Unreal Tournament 2003

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Unreal Tournament 2003

Developer(s)	Epic Games Digital Extremes
Publisher(s)	Atari
Designer(s)	Cliff Bleszinski
Engine	Unreal Engine 2.0
Latest version	2225
Release date(s)	October 1, 2002 October 19, 2002 October 31, 2002
Genre(s)	First-person shooter
Mode(s)	Single player, multiplayer
Rating(s)	ESRB: Mature (M) USK: ab 16
Platform(s)	PC (Linux, Windows), Mac OS X
Media	CD (3)
System requirements	1.0 GHz processor, 128MB RAM, DirectX 8.1 or OpenGL
Input	Keyboard, Mouse

Unreal Tournament 2003 or UT2003 is a first-person shooter video game designed mainly for multiplayer gaming although the game had a built in single-player mode that mimics multiplayer gaming by featuring AI-bots. The game is part of the Unreal franchise's series of games and is a sequel to 1999's Unreal Tournament. Unreal II: The Awakening was released as a sister product to the game, however, was developed for single-player only. Later, Unreal II would receive an add-on that would enable a multiplayer mode. UT2003 was followed by Unreal Tournament 2004 released in March of 2004.

UT2004 is not a brand new game or a conventional expansion pack, rather "UT2004 is what UT2003 should have been". UT2004 completely replaced UT2003 on store shelves and UT2004 boxes sold in the United States include a voucher that along with proof of having bought UT2003 gives a discount for UT2004.

UT2003 set a record for the number of downloads (1.2 Million) when the demo was released, which is a reflection of the popularity of the original UT. In addition, the game engine has been widely licensed for games such as Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six, Splinter Cell, and America's Army.

UT2003 has received mostly positive reviews although it has not had the impact that its 1999 predecessor had. One reason was increased competition, with Halo: Combat Evolved, Operation Flashpoint, Tribes 2, Battlefield 1942, and the Grand Theft Auto series raising the bar for shooter expectations by including vehicles. UT2003 also received a lukewarm if not hostile reception from a great many fans of its predecessor, who accused it of altering the pace and gameplay adversely. The primary complaint seemed to be that the overall look, feel, and scale of UT2003. People also complained about changes to the weapons, the crucially important translocator, the look of the player skins, and the server browser, which may have counted bots as human players. Consequently, many fans of the original game were disappointed. Fans of UT's Assault and Domination games were also disappointed since Assault was omitted and Domination was changed in UT 2003. Consequently, the Assault mod returned for UT2004.

Both gamers and developers agreed that UT2003 was a watered-down game in its current form, however it was not rushed in order to be released upon time (so UT2003 was not plagued by bugs that are typical of "rushed games"). There are several Easter eggs (i.e. a hidden vehicle) to hint of UT2003's future potential; it was obvious that Epic Games had very ambitious plans for the sequel to UT and the stripped-down UT2003 was due mostly to time constraints. In addition to buying more time to implement their plans for Assault and Onslaught game modes, the developers attempted to resolve many issues gamers had with UT2003. As a result, UT2003 served as a polished foundation upon which UT2004 was built up and UT2004 met a very favorable reception.

1 Gameplay
2 Weapons
3 Music
4 Mutators
5 External links

[edit] Gameplay

The available combat modes are:

Deathmatch: Frag other players as much to gain the highest score.
Team Deathmatch: Two teams go head to head to be the best fragger.
Capture the flag: Players must evade the enemies base, capture their flag and bring it back to his/her base in order to score.
Double Domination — In double domination two teams must control two points on the map. Holding both locations for a certain period of time gives points to a team. Which control point must match the same color has of the teams in order to win a score.
Bombing Run — Bombing run can best be described as Unreal-style football where the player gets the ball and has to take it into enemy territory and score in the enemy forces goal. Players can pass to other teammates. Getting killed causes the ball carrier to fumble the ball. The ball launcher is used to carry the ball, it isn't a weapon but helps the player heal when he/she is in low of health. 3 Points are awarded for field goals (shooting the ball through the goal), and 7 points are given for touchdowns (carrying the ball through the goal).
Last man standing — All players in this gametype spawn with a limited number of lives. The player to use up all his/her lives last wins.
Invasion — Is a co-op gametype where you play with all the players in the server in an attempt to kill the invading alien AI. If you're killed the player sits out until your team clears the map of aliens.
Mutant — Mutant is very similar to a "king of the hill" type of gameplay. The first person to make a kill becomes the mutant, which gives them unlimited ammo, camouflage, and super speed. The mutant then tries to get as many kills as he can until he's killed. The person who kills the mutant then becomes the mutant.

[edit] Weapons

A screenshot from UT2003, in the map "CTF-Face3".

UT2003 features 11 weapons:

Shield Gun
Assault Rifle
Bio Rifle
Shock Rifle
Link Gun
Minigun
Flak Cannon
Rocket Launcher
Lightning Gun
Ion Painter
Redeemer

In addition, UT2003 features the Translocator that allows your player to quickly teleport across the map by shooting a small disc where the player wants to go.

There are also alternate weapons/weapon sets which are available for download as 'mutators' (explained below). These will replace other weapons' places on maps in the game.

[edit] Music

The UT2003 soundtrack was created by the Canadian producer Starsky Partridge and contains grand orchestral scores, hard rock and minimalistic electronic songs. Starsky Partridge was also responsible for the music for Unreal II, and Unreal Championship.

[edit] Mutators

Mutators are addons to the game which 'mutate' the style of gameplay.

Big Head (increases the size of a player's head proportional to how well they are doing)
Floaty Cadavers (reduces the effect of gravity on dead players' 'corpses')
Quad Jump (allows people to string 4 jumps together instead of the normal 2)
InstaGib (all players are equipped with modified Shock Rifles with unlimited ammunition that reduce other players to gibs in a single hit)
Zoom InstaGib (gives all players modified Shock Rifles with sniper scopes. The rifles also have single-hit kill capabilities and the shots are red or blue, depending on which team the player is on)
Vampire (when a player shoots another, the victim's lost health is transferred to the aggressor)