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from 
Reviewed by: Dave Peck
Game
Information:
Minimum
Requirements:
Title: Unreal Tournament
Processor: PowerPC 603 at 200 MHZ of faster.
Category: First Person Shooter (FPS)
Networking?: LAN, Internet Publisher: MacSoft RAM: 64 MB
Est. retail price: $49.99
Display: Color monitor capable of 640x480
resolution
Demo available: Yes
at MacSoft
Copy Protection?: Requires CD in drive
Advisory: Other Requirements:
3D Acceleration?: Rage Pro or better 3D card
recommended.
Developer: Epic
Games
Mac version: Westlake
Interactive
(Ages 17 and up)
Reviewer recommends:
Reviewed
using:
G3 Processor (includes G3 upgrade cards)
105 MB available RAM or more
12X CD-ROM drive
System 8.6 (did not test on MacOS 8.1)
Overview:
Note:
While I enjoy games as much as the next Mac user, I'd like to remind
those reading this review that graphically violent games such as UT
are only for those who can distinguish between reality and virtual
reality.
With that said, Unreal Tournament thunders forth into Mac gaming as the next rung in the First Person Shooter (FPS) evolutionary ladder. For neophytes, the First Person Shooter has always been a story-driven solo game whose premise gives you an excuse to shoot the place up! Usually the opening scenario features an invasion by aliens. And from a first-person perspective, your character's mission is to progress through levels, wiping out the fiends and saving humanity. It's a dirty job, but someone has to do it. This game genre requires quick reflexes and good situational awareness. A major shift has occurred in the newest shooters, where online multiplayer competition has become the primary feature, pretty much dispensing with the solo story. Unreal Tournament's predecessor, Unreal, is still impressive. But Unreal Tournament (UT) leaps ahead by providing a great solo practice environment for multiplayer tournaments, either solo or online. How does one play in a tournament?......All will be revealed.
Hardware Demands:
Unreal Tournament runs smoothly on my 300
MHz Blue & White G3, using a standard ATI Rage 128 card. With
audio and video options turned
down, UT ran okay on my Powerbase 200 upgraded with 138 MB RAM, a 233
MHZ G3 card, and 3DFX Voodoo 3 2000 PCI card.
My iBook with 160 MB RAM also did okay, but I could tell its resources were being taxed, with slower frame rates and some pauses. The Rage Mobility chip that comes with the iBook is not as fast as the Rage 128 that comes in iMacs. And because of the limitations of the iBook screen, the game does not look very pretty. For pretty and fast, the better choice would be the iMacDV Special Edition.
The standard install on my G3 took up 93 MB of hard drive space. This leaves all of the maps and most of the texture on the CD. The full install requires a whopping 512 MB, and it still asks for the CD to run. That's fair, as this is primarily a "networking" game.
The game's "Get Info" box lists the minimum RAM requirement as 8 MB. According to Westlake Interactive, the real minimum RAM figure is more like 80 MB. Westlake decided to label the minimum as 8 MB, so when the novice iMac user cranks up the game for the first time, and they don't have enough RAM, including Virtual Memory, they don't get a cryptic error message. Instead they will get a message asking for more memory.
I've always looked at the minimum
RAM figure to really know what the game needs. This decision defeats
that purpose. My suggestion would be to have the Get Info Memory
window display accurate information and add an explanation for
novices in the game's setup documentation. The recommended 105 MB of
RAM is a more realistic figure for optium performance. If using a
iMac with 64 MB RAM, you'll be relying on a hefty dose of Virtual
Memory. My experience is that relying on a little Virtual
Memory with a fast processor (G3) works fine. But the more VM you
use, the slower any game will
run.
Background:
I'm a member of
the Minnesota Apple Computer User Group's
Gaming Contingent. We met in January and the typical excitement was
tempered with a hint of sadness, as this was the first meeting where
we did nor play Bungie
Software's Marathon. That's one heck of a
run for the Mac's first great first-person shooter. New kings were to
be crowned. Their names? Unreal Tournament and Quake 3: Arena.
After a long dry spell for Mac first-person
shooters, the heat was turned up a big notch last year when Unreal
was brought to the Mac by MacSoft
, and Activision
published Quake II for Mac. This year, any shooter fan's attention
focuses on Mac gaming, with the near simultaneous Mac/PC releases of
Unreal
Tournament and Quake
3 Arena. Graphics and game play have
reached a point not thought possible a few years ago. Both games are
beautiful, delivering great visuals. And most importantly, they soar
to a new level of solo and multiplayer game play. My focus is on
Unreal Tournament.
Game Synopsis:
Back in the year 2200,
there was trouble with violence in the deep space mining colonies.
The New Earth Government decided that no-holds-barred fighting
tournaments would be a great way for the miners to let off some
steam. The Liandri Mining Corporation, which sponsored the events,
charged admission and quickly discovered that the tournaments were
very profitable. The bottom line is that you now have an excuse to
kick the virtual stuffing out each other in FPS tournament
play!
The Game:
Unreal
Tournament provides the environment and structure to get yourself
into fighting shape and conduct knockdown, drag-out fire fights with
16 of your closest enemies or all by yourself against
computer-generated enemies. The environment consists of 50
outstanding levels, from dingy urban environments to the reaches of
outer space. More maps are sure to come from independent map makers.
UT's greatest achievement is a game structure using the Unreal engine
that allows for solo practice and tournament play using UT's cool
Artificial Intelligence (AI) characters known as "bots". They seem
almost human. And they are a huge improvement over the schizoid
things that bounced around the landscape in the original Unreal bot
matches.
Practice Sessions (solo play) access all of the levels using up to 16 bots in free-for-all deathmatches and the team games listed under tournament play. You can practice against or with them, independently or as teams. Bot skill levels are set before the session starts. Make them dumb or God-like. At the lower settings, they are really easy to frag. I'm too scared to try God-like. To keep you on your toes, a handy game preference allows your bots to improve as you do. UT practice allows you to independently find your skill level and steadily improve without the frustration of getting your butt handed to you online. I'm not saying that's never going to happen, because real humans are still the most dangerous and sneaky opponents out there. And it's definitely an adjustment when you finally go online.
The Unreal Tournament solo games allow you to
progress up the Tournament Ladder,
fighting bots in the different game types listed below. It's a ton of
fun! Tutorial levels introduce each category with some basic
instruction. In tournament play, the bots' skill levels can't be
altered, but the early levels start off with a small number of them
at low skill settings.
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Multiplayer games can be played over local-area
networks and the Internet as deathmatch or any of the team games. I
tried the original Unreal over the Internet a couple of times and was
sorely disappointed in the frame rates. In comparison, UT's
networking code was given a kick in the pants so that it sends less
information, is more tolerant of lost packets, and uses less system
resources for servers. The overall effect is a much better Internet
experience. Multiplayer choices are mostly identical to practice
sessions, where the map, type of game, max number of players,
spectators, bots, and their skill levels can be set. The host can
configure the game so that it starts with bots and, as humans join
in, bots are automatically removed. Preference settings allow for the
same map to be played multiple times or for auto switching of maps
after each match. For Internet games, I do miss the ability to take a
short break between matches and gossip a little. Stopping to send
messages during game play is hazardous to your health. My wish list
includes a Bungie.net-like set up, where between matches you can chat
a little and decide which map to play next.
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Weapons in UT will be familiar to those who play Unreal, with some variations and new hardware. These are the new weapons:
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Unreal
Mutation Devices (UMODs) are game modifiers that add nice little
effects. UT comes with 14 (or so) installed, and more can be
downloaded online. Check out Epic's
web site and Planet
Unreal.
My favorite is "Soul Harvest". See the picture at right. When someone is fragged, their soul floats up from their body. Harvest it by running through it, and you get another point. "Giants" make the good players huge and the challenged players become midgets. UMODs such as "Chain Saw Melee" restrict the type of weapons available in an arena. The "Rocket Launcher" UMOD worked, but I could not get the chainsaw to work. My experience is that if the game server (host) has a UMOD enabled, all participants must have that UMOD installed in their game or they can't join.
Tournament statistics for solo or multiplayer games over LAN and the Internet can be automatically kept using ngStats software. It's included, and support is built into UT.
I don't have much in the way of criticism for UT. Having recently played Quake 3: Arena, I heartily recommend both UT and Q3A. One very nice feature that UT would benefit from is Q3A's handicap system. It's the great equalizer and does a great job of reducing the frustration level of challenged players. Q3A also has the ability to zoom-view all weapons. UT has 50-some maps to Q3A's thirty-some maps.
UT mapmaking will be a disappointing task for most Mac users. A nice map editor called UnrealED is available for the PC, but you guessed it--a Mac version is not available (as of this review). As Unreal/UT maps are interchangeable between PCs and Macs, any enterprising map maker with a PC at their disposal can produce maps. As UnrealEd is considered a beta product, its documentation is so-so. But there is a lot of 3rd party info online that discusses how to use it.
The Interface:
UT's
interface is like experiencing Windows, but I'm getting used to it.
Game preferences (video, audio, etc.) are not as plentiful as in
Unreal, but they are adequate.
The on-screen Heads-Up-Display
is conventional in appearance, with important info around the edges.
Besides standards such as health and armor level, it is nice to know
your rank and score in the current competition.
There are two new preferences:
The game allows taunts, and
auto-taunts. Some of these taunts are for mature ears only. They can
be turned off. Auto taunts are good for the same reason; team
commands are not so good. Team leaders can issue commands via
keyboard entry. A single keystroke, "v", pulls up the commands/taunt
list, and then you must select the desired command with the cursor!
That's not such a hot deal when you are being shot at! In
team
play, some commands will have to be issued, so pick your time and
place carefully. I've noticed that in the beginning of a bot match,
before you hit the "fire" key to start the action, commands can be
given and the bots seem to respond to them.
There is some confusion between the in-game "Control" preferences, where you enter the keyboard commands and the Input Sprockets (IS) interface. This is because on PCs, keyboard and mouse inputs are treated the same, but on the Mac, the Input Sprocket inputs for pointing devices are different, and this is a game ported from the PC. I use an ADB Kensington TurboMouse with my G3. It will appear as though you could program your mouse keys into UT's "Control" preferences, but they don't take. The end result is that Input Sprocket settings prevail over any mouse buttons you program into the game's control preferences. It does not help that the Input Sprocket choices are limited. This problem has appeared in other recent games I've played. The Input Sprocket mouse button choices are only as varied as Westlake has made it. I would like to program "select best weapon" into one of my buttons, but it's not available. More choices would be better.
Bug
Report:
None were noticeable, but
check at MacSoft's
web site for the
latest.
Conclusion:
Unreal Tournament is an
outstanding first-person shooter, worthy of your purchase. It has got
great levels and beautiful graphics. Its improved artificial
intelligence provides maximum fun off-line, while sharpening those
necessary skills to deal with those nasty humans you'll eventually
run into in online play. With bunches of new maps and a strong
emphasis on team play, I can't imagine a better way to spend my
winter gaming days. Please have a blast with this great game!
On the "PLUS" side:
On the "MINUS" side:
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Worthiness (out of 5): |
Individual Categories*: |
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 MGL recommends games rated 4.0 and higher. |
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*Individual category scoring is for reference only and is not necessarily calculated into the "Worthiness" score.
I would like to thank Westlake Interactive's Mark Adams for his assistance in gathering info for this review.
1/31/00
Copyright © 2000 The Macintosh Gamer's Ledge. All rights reserved.
