Unreal Tournament 2007 Preview

The long arduous road out of hell

The past few months saw people from all over the world spending a lot of time and money upgrading their computers as games like Far Cry, Half-Life 2 and Doom 3 vowed to make their old graphic cards and processors squeal in agony. A few replacements, purchases and overclocks later, the same people heaved sighs of relief. They had overcome the game giants at Ubisoft, Valve and id Software. The games ran without stint on the new powerhouses they had built. These machines would also eat up any expansion packs for breakfast. In the midst of all this, another group of game gods who went by the name of ‘Epic’ simply smiled and said nothing. Now, the reason for their silence has been disclosed. The lads at Epic Games are nice guys and they didn’t want to break the hearts of those enthusiastic people. However, their little project looks like it may tell the gamers exactly what they fear to hear: that they need an upgrade… again.

Through the looking glass

Epic’s giving you a game that doesn’t look like a game. They’re giving you a game that looks like a Star Wars movie instead. They’re giving you Unreal Tournament 2007, the fourth in the famous line of First Person Shooters. Powered by the all new Unreal Engine 3, the game boasts of visuals like you’ve never seen before. Sometime last year, Epic released a few videos displaying the capabilities of this engine. However, for all but the tech-savvy, it was quite hard to understand. Now, after E3 2005, it’s as clear as day. UT2K7 will feature advanced special effects such HDR (High Dynamic Range) lighting and bump offset mapping which allows for structures like walls and stones to look absolutely realistic. As if that weren’t enough, the game also uses the new Novodex physics engine. Think in-game avalanches on the mountains.

Badder, Bigger, Better.

Some gamers, especially Quake fans have in the past, complained that the Unreal Tournament series focuses way too much on eye candy alone and does not deliver in terms of gameplay. Of course, there are thousands of other players who would disagree with that but Epic isn’t taking any chances this time around. They’re rebuilding the game from scratch and while doing so, they’re also taking into consideration the views of the community. While it is true that a pretty game without good gameplay gets boring quickly, Unreal Tournament 2007 doesn’t look like it will have that problem. The new game modes that have been announced sound like good ideas. The original UT had team-based, goal-oriented gameplay in the Assault game mode which was immensely popular. UT2K4 had Onslaught featuring vehicle-based gameplay where the objective was to capture many control points. Epic give you a combination of the two in ‘Conquest’. The idea behind Conquest is to create massive levels that take advantage of the engine’s new technologies and use Onslaught-style instant transport to shuffle between locations on the map depending on where the action is. The original Onslaught mode will also be making a return, along with the other usual games modes like Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch and Capture the Flag which have become synonymous with competition oriented FPS games today.

For those who found UT2K4’s learning curve to be too steep to effectively enjoy the game, good news has arrived. The developers say that Unreal Tournament 2007 will have more balanced movement and weapons which would cater to both the elite fraggers as well as the first-timers. New players will also appreciate ‘Survival’, another new game mode reminiscent to the Rocket Arena style of play in other popular games such as Quake 3 and Half-Life. Similar to Rocket Arena’s ‘Multi-Arena’ concept, Survival will allow a single server to have multiple instances of the same map or even different maps where players battle it out one-on-one. Epic have confirmed support for up to 64 players on a single server.

Terra Trippin

The vehicles that were initially seen in UT2K4 will be making a return, albeit with changes to power and the way you handle them. A new game wouldn’t be new without additions to a standard set and therefore, the developers have lovingly included a few more ‘fancy cars’. One of them even looks like a spider and I don’t mean Alfa Romeo.

What about the weapons? A few maybe missing as Epic are still putting in a lot of thought about them but from what we know so far, the classic Rocket Launcher, Shock Rifle and Flak Cannon will be a part of the arsenal. The super powered Redeemer will also make a comeback, according to sources.

Unreal Tournament 2007 will also bring back Mutators like the previous games, which add a lot of twists to the gameplay but at the time of writing, only Instagib has been divulged as approved.

More candy…

The Unreal Tournament series has always received acclaim for its bots. They’re coming back as well and they’re better than ever. They talk to you and you talk back to them. Voice recognition makes it possible for you to bark out orders to the bots on your team. Other features of the game include good support for online play with lobbies and clan rooms. A very good idea borrowed from the Battle.net concept for the Blizzard RTS games allows the game to find you an opponent of similar skill level so you don’t have to worry about getting owned all the time.

Epic seems hell bent on winning over the FPS community. With a dearth of good multiplayer shooters in the recent past and time still having to tell us about Quake 4, they appear to be on the right road to making it a reality. Contrary to what the name suggests, the game will be on the shelves of stores in 2006. Maybe then, FPS fans the world over will shout in unison: “We have a winner!”

Ashwath ‘AshR’ Ravee