Unreal Championship (Xbox Classics)

Gameplay follows the same style that hardened gamers will recognise, however Epic Games has done a lot to improve the game for the Xbox. New levels, new game types--all fully customisable--and special moves designed specifically for the Xbox give plenty of options to play with. Players now have a number of choices available to them; single player, tutorial, instant action and Live play.

The Live option, is of course the main crux of this game and connecting to the Xbox servers brings a host of other players to challenge and an endless supply of unpredictable gameplay ahead of you.

If you have time to notice the graphics of this game, then you obviously aren't getting into enough fights. That said, the Unreal Championship world is very impressive with the Xbox ably coping with numerous players and heavy action on the screen at the same time.

Likewise the sound, with its almost perfect 3-D soundscape of stray fire, pick-ups and taunts will make you feel you are right in the thick of the action.

Like Halo, this is a benchmark game for the Xbox. In that it has the same sense of actually giving the gamer what they want. If you need to fill 30 minutes of frag-tastic mindless mayhem then is the game for you. --Jason Denwood

But is it worth it? Well...
Single player: if you're on your own, this won't keep you entertained for very long. The bots are reasonably intelligent once you turn the difficulty up, the weapons are cool, and there's some very enjoyable levels. However, the single player 'campaign' (a championship) is short lived, and there really isn't that much to keep you coming back for more. If single player is all you want, then this game would only be worth a 3, or 4/10.

Offline multiplayer: this is pretty damn fun! Fast, frenetic gameplay, typical of console shooters, but unlike, say, TS2, there is a deceptive depth in the weapon balance and there are some very enjoyable levels which don't suffer from the TS2 tendency to be a string of pretty basic, limited corridors and the following repetition. However, with a smaller screen space in split screen, thanks to teh pace of the game, it can be hard to keep up. And the game doesn't quite have that special magic yet... for offline multi, I'd give Unreal Championship a 5 or 6/10.

Online multiplayer is what this game was designed for, and where it shines most. With several new downloadable maps (leviathan ain't much cop unfortunately, but I really enjoy Aqua Mortis, and Inferno is decent enough even though it feels somewhat 'bland'), a wonderful mix of players, still a few hundred gamers going strong, some lovely levels, combined with the frantic gameplay, nice graphics and deceptively deep gameplay and excellent balance make this a must own, especially at this price. If you're online, this game is worth an 8/10 at least!


A great 1st person shooter   November 1, 2004
Matt (Wiltshire)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful

A cracking game which meets all standards a 1st person shooter should meet. Choosing from multiple characters, some being more speedy than others, some being more heavily armoured. The strongest character on the game is probably a heavily armoured monster 'Gorge', (the one in the center on the front of the game box). He has 190 hit points (The most hit points a character has on the game). And he grasps a 3 barreled rocket launcher in his arms. You really don't want to wind him up.

With lots of guns to choose from, with each gun having 2 different attacks, you shouldn't really let enemies come within 2 metres of you. They should already be a pile of guts on the floor.

With great graphics, xbox live play and several kinds of tournaments, career mode will take weeks, and live mode could well take over your entire life.


What a gerat game!   May 15, 2004
0 out of 2 found this review helpful

this really is a good game. i would like to echo the sentiments of the other reviewers somewhat, it is good, but may be a let down to PC owners.

I loved it, although in areas repetative, i basically is just the pc's online game over and over. which for me is great, but for some might be boring.

even if you are a pc user i think that you will like this, i like it, although i did notice that i was holding a controller and not using a keyboard and mouse, which is a obvious change if you have played it.

go and buyt his game, its wortha ook to fans of the genre.


Finaly a classic worthy.   March 9, 2004
0 out of 8 found this review helpful

I have played unreal championship and I am glad that this great game has achived a classic rating.The amount of freedom you have in this shooting game is amazing,you can shoot people from a distance with the sniper gun that fires lightning; you can run towards your enemies with a chain gun. Go and buy this game from amazon right now - it is that good!


An fun but imperfect shooter   January 12, 2004
SEC (Bicester, England)
4 out of 5 found this review helpful

Unreal was a major shooter on the PC, even managing to usurp the likes of Quake. Its appearance on Xbox promised much, and it almost delivers. Unreal Championship (UC) is a reworking of Unreal Tournament (UT) from the PC, written from the ground up by Atari and Epic. After online research to find out what players liked most about UT, the developers distilled the best elements into UC.
LOOKS:
The game looks stunning. Landscapes are amazingly detailed, giving Halo a real run for its money, though with a much darker, dirtier atmosphere. Buildings and interiors are solid-looking and well realised, and everything on-screen feels connected and convincing. This is in part due to some excellent shadow-casting and use of lighting. The graphics engine works very well in this respect, but does suffer some occasional but nasty frame rate slowdowns. This is disappointing but only really interferes with gameplay when several characters are in a complex-looking location and all shooting at once.
SOUND:
Sound is nicely done, but some people may find the thrash-rock music a bit monotonous. There is no ability to use music from the Xbox hard drive, which is a let-down. Characters are quite vocal, and will (optionally) call out taunts and insults during play. The "harsh" language is unlikely to offend even your mother, but there is an option to switch it off.
CHARACTERS:
We get a variety of character species, all of which are nicely done, distinctive and with special fighting skills. These add variety but the species you choose is fixed in your Player Profile. If you want to be something else then a new profile must be made. I ended up with many profiles because of this. It would have been nice to see ordinary Humans here, but there are none. In Championship mode the characters seem to learn as they go along, becoming better shots with experience. This makes it necessary to check which team members you choose for each battle.
GAME TYPES:
A variety of game types are on offer. The usual suspects are all here, including Capture the Flag, Deathmatch and Domination, plus a couple of new types. Of these, Bombing Run is the most likely to please. It involves two teams trying to capture a "ball", and then fighting their way into the enemy base to score points. Multiplayer is, of course, available. Nevertheless, there are simply too few maps for sufficient variety. For UT veterans who are used to being able to download literally thousands of additional maps, the maps included are just not enough.
GAMEPLAY:
If you are expecting to sneak around and ambush your enemies, forget it. In UC there is nowhere to hide, and if you stand still you will end up dead very quickly. UC is frenetic and absolutely non-stop action. In this respect it triumphs.
As with any shooter, UC revolves around survival. You need to be quick on your feet and quick with the trigger. The controls are simple and easy to pick-up, though there is an excellent tutorial provided to get you started. You can carry up to 9 weapons, ranging from Lighting Gun (a futuristic take on a sniper rifle) to machine guns, rocket launchers and even a cool single-shot weapon (the TAG rifle) that allows you to launch an attack form a satellite hovering in the sky. Each weapon does a reassuring large amount of damage. You can expect to see many of your unfortunate enemies blown to giblets during a typical game. The downside of all these weapons is that cycling through each weapon to find the one you need can take so long that you end up dead before you have found it. Team play includes rudimentary commands with which you control your team. However, the "Cover Me" command is not present (it was in UT). This means that you are often on your own, with no backup in the heat of a fire fight.
WHAT'S WRONG:
UC is not perfect. It is when playing against other Humans that you become most aware that the behaviour of Bots in the single-player matches leaves something to be desired. Certainly Bot AI is better than in UT, but the missing "Cover Me" command is a downer.
Something is missing in the gameplay. It just is not as much fun as UT. UC seems to lack the fluidity of movement and smoothness of aiming that UT had. The reticule is more difficult to aim than it should be, a problem that is mainly down to the large "dead-zone" in joystick movement. Compare it with the sublime smoothness of Halo and you will realise just how badly this affects UC. When using a gun sight to zoom in on a foe, the view you get is unaccountably fuzzy, though seems to have been intentional.
Game difficulty levels seems to do little more than make the Bots jump around more and fire more accurately. This would be fine but for the fact that the Lighting Gun is too powerful in the hands of Bots that never ever miss. On the hardest level against Bots, you can expect to die every few seconds.
One last point not picked up on elsewhere: Atari and Epic seem to be confused about the story line for UC. In the manual it mentions "winning your freedom", but in the game itself it is an organized sport - no mention of winning anything other than a trophy. I suppose the cursory vagueness of plot demonstrates that in UC there is no purpose to the game other than the gratifying zeal of personal survival.
IN SHORT:
If you like shooters then this is likely to appeal to you. If you are expecting some attempt at a story line or purpose to the mayhem then look elsewhere. This is classic arcade violence (almost) at its best.