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 2291, in an attempt to control violence among 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 the problems with online play. 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
The first publicly available version (Version 322) of the demo was released on 17 September 1999. A Version 321 was briefly and accidentally available the night before but was rapidly withdrawn.

The Version 322 demo is for use with 3dfx video cards only. This early version of the demo omits DM-Tempest.

A patch was provided to update Version 321 to 322. Two days later, a patch to the 3dfx-only demo was provided to correct a server crash that occurred whilst using the Web-based remote administration facility.

The first full demo (and a patch to the 3dfx-only demo to convert it to the full demo) was released 28 September 1999. This took the demo to version 338. A Version 338a demo intended to test a server map change problem was accidentally released but rapidly disowned by Epic. The Version 338 demo is not compatible with the final version of the full demo.

A final demo for Unreal Tournament was released on October 19 1999 Version 348 Demo release announcement and contains 5 maps from the game; one map for each gametype. The demo has the maps CTF-Coret, DM-Morpheus, DM-Phobos, DM-Tempest, and DOM-Sesmar.

The Linux version of the Version 348 demo was released 20 October 1999.

An additional patch to the Version 348 demo to fix a crash whilst playing back recorded demos was released 20 October 1999.

An additional patch to update Version 348 servers was released 9 November 1999. Network compatability is unaffected by this patch.

A history of the changes to the demos between the 3dfx-only demo and the final Version 348 demo is detailed here.

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.

On its release, Unreal Tournament was capable of using maps created for Unreal. The Unreal content was automatically replaced by Unreal Tournament content when running an Unreal DM map with one of the Unreal Tournament gametypes (Unreal Technology Announcements - Steve Polge 19 November 1999). Mods like OldSkool Amp'd allowed players to play Unreal levels in Unreal Tournament, using original Unreal assets instead of substituting their Unreal Tournament counterparts.

Although the graphical capabilities of the Unreal Tournament engine have long since been surpassed, it is still one of the most played games on the Internet (as of July 2007). This is due, in part, to its grounded gameplay and weapon balance.

Music
Although some tracks have more than one section (And are listed appropriately) it's important to note the extra sections are never played within the game itself. However, using a Module Player, such as XMPlay, one can listen to the extra sections.

Weapons

 * Translocator
 * Impact Hammer
 * Chainsaw
 * Enforcer
 * Bio Rifle
 * Shock Rifle
 * Pulse Gun
 * Ripper
 * Minigun
 * Flak Cannon
 * Rocket Launcher
 * Sniper Rifle
 * Redeemer

Powerups

 * Thigh Pads
 * Body Armor
 * Shield Belt
 * AntiGrav Boots
 * Damage Amplifier
 * Invisibility

Races

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

Teams

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

Characters

 * Malcolm
 * Xan

Gametypes

 * Deathmatch
 * Team Deathmatch
 * Capture The Flag
 * Assault
 * Domination
 * Last Man Standing

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.

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

Models

 * Xan - Mark II
 * WarBoss

UTPG
UTPG is a group of people that continued Epic's work of making Unreal Tournament patches after Epic released it's final, official patch: Patch 436. More information is on the UTPG Page and by going to their website at http://www.utpg.org.

User Created Content
Over time, fans have created many modifications for Unreal Tournament which include mutators, gameplay altrerations, and even single-player campaigns, which in some cases are loosely based on the original storyline of Unreal.

Single player campaign mods

 * Operation Na Pali


 * Xidia


 * Nali Chronicles


 * Legacy


 * Project Zephon

Trivia

 * Unreal Tournament was originally planned as an expansion pack to Unreal, but was later made into a full game.
 * An easter egg in the ending sequence reveals that there were five Liandri Grand Tournament winners before Xan Kriegor. They are named (in chronological order): Green Marine, Roan Terg, Magnus, Geos Dryon and Pariah. It seems that the winners' names are actually nicknames of Epic staff. Green Marine comes from Brandon "Green Marine" Reinhart, one of the programmers.

Previews and Reviews

 * GameSpot (9.5/10)