Unreal Tournament 2003 (Demo) review

Deathmatch/Team Deathmatch: Average
Considering DM/TDM has been around for so long, this is essentially the latest incarnation and does pretty much the same as every regular version of DM before it....therefore an "Average" rating.

Capture the Flag: Average
While CTF has not been around as long as DM, the basic method of gameplay has not changed or been improved upon in this version either...therefore an "Average" rating.

My personal note (PLEA) for better CTF scoring: The scoring system STILL dumps EVERY point a player gets for doing things into one big pile...making it IMPOSSIBLE to tell who did what. You got 100 "points"...great. How did you get them? Did most of your points come from capping the flag? Did you get 100 individual kills? How many of your points did you get for defending your flag? There is NO way to tell when every point is thrown into one pile.

Do yourself a favor, download Weapons Factory UT ( [url]http://www.planetunreal.com/weaponsfactory/[/url] ) and check out the scoring system. Once you see how it breaks down the points you get into separate catagories for different actions, you will NEVER want to see regular CTF scoring again. Better yet, take a quick look at the following screenshots from the WFUT scoring screen...
Picture 8, Picture 9 & Picture 10

Frags, Flag Carrier (FC) Defends, Flag Carrier (FC) Kills, Defends (of your flag) and Caps are ALL sorted out so you can tell EXACTLY who did what. Green highlighed numbers = highest score for that team in a catagory. Red highlighed numbers = tie for highest score for that team in a catagory.

Bombing Run: Average
Bombing Run is sort of a cross between football and basketball with weapons thrown in. Strategy (and a bit of brute force) is the name of the game in trying to get the "ball" to your opponents scoring ring. I understand the forced respawn of everyone after a point has been scored (even thou it makes me feel like a Deja-Vu yo-yo being dragged back to the spawn room). What I don't understand is why the respawn is not instantanious upon the scoring event as opposed to the several second delay. The last few seconds just become a mini DM frag-fest...and just seems unecessary to me.

I don't find BR to be an interesting enough type of a new gameplay that makes me believe it will become the next "IT" of online gameplay mania. It's something new, and I'm sure it will get some early interest. However, after the lack of long term followup interest in Assault and Domination as online gameplay types (at least in as large numbers like DM and CTF) it will be interesting to see if ppl can be swayed by this new type of gameplay. Don't forget, Assault is not in UT2003, and, Domination has reportedly been changed to Double Domination (not that it was included in the demo). In my opinion, players will most likely return to their old standbys for the majority of thier online play...thus, I give BR an "Average" rating.

Network Code: Average
When I originally was trying to play online, I had numberous problems actually getting thru to the master server. However, the problem was solved and TONS of servers show up on the in game browser. The gameplay I enjoyed the most was CTF on Citadel with the Instagib mutator. My initial ping to the server was 64. However, in game, my ping bounced around a bit (one time went as high as 400+). It finally settled down around 130 or so. Not bad, but still almost double what the in game browser showed. All in all the gameplay was decent, pretty much what I would expect for an online game with that ping...thus the "Average" rating.

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Added: September 16th 2002
Product reviewed: Unreal Tournament 2003 (Demo)
Reviewer: STATIC3D
Score: 7/10
Page: 4/7