UNREAL 2
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The most anticipated game of 2002?

By WILLIAM BARKER

When Unreal was unleashed on a world where Quake was king, it quickly knocked off Id's creation as the best-looking FPS game and, depending on who you talk to, the best-playing FPS, too. The visuals put John Carmack's programming to shame, with intense amounts of detail, thick atmosphere and solid AI. Pity about the shafted multiplayer code, but hey, that's what Unreal Tournament's for!

Now that some new info has been released on what almost never was, the 'true' sequel to Unreal, we just had to share it with you. First we saw the screenshots. Then we creamed our lederhosen. The amount of detail on the character models, the background and even structures is simply amazing.

The texturing is truly a step-up from what we are seeing at present, though the screen grabs were probably taken from a high-spec machine running a prototype GeForce 3 with DDR RAM. Even so, you can't help but gasp at the visual quality.

On the gameplay side of things, the single-player, plot-driven aspect will take priority, but Legend, the folks developing the title, are excited about the multiplayer side of things, too. The story revolves around the player who takes on the role of a Terran Colonial Authority Frontier Marshal. Yeah, so why didn't they just call him an angry dude with weapons training? Well, actually, he is responsible for the safety of colonists in a remote area of the universe that is in preliminary stages of colonisation, so yeah. That's why he got the busy title.

The solo game will consist of 13 combat missions, broken up by narrative goodness. A non-linear style of play is being emphasised, though depending on how ambitious the developers are and how they take the words non-linear, the idea may be a tough proposition for the coders.

Multiplayer modes will include the bog-standard deathmatch, capture the flag and team deathmatch, as well as last man standing and a mode hinted at that sounds a lot like Team Fortress, complete with sentry guns and force fields... Intriguing indeed.

While the game is still more than a year away, the progress made is, already, rather mouth-watering. The project is ambitious, with Legend stating that they want a tip-top multiplayer game without sacrificing the single-player mode, at the same time providing a short learning curve for newbies. If they manage to pull off even half of what they're boasting, Unreal 2 will be a hit.