Unreal Championship

Wow, Cliff Blezenski must have been really, really hyper when he made this game. UC is a loose port of Unreal Tournament 2004 to Xbox. Fast, furious, and very violent. Now, by judging from my avatar, you may be able to tell that I'm a FPS nut. Violence is the name of the game. However, while something like this doesn't shock me (Kirk's dating sims do that), it makes me sit up. Baisically you run around and shoot anything that moves. That's it. Sometimes you may have friends, but that doesn't matter. Walk around and kill stuff. Soon enough, your brain shuts off.

The graphics are pretty good, and everything moves at a speedy 60 frames per second, no matter how chaotic things are. Trust me, things are chaotic. Weapon effects are nice, and there is tons of gibbage (or gibbitude, however you want to say it.).

The maps are decently designed, while some are too large for my tastes, others may like them just fine. I have no glaring issues with the maps themselves.

The game types. Deathmatch is good, Capture the Flag works well enough, survival is boring, Boming Run is different, but Double Domination BLOWS. DD is the absolute worst gametype here. There are 2 "control points" on the map. To score you must hold BOTH at the same time for 10 seconds. If anyone from the other team enters, even for a second, you must start over. This is stupid when people and the game itself moves at the speed that it does. When you're at 3 seconds, and on the other side of the map, one enemy steals the control point from your team mate, you must start from 10. Then they attack you and you die. Scoring is difficult, and painfully un fun. Perhaps if the time was closer to 5 seconds, that would be better, but currently, DD is far too frustration prone.
Bombing Run is another new game. Think football with guns. When you have the ball, you can't shoot, but you regenerate health. You must bring the ball to your enemy's goal, then you score. Simple, but fun. The ball begins in the center of the map and you must sprint to gat to it. You can also pass the ball to a team mate, so there is an element of co-op. A good addition.

The characters. In my opinion, UC is far too character based. There are several different races, each with different chrarcteristics. The robots are fast, and jump high, the Juggernauts are slow but have tons of health, the Anubians (Egyptions) are fast and get Adreneline quickly, so on and so forth. Each individual character also has a favorite weapon, which either gives them more ammo, more damage, or faster rate of fire. I personally don't like it, but others may enjoy this.

The weapons. All are balanced. Thier usefulness is often dependant on your character, but you can still destroy everyone on the map if you are good enough. I could rant about every weapon, but there is no point. At the end, they are all fair.

Adrenaline: You can pick up pills that give you 5, or kill someone and recieve 10. Once you reach 100, you can do an arenaline combo. Beware, you can't use the control stick, just the D-pad. Berserk, regeneration, invisibility and agility are avaliable, and you can keep your combo going by killing more people.

Sound: Not bad, no complaints. The music (when I could hear it) is good, not just heavy metal, but techno and electronica. Unique, and comendible.

Controls: Good, no complaints besides the fact you can't dodge with anything other than the D-pad. Because of that, I never dodged. Double-jumps are easy to pull off.

Single Player: This is a multiplayr game, so Single Player is merely a "ladder" type of advancement, in which you go and kill lots of bots. Just like multiplayer.

Multiplayer: Splitscreen is just like single player, except with smaller screens. I haven't played UC on Xbox Live, but since this is a multiplayer game, I see no reason why this should be any different.

Mutators: These modify the game in one way or another. Slo-mo corpses, Insta-gib (some real fun- one hit kill shock rifles), regeneration, it's all here. Helpful in spicing up the combat.

The Bottom Line: OK, for a little while. UC becomes too repetitive, and after a while, you may want to something with a little variation. Often too brainless, and mind-numbing. Also, UC is really hyper with Epic Games' trademark high flying, jumpy combat, so aiming can be difficult. I would definately rent to see if you like this before you buy. But then, you can pick up Unreal Championship for $20, so for cheap, mindless fun, pick this up.

3 star(s) out of 5

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