UNREAL CHAMPIONSHIP (XBOX)


Xbox gets an Unreal 'exclusive'

By WILL BARKER

The Xbox eh? Nice piece of kit, very shiny, looks like a toxic waste containment unit. You never know - it may even smell like one, too.

Anyhow, toxic or not - we care little. We're too tough for that. This is because while we gradually waste away, tiny radioactive cells mutating the very essence of our beings, we'll be playing Unreal Championship on the Xbox.

The game is an exclusive Xbox title and will come with both single player and multiplayer aspects. The gameplay is standard Unreal stuff - you know it and, judging by the sales figures, you love it, too.

Digital Extremes will be yet again coding the game as they want it to be just as polished as previous Unreal titles.

The usual stuff has been jammed into the game already - such as a single-player death-match game. Here you'll face off against increasingly tough bots/opponents - a la Unreal Tournament. On top of this, four players can hook in and go the tonk on the one machine, plus multiple machines can be linked together for LAN-esque madness. But if this isn't enough, then perhaps online gaming straight out of the box is more your bag.

At this stage there are differing reports of how many players will be able to frag online on the one map. It will definitely be at least 16 players, but other sources are resolute that 32 players can partake in the digital violence. As the game won't be released until well into 2002, we'll probably have to wait to find out the final number.

Yup, Unreal Championship is another fine-looking FPS heading to the Xbox and, judging by what we've seen so far, the Xbox is one very capable polygon pusher.

The graphics are well up there with a 1Ghz+ PC running Unreal Tournament. The special effects and eye candy are the uncontrollable drool-worthy type and, together with a smooth 60fps frame rate, Unreal Championship is poised to be one of the Xbox's biggest titles. The character models look to be made up of multiple thousands (ie. 5000) of polygons and the weapons, too, show off an impressive amount of texture detail.

However, and it's a fairly plump however, there are numerous additions to the series that will differentiate this title from its predessors. For starters, the game will be tailored for use with the Xbox controller. Well, you'd hope so - playing with a dried eggplant sounds a bit dodgy.

Vehicles will play a big part in the proceedings, too. With around 25 levels, including much larger, outdoor maps, gamers won't have to worry about falling into a boredom-induced coma after miles and miles of walking around.

The vehicles will help get you around with more haste and will be divided between air and ground-based vessels. New weapons will also form part of the new game, but some old favourites will still be in there for nostalgic gamers.

Digital Extremes is also keen to talk-up many funky graphical and physical features in the upcoming shooter. For instance, wind and movement can be seen when volumetric fog is 'agitated'. Shooting a rocket through a thick layer of smoke is amazing - the smoke actually moves around it. The wind deforms it, as do players and vehicles moving through it.

The draw-in distance is remarkable. It's been pushed back so far it's kind of hard to tell if there's any at all. We wonder, is this testament to the Xbox's grunt or Digital Extremes' programming prowess? The much larger outdoor levels are, uhmm, much larger. What I mean to say is that there are now forrests, open tundras and all sorts of new levels upon which to be gibbed.

The real-time shadows also appear to be very intricate, so if it's eye-candy you're after, you can't do worse than this. Unique characters enter the equation too, each with different stats, appearances and abilities as well.

Unreal Championship is shaping up to be one of the blockbuster titles of 2002 and will no doubt help sell a few thousand Xbox consoles at the same time. If the vehicular combat is implemented with a bit of nouse and constantly tested for bugs, this could perhaps be one of those AAA titles we never seem to get anymore.