So there's Unreal Tournament 2003, sequel to Unreal Tournament released four years ago. Does it live up the hype, the constant improvement of the series? Was it worth the wait? Now, after a couple days of playing I already know the true - UT 2003 looks and plays really awesome! There's everything what you want from this type of game - exciting, fast-paced&furious&frantic.... nonstop combat and impressive graphics. Q3A fans will _definitely_ love it because UT2003 is Quake 3 on steroids!

Graphics

The most immediately noticeable change is the graphics, which have undergone a complete overhaul. UT 2003 has the best graphics engine to date. Everything is extremely crisp and the textures are first class. Levels look impressive, especially the expansive outdoor environments with rocky outcrops, and patches of grass, trees and other vegetation. Also weapon effects definitely rock, real-time lighting and shadowing and particle effects will impress you immediately. UT 2003 is undoubtedly one of the best-looking game to hit the PC yet. Another great innovation of the game is The Karma Physics engine. Due to the skeletal animation system and the high poly count, you will be able to experience the best collision detection system available.

Weapons & Improvements

The weaponry is more or less unbalanced, unlike UT's carefully balanced weapons.  There are new weapons: Assault Rifle (old Enforcer from UT), Flak Cannon (still an awesome weapon), Lightning Gun (Sniper Rifle from UT combined with a Rail Gun), Minigun, Rocket Launcher (integrated grenade launcher is gone, the secondary fire will now fire up to 3 rockets), Shieldgun (replaced the impact hammer), Shock Rifle( looks like the shotgun from Quake), Ion Painter (tag an area to be decimated by the Ion cannon),  Ion Cannon (2 terawatts of ionised plasma), Ball Launcher (weapon is for Bombing Run), Biorifle ( fire blobs of green goop), Link (similar to the plasma rifle in UT), Translocator (a teleportation device but you can use it only 5 times), Redeemer (most powerful weapon in the game). There are other small features which makes this game great.  The ability to double jump will help you to dodge rockets and bursts of lightning from the bots. Also the implementation of adrenaline is an interesting new feature. When you collect 100 adrenaline pills, you can perform keyboard combo moves including speed, invisibility and boost.

Single Player

Single player mode allows you to play offline with and against computer-controlled bots in a ladder-based tournament or in single matches. The bots do a very competent job in simulating human players (unlike dumb-bots in Battlefield 1942) and might give you a fair challenge. Of course, hard-core players might find them simple opponents to fight, but anyway they're perfectly reliable teammates when you set up just an instant action game. You can also give the bots orders in team games, and they'll effectively carry them out. (sadly there's apparently no easy way to bind commands to single keys). The single-player mode features various stages: Team Deathmatch, Capture The Flag, Double Domination (a new game mode, the team must capture both domination points for 8 seconds before points are awarded) and the best one - Bombing Run (two teams fight over possession of a "ball," earning points by chucking it through /or walking into/ an opponent's goal).

Multiplayer

Needless to say that Multiplayer is best part of the game. You simply need an internet connection or LAN, and click either Play Online/LAN or Host Multiplayer and go! UT 2003 offers over 60 models to choose from (each character features their own set of strength, weaknesses and attitudes), 15 (Team) Deathmatch maps and 6, 7, and 9 maps for Double Domination, Bombing Run and respectively Capture the Flag. The full roster of modes includes Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, Capture The Flag, Bombing Run and Double Domination. Double Domination is incredibly fun because there will be many times when right before your teams about to score the other team will take it back for a "last second save". There's a good new for "modem" people, UT 2003 has nice polished netcode, so you can play this game even trough dial-up connection. That's great because I don't have a broadband connection too. While there isn't much new gameplay modes in UT 2003, you can at least tweak the gameplay a bit using mutators, a special "mini-mods" that you can activate when you set up a server. There a bunch this time around dozen (Vampire, QuadJump, InstaGib, Team Regeneration ...), some are useful, some not so much.

Overall

I'm pretty sure that some will love it and some will hate it. But I really like UT 2003, though it doesn't bring anything new to the field of online shooters. UT 2003 was definitely worth the wait and it's probably the best $40 purchase you will make busy for a long time.Adding even more value to the package, UT2003 includes both the powerful UnrealED level editor and a full-version Personal Learning Edition of Maya. Needless to say, there will be MANY mods for this game. For more info visit UT 2003 homepage and download playable demo


System Requirements
Minimum: Windows 98/Me/2000/XP, Pentium III or AMD Athlon 733 MHz processor, 128 MB RAM, HDD Space 3 GB, Video: 16 MB TNT2-class or other DirectX version 6 compliant video card, Windows compatible sound card, DirectX v8.1b, Modem: 33.6K baud (for modem/Internet play), Internet (TCP/IP) and LAN (TCP/IP) play supported.

Recommended: Windows 98/Me/2000/XP, Pentium IV or AMD Athlon 1GHz processor, 256 MB RAM, HDD Space 3 GB, NVIDIA GeForce2 or ATI Radeon (32-128 MB VRAM recommended), Windows compatible sound card, DirectX v8.1b, Modem: 56K baud (for modem/Internet play), Internet (TCP/IP) and LAN (TCP/IP) play supported.