Unreal Tournament

Unreal Tournament is the first game in the Unreal Tournament series and the second game in the Unreal series. Development began sometime in 1998 after the poor reception to Unreal's multiplayer component as a multiplayer expansion pack for Unreal. Later, it was decided that the game had enough changes to make it into a standalone game. The game was released to stores November 23, 1999.

Intro
''In the year 2291, in an attempt to control violence between deep-space miners, the New Earth Government legalized no-holds-barred fighting. Liandri Mining Corporation working with the NEG established a series of leagues and bloody public exhibitions. The fight's popularity grew with their brutality. Soon, Liandri discovered that the public matches were their most profitable enterprise. The professional league was formed. A cabal of the most violent and skilled warriors in known space, selected to fight in a grand tournament. Now it is 2341, fifty years have passed since the founding of Deathmatch. Profits from the tournament number in the hundreds of billions. You have been selected to fight in the Professional League by the Liandri Rules Board. Your strength and brutality are legendary. The time has come to prove you are the best. To crush your enemies. To win the tournament''

History
Unreal Tournament began life as an expansion pack for Unreal. When it was realized that the multi-player aspect of Unreal was popular and something that people sought after, Epic began working on a multiplayer expansion pack for the game to fix its multitude of problems. At some point during its development, it became clear that the number and extent of the changes to the Unreal codebase that Epic was required to make made Unreal Tournament too incompatible with Unreal. Thus the expansion pack was broken off from Unreal and made into a standalone game. Unreal Tournament contains all of the content that Unreal had except for the maps and music.

Demo
A demo for Unreal Tournament was released on October 19, 1999 (?) and contained 4 maps from the game. One map for each gametype.

Release Details

 * November 23, 1999 - Unreal Tournament (PC) - 2 CDs
 * January 19, 2000 - Unreal Tournament (Mac)
 * October 26, 2000 - Unreal Tournament (PS2) - 1 DVD
 * October 27, 2000 - Unreal Tournament GOTY (PC) - 2 CDs
 * March 14, 2001 - Unreal Tournament (DC) - 1 RD-Rom
 * March 21, 2001 - Unreal Tournament GOTY (Mac)
 * August 29, 2001 - Totally Unreal (PC) - 4 CDs
 * Included Unreal Gold, Unreal Tournament - GOTY and an Unreal Championship/Unreal 2 preview disc
 * November 6, 2006 - Unreal Anthology (PC) - 1 DVD
 * Included Unreal Gold, Unreal Tournament - GOTY, Unreal 2, and UT2004.
 * Published by Midway Games, who took publishing rights from Atari

Reception
Unreal Tournament is still, arguably, the most popular Unreal series game ever released. It generated an enormous community and was many people's first multiplayer experience. Though the years after it's release began to show it's age, it is still one of the most played games on the internet, due in part to it's grounded gameplay and weapon balance, as well as mods like OldSkool Amp'd which allowed players to play Unreal levels in UT.

Music
Alexander Brandon, Sascha Dikiciyan, David Ewing, Lani Minella, Shannon Newans and Michiel Van Den Bos are credited for the music in Unreal Tournament.
 * Tracks
 * Botpack #9 (Phobos)
 * Botmca #10 (Tempest)
 * Cannonade
 * Colossus
 * The Course
 * Room of Champions (Credits)
 * Ending
 * Enigma
 * FireBreath
 * Foregone Destruction
 * Go Down
 * Lock
 * Mechanism Eight
 * Mission Landing
 * Nether Animal
 * Organic
 * Phantom
 * Razorback
 * Run
 * Save Me
 * Save Me (SaveMeg - second version)
 * Seeker
 * Seeker 2
 * SkyWard Fire
 * Into the Darkness (Strider)
 * SuperFist
 * Underworld II
 * Unreal Tournament Menu
 * Unreal Tournament Title
 * Three Wheels Turning

Weapons

 * Translocator
 * Impact Hammer
 * Enforcers
 * Bio Rifle
 * Shock Rifle
 * Minigun
 * Ripper
 * Rocket Launcher
 * Flak Cannon
 * Sniper Rifle
 * Redeemer

Races

 * Necris
 * Humans
 * Robots
 * Skaarj-Human Hybrid (UT:GOTY)

Teams

 * Black Legion
 * Blood Reavers
 * Dark Phalanx
 * Iron Guard
 * Iron Skull
 * Raw Steel
 * Red Claw
 * The Corrupt
 * Thunder Crash
 * Venom

Characters

 * Malcolm
 * Xan

Gametypes

 * Deathmatch
 * Team Deathmatch
 * Capture The Flag
 * Assault
 * Domination

Bonus Pack 1
Released 25 February 2000 by Epic.

Included:
 * Three new models, a package containing six related mutators, and 11 maps.

Models

 * Skaarj Hybrid
 * Nali
 * Nali WarCow

Mutators

 * Relic of Strength
 * Relic of Regeneration
 * Relic of Defense
 * Relic of Speed
 * Relic of Redemption
 * Relic of Vengeance

Bonus Pack 2
Released 4 Jan 2000 by Digital Extremes.

Included:
 * Three new mutators and two maps.

Mutators

 * Volatile Ammo Mutator
 * Team Beacon
 * Volatile Weapon

Bonus Pack 3
Also called the Inoxx Pack. Released 11-May-2000 by Epic. All of the content in this pack was created by Cedric "Inoxx" Fiorentino.

Included:
 * Two texture packs and six maps.

Texture Packs

 * noxxpack.utx
 * xutfx.utx

Bonus Pack 4
Released 23 December 2000 by Epic Games.

Included:
 * Two new models, two texture packs and twelve new maps.

Models

 * Xan - Mark II
 * WarBoss

UTPG
When UTPG saw how how many exploits users had to download for Patch 436 (including the infamous DDOS exploit and the creeping ping bug in Windows 2000 Servers) they asked Epic's if they could have Patch 436 source code and build unofficial patches. Epic agreed on one condition: only if the users installed Patch 436 before installing the UTPG patches. With that, Epic Games gave them all the fixes they made for Patch 436, and include them into the new UTPG patches. Some other fixes and exploits was fixed, such as the ucc buffer overflow exploit and the backslashes and mutuators in the status query replies bugs. They also implanted a new team information query into the protocol. They packages up these bug fixes and released it as Patch 440. Patch 451 came about two months later, incorporating close to 30-40 bug fixes. However, it did not come without prices. The UnrealEd was broken, and sometimes the client and the server would crash if inavlid classes are loaded. They released a mini-patch for Patch 451, labeling it 451b, about 10 months later. It ifixed the invalid classes bug, and the UnrealEd Crash was also fixed. However the UnrealEd was not fully functional. You couldn't move the camera around the editor, therefore rendering the UnrealEd obsolete, unless they downgraded to 436. About a year or so later, UTPG merged Patch 451b with the Patch 451. One noticle feature, probably a typo, indicated that with UTPG Patch 451 and 451b, Patch 436 read as Patch 435.

Additional Information

 * Unreal Tournament was originally planned as an expansion pack to Unreal, but was later made into a full game.

Previews and Reviews

 * GameSpot (9.5/10)