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Reader Reviews
46 reviews. Average Rating: 6.3
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Publisher:  Genre: Action
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Mac OS X: 10.1 Mac OS Classic: Not Supported
CPU: G4 @ 700 MHz RAM: 256 MB |
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Those Who Are About To Die...Salute You!
UT 2003 has a plot. Who cares. It's some mumbo jumbo about a tournament that you enter and want to win. Blah blah blah. NEXT! Storyline is about as important in this game as in the latest Vin Diesel action flick, so we'll ignore it. Suffice it to say that the game is multiplayer-centric, and that the single player version of the game consists of putting together a team of bots -- and these bots have specific attributes like accuracy and teamwork, which is a feature new to this year's game -- and you then lead the team in a series of matches against competing teams.
The games are played on four distinct ladders -- deathmatch and capture the flag should be familiar to any fan of the genre. Domination returns from UT, though mutated into a new variant called Double Domination that requires your team to control two different locations of the map at the same time, for ten seconds. It's not as easy at it sounds, and is one of the most hair-raising, stressful games I've played lately. And that's a compliment! The final game variation is some ridiculously thrown together sport that requires you to take a ball and throw it through your opponent's goal. The only catch is that while you are holding the ball, you can't shoot your weapon. If you want to win the single player campaign you'll be forced to go through several of these levels, but don't expect a lot of players to join you in a web-based match, because it doesn't seem to be very popular online.
The game is chock full of new maps and variants of previous UT classics. The locales rang from cramped space stations to vast outdoor arenas and low gravity fights on top of a series of skyscrapers. Map design is excellent, and it's always exciting to see what the next arena will look like.
Also new to the game is the addition of adrenaline, small pills you collect as you run around. Once you've gathered 100 of them, you can activate special abilities that last as long as your adrenaline doesn't run out. The abilities include invisibility, a speed burst (especially useful for harrowing CTF runs back to your base), or extra health. But don't expect any of this to be explained in the manual or tutorials -- I had to search online to figure out exactly what adrenaline was used for, so be prepared to Google your way to understanding.
The multiplayer game is, well, identical to the single player game, except that you use UT's built-in browser to scope out servers and gametypes. Pick the one you like, log in, and play against your fellow humans in games of skill and violence. It is, in my opinion, the best part of the game. In fact, at the last E3 expo, IMG's Lucian and I took over a LAN game of UT 2003 at the Apple booth. And I have to admit, Lucian is a darn good player! Not as good as I am, of course, but pretty impressive nonetheless.
Which leads me to the next part of this review: why I suck all of a sudden.
Performance
In most online FPS games, I'm used to being among the top group of players in the room at the end of a match. Not always -- everyone has games where they just blow it -- but frequently enough. I've got a fast internet connection, a decent machine, and I've been playing these games for a very long time now.
But in UT 2003, I've been hitting the bottom of the barrel on a consistent basis. I mean, I flat out stink! While analyzing possible causes, I looked at several factors:
WEAPONS: True, the weapons in UT 2003 have been...wussified. Many of the previously powerful weapons have been weakened to the point that there's little difference between a rocket launcher, a flak cannon and a mini-gun. (And while we're on the subject, sniper fans beware. No longer can you hide in a dark crevice and pop your friends‚ heads off while maintaining your cover. The sniper gun has been replaced with a lightning gun. It has a great scope and can kill with a well-placed head shot, but the stream of bright light leading from the target to your location will leave no doubt where you're hiding.) But anyway, weaker weapons for me mean weaker weapons for everybody, so that can't be the only reason my skills have declined.
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