Shooting Gallery - Part I

Unreal Tournament

Release date: November 30, 1999 (PC); October 23, 2000 (PS2)
Genre: First-Person Shooter
Developer: Epic Games; Digital Extremes

In late 1999, video game developers began to embrace a different kind of first-person shooter experience. They choose to move away from substantive one-player campaigns (like those in GoldenEye 007 and Half-Life) and focus instead on the multiplayer aspects of the game.

The poster child of that trend was probably Quake III Arena, but nearly as popular was Unreal Tournament, both released on the PC within a week of each other. On the console front, Acclaim released Turok: Rage Wars, a multiplayer-focused first-person title for the Nintendo 64.

In 2000, Unreal Tournament was ported to the Playstation 2. The Playstation version is inferior graphically to its predecessor and only four players can shoot it out at once (opposed to 32), but the game is still undeniably fun to play.

In the one-player mode of Unreal Tournament, the player moves through a gladiatorial tournament complete with 5 ladders: Deathmatch, Domination, Capture the Flag, Assault and Challenge. Each ladder contains 4 to 12 maps, all with their own architecture, secrets and hazards. Assault has some of the most morbidly creative maps, including High Speed, which takes place on a speeding train.

In the multiplayer mode, players can take on their friends in any of the modes mentioned above. Each player can go into battle as any number of colorful characters and with a brutal arsenal of weaponry, including standards like sniper rifles, rocket launchers and miniguns plus some over-the-top firearms like the Redeemer, which fires a miniature nuclear warhead.

Score: 90/100