What would the holidays be without a good bit of fragging? Evidently game publishers have that sentiment because the last month has brought us three top-shelf, first-person shooters: Opposing Force, Quake III, and Unreal Tournament; each one varying for your gibbing dollar.

While both Opposing Force and Quake III have clear origins in the Quake engine, the upstart Unreal engine made a good showing for itself in the original Unreal. Now, with its second incarnation, Unreal Tournament solidifies itself as an elite shooter.

GT Interactive has decided to forgo the traditional single-player campaign. Instead, they feature a progressive arena combat campaign that highlights what are considered the best “bots” in the business. These are computer controlled opponents with varying skills, from walking target to demigod. You try your skill in 6 different games: Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, Capture the Flag, Domination, Assault, and Last Man Standing. The last three games are new and provide some great variations on the traditional fragfest. Domination requires players to tag and then defend control points throughout the map. The team scores for every second they control a point, and the winner is the first team to reach a certain amount. Assault pits two teams against each other with contrary objectives. One team's mission is to assault the other's base and complete the mission objective, such as destroy the generator, or take control of a battleship’s turret. The other team must hold them off as long as they can within a preset time. Once the first team succeeds or fails, the second team becomes the offense and must beat the first team’s time to win. Finally, there is Last Man Standing, which gives each player a set amount of deaths; and once those are used up, you are out. Better watch that splash damage from the rocket launcher.

Well, these maps wouldn’t mean much without some fragarrific weapons to use in them. Unreal Tournament has 12 unique weapons, with most featuring secondary fire modes (a feature sorely missing from Quake Arena). Along with the weapons are the standard powerups for super health, jumps, and armor. Most of the weapons are upgrades of their Unreal predecessor. The razorjack-on-steroids now has exploding blades. The sniper rifle can kill with one well-placed headshot, and the Flak Cannon can now lob molten flak grenades. The weapons are well balanced, and experienced players are going to find each of them useful for different types of combat.

The true test of these weapons comes in multiplayer, which is really what this game is all about. Getting online is done easily through the game interface and allows for modems as slow as 28.8 (though I would recommend 56k as the bare minimum, and even then lag can be bad). I tested the game with DSL and a T1 and rarely had any problem. The single player vs. bot games allow you to hone your skill so when it comes to facing a live enemy, you will be ready! The controls are fully configurable and even allow you to set the priority for each weapon. That way if you run over a weapon you prefer over the one in hand, it will automatically switch. These little touches help complete a very smooth gameplay. The lighting effects of your weapons, the realistic (and adjustable) gravity, selecting the color of your weapon's fire, taunts and gestures; Unreal Tournament seems to have it all.

Another great feature is UT's stats keeping. There are a myriad of stats available tracking your career. What weapon have you used the most? What’s your best frag count? Which weapon are you most accurate with? These stats are great for when you want to remind your friend how many times you’ve chainsawed his butt.

UT also ships with the latest UnrealEd, so you can create your own maps or modify existing ones. The game ships with about 30 custom maps. You can also design your own skins for the models. This expandability is essential for prolonging the lifespan of the game, and increasing interest in the gamer community. For those of you wishing for more of a story-driven campaign, you can rest assured it's only a matter of time before they are developed and available on the internet.

Installation is trouble free, but requires a greedy 600 megs for a full install. GT has made every effort to make sure players are directed to the latest drivers for their video cards and that technical setup goes as smoothly as possible. I originally tested the game on a Celeron 366 with a TNT card and 96 megs. Single player ran great in 800x600 resolution with hires detail and models, but the game bogged horribly in multiplayer. Lowering the resolution didn’t fix it, but eventually I turned dynamic lighting off and everything ran as smooth as silk. I also tested on a 500mhz Pentium III with 128 megs and a Voodoo II card, and the game ran flawlessly in any mode.

Though UT isn’t supporting the curved surfaces like Quake III, the texture quality is excellent and the lighting is unparalleled. Graphic improvements have been made across the board to the detail of the models and the maps, and everything looks great. All major 3D cards are supported, and the game is tweaked to really take advantage of them. It is playable in software rendered mode, but it doesn’t look nearly as nice.

I was very happy to see support for Surround Sound and A3D. We wouldn’t want any speakers going to waste. The audio is overall pretty good, although the opening monologue sounds like it was recorded from a cassette tape. Some of the taunting sounds may be a little corny or even offensive, but there is an option to not play mature sounds (as well as a video gore level of detail option). If a player gets on a hot streak, a "killing spree" is announced, and all the other players know who is in need of a good smackdown.

I should mention that UT requires the CD to be in the drive to start the game. There is no provision for spawning installs for a LAN game. It is strictly one user per CD. By GT limiting the users to one, UT won’t allow for friends and coworkers to "tryout" fragging their friends.

Stingy licensing aside, GT has put together a great product here. It is polished, very well behaved, and pretty darn nice to look at. The variations in gameplay insure you can find a style that will keep you interested, and the multiplayer competition insures you can never quite master it.