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Unreal Championship Review |
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Unreal Championship
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Unreal Championship is one of those games that some people will love, others will hate, but most have embraced the title as one of the better XBL compatible titles available since it’s launch in November of 2002. Having been delayed multiple times, and with promises of greatness from the developers themselves as well as from Microsoft as well, did the final product measure up to expectations?
Unreal Championship is not a game tailored to the single player experience. Anyone expecting a deep and story driven single player experience is going to be a little disappointed with UC, as it really doesn’t have a story nor a real reason for these groups to be blasting each other to bits. However, for those craving an intense and fast-paced multiplayer and online experience there is definitely something here worthwhile.
For those who don’t have XBL or, um.,.,. don’t have friends, UC does offer an experience that is similar to the multiplayer experience in the way of bots, or computer controlled opponents and teammates. The AI is actually quite sharp for a FPS, although it pales in comparison to a thinking, planning, human opponent any day. In any case, regardless of your playing conditions, you’ll have various modes of play to choose from.
The standard FPS multiplayer modes are present, such as Survival, Capture the Flag, Deathmatch, and Team Deathmatch, but the addition of modes like Bombing Run (essentially a football-esque game where your team attempts to get a ball thru the opponents goal for a 7 point score), and Double Domination (a mode where your team attempts to maintain control of two separate designated points for more than 10 seconds to score a point) make the game stand out a bit from other current FPS multiplayer modes.
There are 10 distinct weapons in UC, each with weaknesses and strengths of their own, but the game starts you out with three weapons regardless, which you can switch to whenever you want to via the face buttons on the controller. Left trigger is for secondary fire, while the right is for primary fire. Some weapons will lock on if you have that feature enabled, but many gamers will turn this feature off in the options menu so as to make the game more challenging, and for many online, more fair. Some weapons don’t seem to have any degree of effectiveness whatsoever when I use them, such as the BioRifle, however, others seem to use it pretty damn effectively, so it largely comes down to matter of preference and what the gamer is used to.
There are different races to choose from as far as your character goes, and each one will have different vulnerabilities and strengths, and which one you choose will once again largely depend on how you are used to playing this type of game. If you like big, slow, but tough, Juggernauts might be for you. If you favor moving fast and shooting sharp, then pony up with a Gen Mo’Kai character and get out there. There is seemingly no entirely dominant species, but Juggernauts are generally recommended for beginners as they can take the most damage.
Also featured in UC are various Mutators, which affect the gameplay or visuals of the game in some way or another. Big heads, removal of adrenaline powerups, and low gravity Mutators are just a few. Some people use them, some don’t, but either way, they can be disabled by the host on XBL.
The core gameplay for the most part is very good, and can be very addictive, but in many cases online, lag and framerate issues can hamper the fun of it all. Particularly with large groups of people in smaller maps, the issues become readily apparent. Fortunately Epic games is already aware of the problem, so hopefully they can remedy this situation soon.
Early screenshots were amazing. Promises of silky smooth framerates were evident from day one. Character models and environments were purportedly astonishing. However, those who have played the finished product see a slightly different story. Massive framerate drops, and de-rezed textures surprised me when I began playing. That isn’t to say that the game itself looks bad, because it doesn’t. Not by a longshot, but it does not look nor play as smoothly as it was promised it would. With a lengthy development time and multiple delays it’s expected that the guys over there at Epic could have worked out a few of these issues before release time, but unfortunately they didn’t, and the game suffers for it. Framerate drops are far too common, and do effect combat, which makes UC score lower than it would have if it were a little more refined and polished. To put it bluntly, the framerates really pissed me off.
Sound in UC is simple, but extremely useful, in that it lets you know much about the status of the game in many game modes. Especially in modes like Bombing Run and Double Domination, and CTF. The vocal counting down of the 10 seconds in order to get a point is all but nerve racking as you rush to reverse the claiming of a zone by your enemy. Sound is also of course useful when playing online as it allows you to talk to the entire group or your teammates alone if you so desire to plan an attack. The weapon sounds are nicely done, and each generally has a distinct sound you’ll be able to detect when it’s being fired at you as well as when you’re firing it. The canned taunts are kinda lame, and they use the same general taunts across the board for the species. A little differentiation between the species epithets would have done some good here. Overall though, effective use of sound on the part of Epic.
I had a hard time pinning down a value score on this one, as it has of course endless replayability due to Xbox Live compatibility. But then again, those without Xbox Live are kinda stuck without much to do once they’ve completed the basic ladders for the different gameplay modes. The number of different modes is impressive, but not being a story driven game, it suffers a bit in the value score in my eyes.
I know I am gonna take a bit of flak for this, but I just am not a big fan of Unreal Championship. Did I like it? Yes. Does it have its good points? Definitely. But for whatever reason it has never hooked me. Never got to the point where it’s gotten me “addicted” like it has so many other gamers. I enjoy playing it online and to a lesser extent offline, but I still keep going back to MechAssault. Unreal is still a good game and fun if you have XBL, and for the current price around town of $25, it’s hard not to recommend it. However, it’s just not one I have a burning desire to play as much as I do other XBL or even non-XBL games. Take that for what it’s worth.
Review By: JakeT
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