Unreal Tournament is the first great first person shooter for PC ported brought on the new Sony’s console. As it happens with Quake 3, UT gathers an unbelievable number of enthusiasts that continually challenge each other in lethal online deathmatches. Because of the great quality of both these games, a comparison between them makes little sense. The question is probably another: has finally come the time we’ll see Pc quality fps on a console? Maybe, and Unreal Tournament is surely one of the protagonist in this little revolution of the genre. Anyhow, we have to say that also TimeSplitters, another first person shooter for Ps2, is a good example of the power of the new console.

In Unreal Tournament you’ll be a champion of a powerful mining league in an undetermined future. You’ll have to fight against the greatest fighters from other leagues in order to maintain your title and to survive. The plot is abolutely slender, even though it’s true that lovers of the genre don’t usually want deep characters or touching stories but just action and strategy. Since Internet has become a global reality, First Person Shooters have progressively abandoned the single player mode and they have focused on providing the player exciting multiplayer experiences. Anyhow, Unreal Tournament, contrarily to TimeSplitters, is an amusing game in the single player mode, mainly thanks to wonderfully programmed bots (a bot is substantially a character controlled by a program that simulates the intelligence of a human player); in more difficult levels of the game these bots become really deadly enemies, and it’s difficult to kill them before they do the same thing to you. Unreal Tournament magnificently supports the four player mode, but it doesn’t include a support for online games because of the lack, during the development of the game, of a modem for the new console.
Online games will be a reality with the next instalment of the series, which will soon be released on PC and then hopefully ported to Ps2 and probably other gaming consoles. Anyhow, the other game modes featured in this first Unreal Tournament are the same present in the PC version and you are able to play thrilling Deathmatches (alone or against bots controlled by the CPU), Capture The Flag competitions ( in which you have to maintain for the longest time the possession of a certain object), Assault Modes and so on.

Speaking of controls, in UT you can choose among many different configurations for your Dual Shock 2 controller. The developers included full support for USB peripherals: you can connect an USB keyboard or a mouse to your console and start playing the game like the PC version. This will make happy all the PC fans out there, even though I must admit I prefer to use the Dual Shock controller, mainly because it gives me the feeling of having all the control in my hands. I think the Dual Shock is something more advanced than the usual mouse, but this are just personal opinions. Anyhow, if you want to use your Dual Shock, I strongly suggest using A or E configurations. Epic did a great job with Unreal Tournament’s controls, they’ve been able to balance them to fit perfectly the Ps2 controllers and the fast pace of this wonderful game.

In Unreal Tournament there isn't a map editor like the one included in TimeSplitters, but there are 50 different levels and all are extremely original and rich in atmosphere. Each of these levels requires a different strategy to be successfully completed and if you try to fight against a player who has previously memorized all the map you’ll be simply lost. After all, nobody is saying Unreal Tournament is a simple and fair game. The truth is that the game always asks the player a great concentration and a strategy in the managemant of the weapons. You can’t always draw out your biggest gun and start shooting all the living things that surround you, because in this way you’ll simply run out of munitions, provided that you don’t kill yourself using a too powerful weapon in a narrow space. The weapons in Unreal Tournament are about ten, and some of them are probably the most powerful ever featured in a first person shooter. Just to make an example, there is a “wonderful” weapon using devastating nuclear missiles. You need to be fast in this game when you decide to change your weapon and remember, never take the risk of running out of ammunitions because in Unreal Tournament there is always someone behind the corner ready to bump you off.

Overall, the gameplay in Unreal Tournament is extremely good. The support for USB peripheral, the good use of the Dual Shock 2 controller, many gameplay modes and fifty levels, completely absurd weapons create an amusing game. In comparison with Timesplitters, Unreal Tournament,while not including a level editor, has a better single player mode, thanks to the good AI of the enemies controlled by the CPU.