Jolt Country

Having spent upwards of fifteen minutes playing the new, eagerly awaited UT2003 Demo, I now feel qualified as an expert commentator to reveal my thoughts about this game program.

GRAPHICS: Very, very nice. And fast. Looks like Unreal Tournament Not 2003, except slicker, and with more interesting terrain. Everything's bright and sharp, like you'd want your UT to be. An effect I particularly liked was how dead combatant's souls rise up to Frag Heaven with an eerie green glow.

SOUND: I really liked the sound! The taunts (at least, that the bots slung at me) were also of high quality ("You be dead!" "Life is pain, deal with it!") The weapon sounds were also enjoyable and made me happy with smiles.

WEAPONS: Pretty similar to Unreal Tournament Not 2003 weapons, for the most part. The lightning gun now lets you zoom in like a sniper rifle, which I don't remember from Unreal Tournament Not 2003. Maybe the lightning gun replaces the sniper rifle in this version?

MULTIPLAYER: I'm not aware of whether UT2003 will support multiplayer, so I'm not going to rate it on this category yet.

GAMEPLAY:

Gameplay...

Okay, here's my main problem with UT2003, which I ranked high in almost every other conceivable area... and it's the same problem I had with Unreal Tournament Not 2003, which is the same problem I had with Quake III Arena, which is the same problem I had with all of these Deathmatch-type games:

It's like, who cares, man? Run around like an idiot, pick up guns like an idiot, fire guns like a spaz who spent the first ten hours of his day at Starbucks sucking down Frappaspressos or whatever, and eventually "winning" or "losing" and then starting all over again.

There's nothing to think about, nothing to plan for, no strategy, the faintest smattering of tactics, and the rest is just a test to see exactly WHICH fourteen year old is able to circle-strafe and jump better.

So, while UT2003 appears to be a product of the highest quality, I just don't think I'd ever play it.

(Of course, I don't even play the games I do like, but you know what I meant, motherfucker.)

I'm going to chime in with my worthless opinion, and I haven't even installed Unreal Tournament 2003 yet. Ha-ha!!

What I really liked about Quake III: Arena was the "Arena" aspects of it. Doom and Quake had a long-standing and almost frigging *proud* history of having characters in their games that were complete and total cyphers. Non-beings. Some attempt was made to make the player hate the opponents that you'd go up against in Q3A and I really liked that. For instance, I can state without question that I do not like "Bitterman" from Q3A. Nor that eyeball thing. It would have been great if a Doom imp was there to kick around, but still. Playing Q3A as the Doom Marine and trying to work up the ladder was great single-player fun. When I blasted Bitterman with the plasma gun, well, it was like seeing Deuce McAllister run right by the hated Warren Sapp. The sports angle was fun.

Because I read Penny Arcade, I have been made aware that such a gameplay feature is available in UT2003. Bombing Run, or something, I think it's called. When I do get round to playing this thing I will probably give that a shot as it apparently merges the deathmatch and sports themes that I already kind of like. I think it's a match that could work, because after all, I have played a good 10 games of NFL2K3 for the PS2 this week and that's all pretty much the same "game" just done with 10 different teams of opponents.

Also, did you realize that all these "tennis sports games" with the fancy graphics and big name tennis celebrities are all just PONG, with pretty colors!??!

1. Quick Tennis 2K2 review for the Sega Dreamcast:

"Hmm... okay... Jesus, one piece of Eurotrash right after another on the men's side. T'hell with this, I'll play as a girl... What the... no Anna? Er... um... Christ, I want to play as some chick that I would conceivably want to bang... Christ! Er, Lindsay Davenport I guess it is, then... ugh."


2. Quick UT2003 Question:

Can you play the thing in single-player mode, with all your opponents made up of bots? No offense to kids, but I hate kids and there aren't enough hours in an earth day to make me go out and willingly play shooters with them.

If you go "Instant Action", it lets you play single-player.

I like to leave the bots on "Average", because a more appropriate name for "Average" would be "Suck-ass", so you can win and feel all proud of yourself.

Oh, that's the other thing. The one time I tried playing online, even though it said my ping times were < 100ms, the screen was very jerky and I was unable to let loose the fragtrain which I was so desperately hoping to.

Nothing like putting those fucking PUNKS in their place.

God, do I hate people who play Unreal Tournament. They make the 12-Year Old Counterstrike Player look like Stephen FAWKING Hawking!

(Heh.)

I didn't enjoy this game at all. I wanted Nali's. I'd like some Aligator looking thing rather than bots. I mean it was quite amazing in Classic Unreal when you ran into four legged creatures and then ran into actual bot controlled Skaar warriors with actual weapons. The problem as I see it is you are always in boxes even in single player you are stuck in that same terrible arena. I thought an arena mini-game would be cool.

Ben wrote:God, do I hate people who play Unreal Tournament. They make the 12-Year Old Counterstrike Player look like Stephen FAWKING Hawking!
(Heh.)

How did I miss this the first time? Stephen "Fawking" Hawking? That may be some of your best work, sir. Scooch over, Pong FAQ! The new sheriff is in town! And he'll just as soon cut you down with a six-gun and accented swear word as he will grind your face into the mud with a wheel!