than happy to have a go at the game. (Lucky bastid) I sent him off with orders to wear something sassy, plus wink a lot to Jay Wilbur and Mark Rein, oh, and to get a lot of info. This is what he delivered to me earlier today: (Mark Rein promised us he would send along a shot or two from the game, and we will be posting them as soon as they arrive) Unreal Tournament 2003 - Hands-on Preview I never really enjoyed the previous Unreal games... Well actually I did, but I felt that Unreal Tournament 2003 is so shockingly great that you needed a smaller shock to soften the blow. Yes, that's true, on behalf of Unreality I was invited to a private room in a cybercafe somewhere near London to view and play UT2003. And you better believe it was worth it. For those of you who don't already know, UT2003 is the next planned release in the Unreal game series, intended as a kind of sequel to Unreal Tournament, and providing the multiplayer aspect to the series. Where UT had 5 player models to choose from out of the box, UT2003 will have almost ten times as many. Where UT had a pretty liberal poly limit, UT2003 has on average 100 times as high a limit. How is this possible using what is basically an enhanced version of the engine? Well, we'll get onto that later... Lets start with what really matters, the gameplay. Gameplay As far as playing the game, it hasn't changed much from Unreal Tournament, the style of play will not surprise most UT players, but it has been tweaked, enhanced and generally evened out. The movement speed does seem lower than people are used to in UT, although once in the middle of a firefight, the speed of everything was spot on. Other more obvious changes include a double jump feature, whereby if you jump while you are in mid jump, you will gain an extra foot or so of clearance, and some new/tweaked game modes. Yes, Instagib will be back as well as DM, Team DM and CTF, and a variation of the Domination gametype from UT called 'Double Domination', where there are just two control points, and your team only scores points while you control both of them. A variation of CTF was created quite by accident where the flag colours were placed in the wrong bases, i.e. the red team's flag starts where the blue team spawns and vice versa... This means that you can immediately grab the opponent's flag, but to capture, you need to break into the very heart of the enemy base, while your team reclaims your own flag. It makes capture a lot more challenging, although the flow of gameplay is much faster, with returns, captures and players grabbing the flags happening every few seconds. It is currently undecided if this lucky accident will simply be an alternative map style to the regular CTF maps or if it is too close to the only completely new gametype (so far), Bombing Run. The premise of Bombing Run is quite simple, to be honest... Pick up a bomb and get it into your enemy's base. The version I played still needed some tweaking as the ball wasn't visible enough, but the general workings of the gametype were working superbly. You pick up the bomb, or 'ball' as it is normally referred to in the centre of the map, although when in possession of the ball, you cannot fire or defend yourself in any way, leaving the only evasive control you are left with, i.e. Parent Share twitter facebook linkedin

Last weekend I got an invite to come to London for a game or 50 of Unreal Tournament 2003. Mark Rein sent me a mail sunday, saying I could come by monday for the test. Not only did I break a toe last week, but it woulda been impossible for me to go with such short notice anyway, so I did the second best thing. I decided to ask an english guy if he wanted the job. Luckily eVOLVE was at hand in our chatroom (#unreality on EnterTheGame), and he was more than happy to have a go at the game. (Lucky bastid) I sent him off with orders to wear something sassy, plus wink a lot to Jay Wilbur and Mark Rein, oh, and to get a lot of info. This is what he delivered to me earlier today: (Mark Rein promised us he would send along a shot or two from the game, and we will be posting them as soon as they arrive) Unreal Tournament 2003 - Hands-on Preview I never really enjoyed the previous Unreal games... Well actually I did, but I felt that Unreal Tournament 2003 is so shockingly great that you needed a smaller shock to soften the blow. Yes, that's true, on behalf of Unreality I was invited to a private room in a cybercafe somewhere near London to view and play UT2003. And you better believe it was worth it. For those of you who don't already know, UT2003 is the next planned release in the Unreal game series, intended as a kind of sequel to Unreal Tournament, and providing the multiplayer aspect to the series. Where UT had 5 player models to choose from out of the box, UT2003 will have almost ten times as many. Where UT had a pretty liberal poly limit, UT2003 has on average 100 times as high a limit. How is this possible using what is basically an enhanced version of the engine? Well, we'll get onto that later... Lets start with what really matters, the gameplay. Gameplay As far as playing the game, it hasn't changed much from Unreal Tournament, the style of play will not surprise most UT players, but it has been tweaked, enhanced and generally evened out. The movement speed does seem lower than people are used to in UT, although once in the middle of a firefight, the speed of everything was spot on. Other more obvious changes include a double jump feature, whereby if you jump while you are in mid jump, you will gain an extra foot or so of clearance, and some new/tweaked game modes. Yes, Instagib will be back as well as DM, Team DM and CTF, and a variation of the Domination gametype from UT called 'Double Domination', where there are just two control points, and your team only scores points while you control both of them. A variation of CTF was created quite by accident where the flag colours were placed in the wrong bases, i.e. the red team's flag starts where the blue team spawns and vice versa... This means that you can immediately grab the opponent's flag, but to capture, you need to break into the very heart of the enemy base, while your team reclaims your own flag. It makes capture a lot more challenging, although the flow of gameplay is much faster, with returns, captures and players grabbing the flags happening every few seconds. It is currently undecided if this lucky accident will simply be an alternative map style to the regular CTF maps or if it is too close to the only completely new gametype (so far), Bombing Run. The premise of Bombing Run is quite simple, to be honest... Pick up a bomb and get it into your enemy's base. The version I played still needed some tweaking as the ball wasn't visible enough, but the general workings of the gametype were working superbly. You pick up the bomb, or 'ball' as it is normally referred to in the centre of the map, although when in possession of the ball, you cannot fire or defend yourself in any way, leaving the only evasive control you are left with, i.e. Parent Share twitter facebook linkedin

Last weekend I got an invite to come to London for a game or 50 of Unreal Tournament 2003. Mark Rein sent me a mail sunday, saying I could come by monday for the test. Not only did I break a toe last week, but it woulda been impossible for me to go with such short notice anyway, so I did the second best thing. I decided to ask an english guy if he wanted the job. Luckily eVOLVE was at hand in our chatroom (#unreality on EnterTheGame), and he was more than happy to have a go at the game. (Lucky bastid) I sent him off with orders to wear something sassy, plus wink a lot to Jay Wilbur and Mark Rein, oh, and to get a lot of info. This is what he delivered to me earlier today: (Mark Rein promised us he would send along a shot or two from the game, and we will be posting them as soon as they arrive) Unreal Tournament 2003 - Hands-on Preview I never really enjoyed the previous Unreal games... Well actually I did, but I felt that Unreal Tournament 2003 is so shockingly great that you needed a smaller shock to soften the blow. Yes, that's true, on behalf of Unreality I was invited to a private room in a cybercafe somewhere near London to view and play UT2003. And you better believe it was worth it. For those of you who don't already know, UT2003 is the next planned release in the Unreal game series, intended as a kind of sequel to Unreal Tournament, and providing the multiplayer aspect to the series. Where UT had 5 player models to choose from out of the box, UT2003 will have almost ten times as many. Where UT had a pretty liberal poly limit, UT2003 has on average 100 times as high a limit. How is this possible using what is basically an enhanced version of the engine? Well, we'll get onto that later... Lets start with what really matters, the gameplay. Gameplay As far as playing the game, it hasn't changed much from Unreal Tournament, the style of play will not surprise most UT players, but it has been tweaked, enhanced and generally evened out. The movement speed does seem lower than people are used to in UT, although once in the middle of a firefight, the speed of everything was spot on. Other more obvious changes include a double jump feature, whereby if you jump while you are in mid jump, you will gain an extra foot or so of clearance, and some new/tweaked game modes. Yes, Instagib will be back as well as DM, Team DM and CTF, and a variation of the Domination gametype from UT called 'Double Domination', where there are just two control points, and your team only scores points while you control both of them. A variation of CTF was created quite by accident where the flag colours were placed in the wrong bases, i.e. the red team's flag starts where the blue team spawns and vice versa... This means that you can immediately grab the opponent's flag, but to capture, you need to break into the very heart of the enemy base, while your team reclaims your own flag. It makes capture a lot more challenging, although the flow of gameplay is much faster, with returns, captures and players grabbing the flags happening every few seconds. It is currently undecided if this lucky accident will simply be an alternative map style to the regular CTF maps or if it is too close to the only completely new gametype (so far), Bombing Run. The premise of Bombing Run is quite simple, to be honest... Pick up a bomb and get it into your enemy's base. The version I played still needed some tweaking as the ball wasn't visible enough, but the general workings of the gametype were working superbly. You pick up the bomb, or 'ball' as it is normally referred to in the centre of the map, although when in possession of the ball, you cannot fire or defend yourself in any way, leaving the only evasive control you are left with, i.e. Parent Share twitter facebook linkedin

Last weekend I got an invite to come to London for a game or 50 of Unreal Tournament 2003. Mark Rein sent me a mail sunday, saying I could come by monday for the test. Not only did I break a toe last week, but it woulda been impossible for me to go with such short notice anyway, so I did the second best thing. I decided to ask an english guy if he wanted the job. Luckily eVOLVE was at hand in our chatroom (#unreality on EnterTheGame), and he was more than happy to have a go at the game. (Lucky bastid) I sent him off with orders to wear something sassy, plus wink a lot to Jay Wilbur and Mark Rein, oh, and to get a lot of info. This is what he delivered to me earlier today: (Mark Rein promised us he would send along a shot or two from the game, and we will be posting them as soon as they arrive) Unreal Tournament 2003 - Hands-on Preview I never really enjoyed the previous Unreal games... Well actually I did, but I felt that Unreal Tournament 2003 is so shockingly great that you needed a smaller shock to soften the blow. Yes, that's true, on behalf of Unreality I was invited to a private room in a cybercafe somewhere near London to view and play UT2003. And you better believe it was worth it. For those of you who don't already know, UT2003 is the next planned release in the Unreal game series, intended as a kind of sequel to Unreal Tournament, and providing the multiplayer aspect to the series. Where UT had 5 player models to choose from out of the box, UT2003 will have almost ten times as many. Where UT had a pretty liberal poly limit, UT2003 has on average 100 times as high a limit. How is this possible using what is basically an enhanced version of the engine? Well, we'll get onto that later... Lets start with what really matters, the gameplay. Gameplay As far as playing the game, it hasn't changed much from Unreal Tournament, the style of play will not surprise most UT players, but it has been tweaked, enhanced and generally evened out. The movement speed does seem lower than people are used to in UT, although once in the middle of a firefight, the speed of everything was spot on. Other more obvious changes include a double jump feature, whereby if you jump while you are in mid jump, you will gain an extra foot or so of clearance, and some new/tweaked game modes. Yes, Instagib will be back as well as DM, Team DM and CTF, and a variation of the Domination gametype from UT called 'Double Domination', where there are just two control points, and your team only scores points while you control both of them. A variation of CTF was created quite by accident where the flag colours were placed in the wrong bases, i.e. the red team's flag starts where the blue team spawns and vice versa... This means that you can immediately grab the opponent's flag, but to capture, you need to break into the very heart of the enemy base, while your team reclaims your own flag. It makes capture a lot more challenging, although the flow of gameplay is much faster, with returns, captures and players grabbing the flags happening every few seconds. It is currently undecided if this lucky accident will simply be an alternative map style to the regular CTF maps or if it is too close to the only completely new gametype (so far), Bombing Run. The premise of Bombing Run is quite simple, to be honest... Pick up a bomb and get it into your enemy's base. The version I played still needed some tweaking as the ball wasn't visible enough, but the general workings of the gametype were working superbly. You pick up the bomb, or 'ball' as it is normally referred to in the centre of the map, although when in possession of the ball, you cannot fire or defend yourself in any way, leaving the only evasive control you are left with, i.e. Parent Share twitter facebook linkedin

Last weekend I got an invite to come to London for a game or 50 of Unreal Tournament 2003. Mark Rein sent me a mail sunday, saying I could come by monday for the test. Not only did I break a toe last week, but it woulda been impossible for me to go with such short notice anyway, so I did the second best thing. I decided to ask an english guy if he wanted the job. Luckily eVOLVE was at hand in our chatroom (#unreality on EnterTheGame), and he was more than happy to have a go at the game. (Lucky bastid) I sent him off with orders to wear something sassy, plus wink a lot to Jay Wilbur and Mark Rein, oh, and to get a lot of info. This is what he delivered to me earlier today: (Mark Rein promised us he would send along a shot or two from the game, and we will be posting them as soon as they arrive) Unreal Tournament 2003 - Hands-on Preview I never really enjoyed the previous Unreal games... Well actually I did, but I felt that Unreal Tournament 2003 is so shockingly great that you needed a smaller shock to soften the blow. Yes, that's true, on behalf of Unreality I was invited to a private room in a cybercafe somewhere near London to view and play UT2003. And you better believe it was worth it. For those of you who don't already know, UT2003 is the next planned release in the Unreal game series, intended as a kind of sequel to Unreal Tournament, and providing the multiplayer aspect to the series. Where UT had 5 player models to choose from out of the box, UT2003 will have almost ten times as many. Where UT had a pretty liberal poly limit, UT2003 has on average 100 times as high a limit. How is this possible using what is basically an enhanced version of the engine? Well, we'll get onto that later... Lets start with what really matters, the gameplay. Gameplay As far as playing the game, it hasn't changed much from Unreal Tournament, the style of play will not surprise most UT players, but it has been tweaked, enhanced and generally evened out. The movement speed does seem lower than people are used to in UT, although once in the middle of a firefight, the speed of everything was spot on. Other more obvious changes include a double jump feature, whereby if you jump while you are in mid jump, you will gain an extra foot or so of clearance, and some new/tweaked game modes. Yes, Instagib will be back as well as DM, Team DM and CTF, and a variation of the Domination gametype from UT called 'Double Domination', where there are just two control points, and your team only scores points while you control both of them. A variation of CTF was created quite by accident where the flag colours were placed in the wrong bases, i.e. the red team's flag starts where the blue team spawns and vice versa... This means that you can immediately grab the opponent's flag, but to capture, you need to break into the very heart of the enemy base, while your team reclaims your own flag. It makes capture a lot more challenging, although the flow of gameplay is much faster, with returns, captures and players grabbing the flags happening every few seconds. It is currently undecided if this lucky accident will simply be an alternative map style to the regular CTF maps or if it is too close to the only completely new gametype (so far), Bombing Run. The premise of Bombing Run is quite simple, to be honest... Pick up a bomb and get it into your enemy's base. The version I played still needed some tweaking as the ball wasn't visible enough, but the general workings of the gametype were working superbly. You pick up the bomb, or 'ball' as it is normally referred to in the centre of the map, although when in possession of the ball, you cannot fire or defend yourself in any way, leaving the only evasive control you are left with, i.e. Parent Share twitter facebook linkedin

Last weekend I got an invite to come to London for a game or 50 of Unreal Tournament 2003. Mark Rein sent me a mail sunday, saying I could come by monday for the test. Not only did I break a toe last week, but it woulda been impossible for me to go with such short notice anyway, so I did the second best thing. I decided to ask an english guy if he wanted the job. Luckily eVOLVE was at hand in our chatroom (#unreality on EnterTheGame), and he was more than happy to have a go at the game. (Lucky bastid) I sent him off with orders to wear something sassy, plus wink a lot to Jay Wilbur and Mark Rein, oh, and to get a lot of info. This is what he delivered to me earlier today: (Mark Rein promised us he would send along a shot or two from the game, and we will be posting them as soon as they arrive) Unreal Tournament 2003 - Hands-on Preview I never really enjoyed the previous Unreal games... Well actually I did, but I felt that Unreal Tournament 2003 is so shockingly great that you needed a smaller shock to soften the blow. Yes, that's true, on behalf of Unreality I was invited to a private room in a cybercafe somewhere near London to view and play UT2003. And you better believe it was worth it. For those of you who don't already know, UT2003 is the next planned release in the Unreal game series, intended as a kind of sequel to Unreal Tournament, and providing the multiplayer aspect to the series. Where UT had 5 player models to choose from out of the box, UT2003 will have almost ten times as many. Where UT had a pretty liberal poly limit, UT2003 has on average 100 times as high a limit. How is this possible using what is basically an enhanced version of the engine? Well, we'll get onto that later... Lets start with what really matters, the gameplay. Gameplay As far as playing the game, it hasn't changed much from Unreal Tournament, the style of play will not surprise most UT players, but it has been tweaked, enhanced and generally evened out. The movement speed does seem lower than people are used to in UT, although once in the middle of a firefight, the speed of everything was spot on. Other more obvious changes include a double jump feature, whereby if you jump while you are in mid jump, you will gain an extra foot or so of clearance, and some new/tweaked game modes. Yes, Instagib will be back as well as DM, Team DM and CTF, and a variation of the Domination gametype from UT called 'Double Domination', where there are just two control points, and your team only scores points while you control both of them. A variation of CTF was created quite by accident where the flag colours were placed in the wrong bases, i.e. the red team's flag starts where the blue team spawns and vice versa... This means that you can immediately grab the opponent's flag, but to capture, you need to break into the very heart of the enemy base, while your team reclaims your own flag. It makes capture a lot more challenging, although the flow of gameplay is much faster, with returns, captures and players grabbing the flags happening every few seconds. It is currently undecided if this lucky accident will simply be an alternative map style to the regular CTF maps or if it is too close to the only completely new gametype (so far), Bombing Run. The premise of Bombing Run is quite simple, to be honest... Pick up a bomb and get it into your enemy's base. The version I played still needed some tweaking as the ball wasn't visible enough, but the general workings of the gametype were working superbly. You pick up the bomb, or 'ball' as it is normally referred to in the centre of the map, although when in possession of the ball, you cannot fire or defend yourself in any way, leaving the only evasive control you are left with, i.e. Parent Share twitter facebook linkedin

Last weekend I got an invite to come to London for a game or 50 of Unreal Tournament 2003. Mark Rein sent me a mail sunday, saying I could come by monday for the test. Not only did I break a toe last week, but it woulda been impossible for me to go with such short notice anyway, so I did the second best thing. I decided to ask an english guy if he wanted the job. Luckily eVOLVE was at hand in our chatroom (#unreality on EnterTheGame), and he was more than happy to have a go at the game. (Lucky bastid) I sent him off with orders to wear something sassy, plus wink a lot to Jay Wilbur and Mark Rein, oh, and to get a lot of info. This is what he delivered to me earlier today: (Mark Rein promised us he would send along a shot or two from the game, and we will be posting them as soon as they arrive) Unreal Tournament 2003 - Hands-on Preview I never really enjoyed the previous Unreal games... Well actually I did, but I felt that Unreal Tournament 2003 is so shockingly great that you needed a smaller shock to soften the blow. Yes, that's true, on behalf of Unreality I was invited to a private room in a cybercafe somewhere near London to view and play UT2003. And you better believe it was worth it. For those of you who don't already know, UT2003 is the next planned release in the Unreal game series, intended as a kind of sequel to Unreal Tournament, and providing the multiplayer aspect to the series. Where UT had 5 player models to choose from out of the box, UT2003 will have almost ten times as many. Where UT had a pretty liberal poly limit, UT2003 has on average 100 times as high a limit. How is this possible using what is basically an enhanced version of the engine? Well, we'll get onto that later... Lets start with what really matters, the gameplay. Gameplay As far as playing the game, it hasn't changed much from Unreal Tournament, the style of play will not surprise most UT players, but it has been tweaked, enhanced and generally evened out. The movement speed does seem lower than people are used to in UT, although once in the middle of a firefight, the speed of everything was spot on. Other more obvious changes include a double jump feature, whereby if you jump while you are in mid jump, you will gain an extra foot or so of clearance, and some new/tweaked game modes. Yes, Instagib will be back as well as DM, Team DM and CTF, and a variation of the Domination gametype from UT called 'Double Domination', where there are just two control points, and your team only scores points while you control both of them. A variation of CTF was created quite by accident where the flag colours were placed in the wrong bases, i.e. the red team's flag starts where the blue team spawns and vice versa... This means that you can immediately grab the opponent's flag, but to capture, you need to break into the very heart of the enemy base, while your team reclaims your own flag. It makes capture a lot more challenging, although the flow of gameplay is much faster, with returns, captures and players grabbing the flags happening every few seconds. It is currently undecided if this lucky accident will simply be an alternative map style to the regular CTF maps or if it is too close to the only completely new gametype (so far), Bombing Run. The premise of Bombing Run is quite simple, to be honest... Pick up a bomb and get it into your enemy's base. The version I played still needed some tweaking as the ball wasn't visible enough, but the general workings of the gametype were working superbly. You pick up the bomb, or 'ball' as it is normally referred to in the centre of the map, although when in possession of the ball, you cannot fire or defend yourself in any way, leaving the only evasive control you are left with, i.e. Parent Share twitter facebook linkedin

Last weekend I got an invite to come to London for a game or 50 of Unreal Tournament 2003. Mark Rein sent me a mail sunday, saying I could come by monday for the test. Not only did I break a toe last week, but it woulda been impossible for me to go with such short notice anyway, so I did the second best thing. I decided to ask an english guy if he wanted the job. Luckily eVOLVE was at hand in our chatroom (#unreality on EnterTheGame), and he was more than happy to have a go at the game. (Lucky bastid) I sent him off with orders to wear something sassy, plus wink a lot to Jay Wilbur and Mark Rein, oh, and to get a lot of info. This is what he delivered to me earlier today: (Mark Rein promised us he would send along a shot or two from the game, and we will be posting them as soon as they arrive) Unreal Tournament 2003 - Hands-on Preview I never really enjoyed the previous Unreal games... Well actually I did, but I felt that Unreal Tournament 2003 is so shockingly great that you needed a smaller shock to soften the blow. Yes, that's true, on behalf of Unreality I was invited to a private room in a cybercafe somewhere near London to view and play UT2003. And you better believe it was worth it. For those of you who don't already know, UT2003 is the next planned release in the Unreal game series, intended as a kind of sequel to Unreal Tournament, and providing the multiplayer aspect to the series. Where UT had 5 player models to choose from out of the box, UT2003 will have almost ten times as many. Where UT had a pretty liberal poly limit, UT2003 has on average 100 times as high a limit. How is this possible using what is basically an enhanced version of the engine? Well, we'll get onto that later... Lets start with what really matters, the gameplay. Gameplay As far as playing the game, it hasn't changed much from Unreal Tournament, the style of play will not surprise most UT players, but it has been tweaked, enhanced and generally evened out. The movement speed does seem lower than people are used to in UT, although once in the middle of a firefight, the speed of everything was spot on. Other more obvious changes include a double jump feature, whereby if you jump while you are in mid jump, you will gain an extra foot or so of clearance, and some new/tweaked game modes. Yes, Instagib will be back as well as DM, Team DM and CTF, and a variation of the Domination gametype from UT called 'Double Domination', where there are just two control points, and your team only scores points while you control both of them. A variation of CTF was created quite by accident where the flag colours were placed in the wrong bases, i.e. the red team's flag starts where the blue team spawns and vice versa... This means that you can immediately grab the opponent's flag, but to capture, you need to break into the very heart of the enemy base, while your team reclaims your own flag. It makes capture a lot more challenging, although the flow of gameplay is much faster, with returns, captures and players grabbing the flags happening every few seconds. It is currently undecided if this lucky accident will simply be an alternative map style to the regular CTF maps or if it is too close to the only completely new gametype (so far), Bombing Run. The premise of Bombing Run is quite simple, to be honest... Pick up a bomb and get it into your enemy's base. The version I played still needed some tweaking as the ball wasn't visible enough, but the general workings of the gametype were working superbly. You pick up the bomb, or 'ball' as it is normally referred to in the centre of the map, although when in possession of the ball, you cannot fire or defend yourself in any way, leaving the only evasive control you are left with, i.e. Parent Share twitter facebook linkedin

Last weekend I got an invite to come to London for a game or 50 of Unreal Tournament 2003. Mark Rein sent me a mail sunday, saying I could come by monday for the test. Not only did I break a toe last week, but it woulda been impossible for me to go with such short notice anyway, so I did the second best thing. I decided to ask an english guy if he wanted the job. Luckily eVOLVE was at hand in our chatroom (#unreality on EnterTheGame), and he was more than happy to have a go at the game. (Lucky bastid) I sent him off with orders to wear something sassy, plus wink a lot to Jay Wilbur and Mark Rein, oh, and to get a lot of info. This is what he delivered to me earlier today: (Mark Rein promised us he would send along a shot or two from the game, and we will be posting them as soon as they arrive) Unreal Tournament 2003 - Hands-on Preview I never really enjoyed the previous Unreal games... Well actually I did, but I felt that Unreal Tournament 2003 is so shockingly great that you needed a smaller shock to soften the blow. Yes, that's true, on behalf of Unreality I was invited to a private room in a cybercafe somewhere near London to view and play UT2003. And you better believe it was worth it. For those of you who don't already know, UT2003 is the next planned release in the Unreal game series, intended as a kind of sequel to Unreal Tournament, and providing the multiplayer aspect to the series. Where UT had 5 player models to choose from out of the box, UT2003 will have almost ten times as many. Where UT had a pretty liberal poly limit, UT2003 has on average 100 times as high a limit. How is this possible using what is basically an enhanced version of the engine? Well, we'll get onto that later... Lets start with what really matters, the gameplay. Gameplay As far as playing the game, it hasn't changed much from Unreal Tournament, the style of play will not surprise most UT players, but it has been tweaked, enhanced and generally evened out. The movement speed does seem lower than people are used to in UT, although once in the middle of a firefight, the speed of everything was spot on. Other more obvious changes include a double jump feature, whereby if you jump while you are in mid jump, you will gain an extra foot or so of clearance, and some new/tweaked game modes. Yes, Instagib will be back as well as DM, Team DM and CTF, and a variation of the Domination gametype from UT called 'Double Domination', where there are just two control points, and your team only scores points while you control both of them. A variation of CTF was created quite by accident where the flag colours were placed in the wrong bases, i.e. the red team's flag starts where the blue team spawns and vice versa... This means that you can immediately grab the opponent's flag, but to capture, you need to break into the very heart of the enemy base, while your team reclaims your own flag. It makes capture a lot more challenging, although the flow of gameplay is much faster, with returns, captures and players grabbing the flags happening every few seconds. It is currently undecided if this lucky accident will simply be an alternative map style to the regular CTF maps or if it is too close to the only completely new gametype (so far), Bombing Run. The premise of Bombing Run is quite simple, to be honest... Pick up a bomb and get it into your enemy's base. The version I played still needed some tweaking as the ball wasn't visible enough, but the general workings of the gametype were working superbly. You pick up the bomb, or 'ball' as it is normally referred to in the centre of the map, although when in possession of the ball, you cannot fire or defend yourself in any way, leaving the only evasive control you are left with, i.e. Parent Share twitter facebook linkedin

Last weekend I got an invite to come to London for a game or 50 of Unreal Tournament 2003. Mark Rein sent me a mail sunday, saying I could come by monday for the test. Not only did I break a toe last week, but it woulda been impossible for me to go with such short notice anyway, so I did the second best thing. I decided to ask an english guy if he wanted the job. Luckily eVOLVE was at hand in our chatroom (#unreality on EnterTheGame), and he was more than happy to have a go at the game. (Lucky bastid) I sent him off with orders to wear something sassy, plus wink a lot to Jay Wilbur and Mark Rein, oh, and to get a lot of info. This is what he delivered to me earlier today: (Mark Rein promised us he would send along a shot or two from the game, and we will be posting them as soon as they arrive) Unreal Tournament 2003 - Hands-on Preview I never really enjoyed the previous Unreal games... Well actually I did, but I felt that Unreal Tournament 2003 is so shockingly great that you needed a smaller shock to soften the blow. Yes, that's true, on behalf of Unreality I was invited to a private room in a cybercafe somewhere near London to view and play UT2003. And you better believe it was worth it. For those of you who don't already know, UT2003 is the next planned release in the Unreal game series, intended as a kind of sequel to Unreal Tournament, and providing the multiplayer aspect to the series. Where UT had 5 player models to choose from out of the box, UT2003 will have almost ten times as many. Where UT had a pretty liberal poly limit, UT2003 has on average 100 times as high a limit. How is this possible using what is basically an enhanced version of the engine? Well, we'll get onto that later... Lets start with what really matters, the gameplay. Gameplay As far as playing the game, it hasn't changed much from Unreal Tournament, the style of play will not surprise most UT players, but it has been tweaked, enhanced and generally evened out. The movement speed does seem lower than people are used to in UT, although once in the middle of a firefight, the speed of everything was spot on. Other more obvious changes include a double jump feature, whereby if you jump while you are in mid jump, you will gain an extra foot or so of clearance, and some new/tweaked game modes. Yes, Instagib will be back as well as DM, Team DM and CTF, and a variation of the Domination gametype from UT called 'Double Domination', where there are just two control points, and your team only scores points while you control both of them. A variation of CTF was created quite by accident where the flag colours were placed in the wrong bases, i.e. the red team's flag starts where the blue team spawns and vice versa... This means that you can immediately grab the opponent's flag, but to capture, you need to break into the very heart of the enemy base, while your team reclaims your own flag. It makes capture a lot more challenging, although the flow of gameplay is much faster, with returns, captures and players grabbing the flags happening every few seconds. It is currently undecided if this lucky accident will simply be an alternative map style to the regular CTF maps or if it is too close to the only completely new gametype (so far), Bombing Run. The premise of Bombing Run is quite simple, to be honest... Pick up a bomb and get it into your enemy's base. The version I played still needed some tweaking as the ball wasn't visible enough, but the general workings of the gametype were working superbly. You pick up the bomb, or 'ball' as it is normally referred to in the centre of the map, although when in possession of the ball, you cannot fire or defend yourself in any way, leaving the only evasive control you are left with, i.e. Parent Share twitter facebook linkedin

Last weekend I got an invite to come to London for a game or 50 of Unreal Tournament 2003. Mark Rein sent me a mail sunday, saying I could come by monday for the test. Not only did I break a toe last week, but it woulda been impossible for me to go with such short notice anyway, so I did the second best thing. I decided to ask an english guy if he wanted the job. Luckily eVOLVE was at hand in our chatroom (#unreality on EnterTheGame), and he was more than happy to have a go at the game. (Lucky bastid) I sent him off with orders to wear something sassy, plus wink a lot to Jay Wilbur and Mark Rein, oh, and to get a lot of info. This is what he delivered to me earlier today: (Mark Rein promised us he would send along a shot or two from the game, and we will be posting them as soon as they arrive) Unreal Tournament 2003 - Hands-on Preview I never really enjoyed the previous Unreal games... Well actually I did, but I felt that Unreal Tournament 2003 is so shockingly great that you needed a smaller shock to soften the blow. Yes, that's true, on behalf of Unreality I was invited to a private room in a cybercafe somewhere near London to view and play UT2003. And you better believe it was worth it. For those of you who don't already know, UT2003 is the next planned release in the Unreal game series, intended as a kind of sequel to Unreal Tournament, and providing the multiplayer aspect to the series. Where UT had 5 player models to choose from out of the box, UT2003 will have almost ten times as many. Where UT had a pretty liberal poly limit, UT2003 has on average 100 times as high a limit. How is this possible using what is basically an enhanced version of the engine? Well, we'll get onto that later... Lets start with what really matters, the gameplay. Gameplay As far as playing the game, it hasn't changed much from Unreal Tournament, the style of play will not surprise most UT players, but it has been tweaked, enhanced and generally evened out. The movement speed does seem lower than people are used to in UT, although once in the middle of a firefight, the speed of everything was spot on. Other more obvious changes include a double jump feature, whereby if you jump while you are in mid jump, you will gain an extra foot or so of clearance, and some new/tweaked game modes. Yes, Instagib will be back as well as DM, Team DM and CTF, and a variation of the Domination gametype from UT called 'Double Domination', where there are just two control points, and your team only scores points while you control both of them. A variation of CTF was created quite by accident where the flag colours were placed in the wrong bases, i.e. the red team's flag starts where the blue team spawns and vice versa... This means that you can immediately grab the opponent's flag, but to capture, you need to break into the very heart of the enemy base, while your team reclaims your own flag. It makes capture a lot more challenging, although the flow of gameplay is much faster, with returns, captures and players grabbing the flags happening every few seconds. It is currently undecided if this lucky accident will simply be an alternative map style to the regular CTF maps or if it is too close to the only completely new gametype (so far), Bombing Run. The premise of Bombing Run is quite simple, to be honest... Pick up a bomb and get it into your enemy's base. The version I played still needed some tweaking as the ball wasn't visible enough, but the general workings of the gametype were working superbly. You pick up the bomb, or 'ball' as it is normally referred to in the centre of the map, although when in possession of the ball, you cannot fire or defend yourself in any way, leaving the only evasive control you are left with, i.e. Parent Share twitter facebook linkedin