Unreal Tournament

This article is about the 1999 video game. For the game announced in 2014, see Unreal Tournament (upcoming video game).
Unreal Tournament
Developer(s) Epic Games
Digital Extremes
Publisher(s) GT Interactive
Infogrames (PS2)
Secret Level (DC)
Designer(s) Cliff Bleszinski
Alan Willard[1]
Shane Caudle[2]
Pancho Eekels[3]
Programmer(s) Steve Polge
Erik de Neve
Jack Porter
Brandon Reinhart
Composer(s) Straylight Productions
Michiel van den Bos
Series Unreal
Engine Unreal Engine 1
Platform(s) Microsoft Windows
Mac OS
Linux
PlayStation 2
Dreamcast
Release date(s)

Microsoft Windows

  • NA November 30, 1999
  • EU 1999

Mac OS

  • NA January 17, 2000

PlayStation 2[4]

  • NA October 21, 2000
  • EU April 20, 2001

Dreamcast

  • NA March 13, 2001
  • EU June 29, 2001
Genre(s) First-person shooter
Mode(s) Single-player, multiplayer

Unreal Tournament is a first-person shooter video game co-developed by Epic Games and Digital Extremes.[5] It was first published in 1999 by GT Interactive for Microsoft Windows. Infogrames released it for the PlayStation 2, and Sega Studios San Francisco (known as Secret Level at the time) released it for the Dreamcast home consoles. The game is based on the same technology that powered Unreal, but the design of Unreal Tournament shifted the series' focus to competitive multiplayer action.

Gameplay

Unreal Tournament was designed as an arena first-person shooter, with head-to-head multiplayer deathmatches being the primary focus of the game. The game's single-player campaign is essentially a series of arena matches played with bots. For team matches, bots are again used to fill the roles of the player's teammates. Even on dedicated multiplayer servers, bots are sometimes used to pad out teams that are short on players.

Unreal Tournament is known and widely praised for its bot artificial intelligence (AI),[6] the product of programmer Steve Polge who had earlier risen to fame by designing the Reaper Bot for Quake,[7] one of the earliest examples of an effective deathmatch bot. The player can choose a bot skill level (anywhere from "Novice" to "Godlike") or set it to automatically adjust to the player's performance. Bots can be further customized by changing names, appearance, accuracy, weapon preferences, awareness, and so forth.

Game types

Development

Cliff Bleszinski served as lead designer on Unreal Tournament.[8]

When Unreal was released in May 1998, it was well received by the press. However, it soon became apparent that the quality of the network code used for multiplayer matches could use improvement. In the months following Unreal's release, developers focused on developing the multiplayer aspect further. Epic Games started thinking about an official extension meant to improve the network code of the game and feature new maps and other gameplay elements.[9][10]

The team started working on this extension during the summer of 1998, but the task seemed to be complicated because of Epic Games's visual structure. At the time, the team of Digital Extremes regrouped at London in Ontario while the team of Epic was dispersed in the United States. To fix that, Epic decided to regroup their employees in Raleigh and in September, work on the extension could begin. Steve Polge set the bases of multiple game's modes, such as capture the flag or domination, and had decided that the extension would be entirely focused on the multiplayer aspect of the game. The content of the extension grew quickly, and soon the team realized that it had under-estimated the task. In November, after a meeting with GT Interactive, Mark Rein suggested to make a standalone game instead of an extension. The team was reticent at first, but they soon accepted the idea, and in December the game was entitled Unreal: Tournament Edition.[9]

The development team of Unreal Tournament was around 16 people.[11] Most of them already worked on Unreal, but Epic hired multiple new developers to reinforce the team working on the project. Brandon Reinhart for instance, joined Epic in August 1998 to help with the development of patches for Unreal and Unreal Tournament. In December 1998, Brandon and James Schmalz discovered a mod of Unreal, named UBrowser, which had a new GUI of navigation for network games. They decided to show it to James Schmalz, the lead designer at Digital Extremes, who decided to hire Jack Porter, the mod's author. He quickly took his steps with the team and implemented his new interface into Unreal Tournament.[12]

During the game's development, the team lacked artists. Shane Caudle and the artists at Digital Extremes couldn't make enough new textures because of the amount of diversity in characters and maps. Epic hired independent artists, Steve Garofalo and John Mueller, to reinforce the team. This was shown to be rather inefficient, and so the developers were limited to a small amount of textures.[13]

Music
Unreal Tournament Main theme
31 second sample from the Main Menu theme of Unreal Tournament, written by Alexander Brandon.
Problems playing this file? See media help.

The soundtrack for the game was primarily written by Alexander "Siren" Brandon, Michiel "M.C.A." van den Bos, Andrew "Necros" Sega, and Dan "Basehead" Gardopée—the same music artists who wrote the Unreal soundtrack, although only Brandon and Van Den Bos received credited for it. The game (in contrast to Quake, which used CD audio) used tracker music, which resulted in a considerably good sound quality with very little size tradeoff. Game composer Frank Klepacki was impressed by Alexander Brandon's contributions to the soundtrack.[14]

Reception

Reception
Aggregate score
AggregatorScore
MetacriticPC: 92/100[15]
PS2: 77/100[16]
DC: 90/100[17]
Review scores
PublicationScore
AllGame[18]
CVG9/10[19]
Eurogamer10/10[20]
GamePro[21]
Game RevolutionA-[22]
GameSpot9.5/10[23]
GameSpy94/100[24]
IGN9.6/10[25]
PC Gamer (UK)92/100[26]
PC Gamer (US)90/100[27]
Computer Games Magazine[28]
The Electric Playground10/10[29]

Unreal Tournament received widespread critical acclaim.[15] Mainstream press reviews praised the graphics, gameplay, maps and multiplayer capabilities of the game. Computer Shopper concluded "Quake may have spawned the online deathmatch, but Unreal Tournament has taken it to the next level with its amazing graphics and fast-paced action. Online or off, this game rules!"[30] In March 2000, Unreal Tournament was second on a list of best-selling games in Computer Dealer News trade magazine, behind Quake III Arena.[31]

The Macintosh version of Unreal Tournament was equally praised. Macworld dubbed it the "Best network shooter for the Mac", and gave it a place in the Game Hall of Fame in 1999.[32]

The PlayStation 2 release did not fare as well as the PC and Dreamcast versions.[16] GameSpy criticized the graphics of the PS2 version, saying "Graphically, the PS2 version of Unreal Tournament seems uninspired."[33] Its conclusion stated "Sluggish gameplay, somewhat washed out colors and textures".[33] In addition, the PS2 version only allowed multiplayer games on 11 maps (7 deathmatch and 4 capture the flag). A novel, but relatively unused, feature is the ability to connect a keyboard and mouse through the PS2's USB ports. Players could then play in a similar manner to the PC version. This also allowed for up to 3 players without the use of a PlayStation 2 Multitap.

In 2004, Unreal Tournament was inducted into the Computer Gaming World Hall of Fame.[34]

Awards

List of awards and nominations
Year Publication Category Result Ref.
1999 Computer Gaming World Game of the Year Won [35]
Best Level Design Won
GameSpy Game of the Year Won [36]
Special Achievement in Artificial Intelligence Won [37]
GameSpot Action Game of the Year Won [38]
Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences Computer Action Game of the Year Nominated [39]
Computer Game of the Year Nominated
Outstanding Achievement in Visual Engineering Won
Game of the Year Nominated
Computer Strategy Game of the Year Nominated
CNET Multiplayer Game of the Year Won [40]
Macworld Best Network Shooter for the Mac Won [32]
PC Player First Person Shooter of the Year Won [41]

Player community

USS San Jacinto (CG-56) crewmembers playing the game, 2002

Many fans have taken advantage of the chance to create mods for the game. These range from slight changes on some aspects of gameplay (such as map voting) to total conversions. One modification, ChaosUT, became popular enough that it was included with the 'Game of the Year' edition of the game, while Tactical Ops: Assault on Terror was released as a stand-alone retail product.

Unreal Tournament was played at the World Cyber Games in the years of 2001[42] and 2002[43] where the title was contended for in a deathmatch 1 vs 1 environment. This was where UT was played on an international scale, where players from all around the world went head to head to win The Tournament.[44]

Legacy

The success of the original Unreal Tournament spawned four sequels, including Unreal Tournament 2003 and Unreal Tournament 2004 (on Unreal Engine 2.x), Unreal Tournament 3, which was originally codenamed UT2007, and the upcoming Unreal Tournament reboot. The yearly naming structure, based around marketing the franchise as a competitive sports title, was abandoned shortly before the launch of the third sequel. Digital Extremes announced Dark Sector in 2000, which was planned as a spiritual successor to Unreal Tournament.

There have also been several efforts to remake Unreal Tournament by the community using newer engine versions, the largest in scope being Unreal Tournament Revolution, a total conversion for Unreal Tournament 2004, featuring new music by original Unreal Tournament composer Michiel van den Bos. Because of differences in the styles of the sequels, the goal of such remakes are typically to take advantage of newer engine features and graphical capabilities while remaining true to the gameplay and style of the first Unreal Tournament.

References

  1. ↑ Arcane (4 May 1999). "Arcane chats with Unreal Tournament Level Designer Alan Willard". Unreal Universe. Archived from the original on 18 August 2000. Retrieved 24 December 2015.
  2. ↑ Arcane (11 May 1999). "Arcane chats with Unreal Tournament Artist and Level Designer Shane Caudle". Unreal Universe. Archived from the original on 18 August 2000. Retrieved 3 January 2016.
  3. ↑ Arcane (6 May 1999). "Arcane chats with Unreal Tournament Level Designer and 3D Artist Pancho Eekels". Unreal Universe. Archived from the original on 18 August 2000. Retrieved 3 January 2016.
  4. ↑ "Unreal Tournament Release Information for PlayStation 2". GameFAQs. Retrieved 2008-05-04.
  5. ↑ "Unreal Tournament". Digital Extremes. Retrieved June 21, 2012.
  6. ↑ Lane, Rick (23 February 2014). "Unreal Tournament retrospective". Eurogamer. Gamer Network Ltd. Retrieved 8 January 2016.
  7. ↑ Unreal Tournament website - UT History
  8. ↑ Reinhart, Brandon (9 June 2000). "Postmortem: Epic Games' Unreal Tournament". Gamasutra. UBM plc. Retrieved 30 November 2015.
  9. 1 2 (Grossman 2003, Early Development, p. 91-92).
  10. ↑ Template:Web link.
  11. ↑ (Grossman 2003, Where We Go from Here, p. 102).
  12. ↑ (Grossman 2003, A Game Takes Shape, p. 92-94).
  13. ↑ (Grossman 2003, What Went Wrong, p. 100-102).
  14. ↑ Frank Klepacki (2008-11-08). "Interview of Frank Klepacki". Retrieved 15 June 2009.
  15. 1 2 "Unreal Tournament (PC: 1999) Reviews". Metacritic. Retrieved 2008-05-04.
  16. 1 2 "Unreal Tournament (PS2: 2000) Reviews". Metacritic. Retrieved 2008-05-04.
  17. ↑ "Unreal Tournament (Dreamcast: 2001) Reviews". Metacritic. Retrieved 2008-05-04.
  18. ↑ Couper, Chris. "Unreal Tournament Review". AllGame. All Media Network. Archived from the original on 14 November 2014. Retrieved 18 October 2015.
  19. ↑ C., Alec (15 August 2001). "Unreal Tournament Review". Computer and Video Games. Future plc. Archived from the original on 2 December 2006. Retrieved 4 July 2015.
  20. ↑ "Unreal Tournament PC Review". Eurogamer. 1999-12-04. Retrieved 2008-05-04. |first1= missing |last1= in Authors list (help)
  21. ↑ Werner, Nash (1 January 2000). "Unreal Tournament Review". GamePro. International Data Group. Archived from the original on 6 September 2004. Retrieved 4 July 2015.
  22. ↑ "Unreal Tournament review for the PC". Game Revolution. 1999-12-01. Retrieved 2008-05-04.
  23. ↑ "PC Unreal Tournament Review". GameSpot. 1999-12-09. Retrieved 2008-05-04.
  24. ↑ Fargo (1999-12-01). "Unreal Tournament review for the PC. The Next Logical Step in First-Person Action Gaming". GameSpy. Archived from the original on 4 June 2004. Retrieved 2008-05-04.
  25. ↑ IGN Staff (1999-12-06). "Unreal Tournament Review. Epic brings the first-person multiplayer game as close to perfection as it's likely to get". IGN. Retrieved 2008-05-04.
  26. ↑ Pierce, Matthew (October 1999). "Unreal Tournament Review. Single-or multi-player? Epic finally solve the age-old question and discover that there's really no difference at all". PC Gamer UK. Future plc. Archived from the original on 2 December 2000. Retrieved 14 September 2015.
  27. ↑ Egger, Dan (14 August 2000). "Unreal Tournament Review — Sick of the same old first-person shooter? Then welcome to the future of the genre!". PC Gamer US. Future plc. Archived from the original on 26 May 2002. Retrieved 4 July 2015.
  28. ↑ Perkins, Dave (10 December 1999). "Unreal Tournament Review". Computer Games Magazine. theGlobe.com. Archived from the original on 17 June 2003. Retrieved 4 July 2015.
  29. ↑ Ham, Tom. "Unreal Tournament will exceed all your expectations". The Electric Playground. Archived from the original on 21 October 2007. Retrieved 4 July 2015.
  30. ↑ Vega, Peter (April 2000). "Unreal Tournament: A Blast That Will Last". Computer Shopper. p. 139.
  31. ↑ "Off the Shelf Best Selling Titles.". Computer Dealer News. March 10, 2000. p. 43.
  32. 1 2 Breen, Christopher (May 2000). "Unreal Tournament Review — Best Network Shooter for the Mac". Macworld. Mac Publishing. Archived from the original on 15 August 2000. Retrieved 18 October 2015.
  33. 1 2 "Unreal Tournament Review (PS2)". PlanetPS2 (GameSpy). IGN. November 22, 2000. Retrieved 2008-05-06.
  34. ↑ CWG (October 2004). "Computer Gaming World — Issue #243" (PDF). Computer Gaming World. Ziff Davis. Retrieved 18 October 2015.
  35. ↑ CWG (March 2000). "Computer Gaming World — Issue #188" (PDF). Computer Gaming World. Ziff Davis. Retrieved 18 October 2015.
  36. ↑ The GameSpy Staff (1999). "The GameSpy 1999 Game of the Year: Unreal Tournament". GameSpy. Archived from the original on 10 August 2002. Retrieved 14 September 2015.
  37. ↑ The GameSpy Staff (1999). "The GameSpy Best of 1999: Special Awards". GameSpy. Archived from the original on 17 October 2002. Retrieved 31 October 2015.
  38. ↑ GameSpot (1999). "GameSpot - Action Game of the Year". GameSpot. CBS Interactive. Archived from the original on 10 August 2002. Retrieved 14 September 2015.
  39. ↑ AIAS. "Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences Awards". Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences. Retrieved 23 October 2015.
  40. ↑ CNET. "CNET Gamecenter - Multiplayer Game of the Year". CNET. Archived from the original on 2 March 2000. Retrieved 14 September 2015.
  41. ↑ PC Player (January 2000). "PC Player — Issue 01/2000" (PDF) (in German). PC Player (German magazine). Retrieved 31 October 2015.
  42. ↑ "WCG History - WCG 2001". World Cyber Games, Inc. Archived from the original on 23 May 2013. Retrieved July 1, 2012.
  43. ↑ "WCG History - WCG 2002". World Cyber Games, Inc. Retrieved July 1, 2012.
  44. ↑ "WCG Grand Final Tournament - Group Full League". World Cyber Games, Inc. Retrieved July 1, 2012.

Further reading

External links

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