Back in the day when Wolfenstein and Doom were huge on the PC, first person shooters used to be a great mix of strategy and kill. Of course, those were the old days, and nowadays, first person shooters are nothing but fragfests! Really though, it’s quite amazing how first person shooters have evolved into so much blood, violence, and killing. It seems making FPS’ this way isn’t necessarily a bad thing, proven by the rapid growing population of first person shooter fans. It seems these days that every single gamer owns a first person shooter, and they love to do nothing but kill. I don’t see anything wrong with this, but I still play Wolfenstein, and I like playing FPS’s with a great mix of strategy and kill. It’s fun playing Wolfenstein, observing many areas, looking for secret areas filled with treasure and guns, and getting a great overall experience. After playing Unreal Tournament, I’ve been sold on the idea of making many FPS’s killing fests.

You start Unreal Tournament as a player competing against many other characters in vast arenas. There are over 50 different arenas and four difficulties of level, starting with novice, skilled, master, and ending with inhuman. I recommend playing on master because the first two levels are way to easy, and the last is impossible. If you play on master, it’s the perfect level where it’s tough, but great to play. There are 4 different ladders, and then one extra to unlock. These ladders are deathmatch, domination, capture the flag, assault, and the extra ladder is called challenge. As you beat different levels, you unlock new characters and ladders. After unlocking all the characters, you will have over 20 of them. In deathmatch, you’re put into an arena with other players and a frag limit. (Killing limit) The first player with as many kills as the frag limit is considered the winner. The next ladder is called domination, where you are put on a team, red or blue. There are 4 commands that you can issue to your team, such as defend your base, follow you, attack the enemies, and hold their positions. These commands are very important in winning the team ladders, and play a very big role. You and your team have to conquer 3 different areas in the arena, simply by touching them. Once you touch these areas, they’ll turn red or blue, depending on your team color, and you have to defend that area so that the opposing team doesn’t conquer it. If you have an area conquered, you get points added on your score as time goes by. The first team to score a certain amount of points is declared the winner.

The next ladder is called capture the flag, where once again, you’re put on a team, red or blue. Each team has a base with their own flag at it, which they have to defend effectively. The point is to defend your flag from being captured by the opposing team and for you to capture the other teams flag and return it to your base. Once again, the team commands pertain to this mode and are very important. After beating capture the flag, you move onto one of the toughest ladders in the game called assault. Basically, there are 2 points to this mode. You are put onto a team, and have to attack and defend. When you’re attacking, you need to complete tasks such as blowing up a computer terminal. After you attack, you have to defend against the opposing team trying to accomplish the same objective, as you were when you were attacking. If you beat all these ladders, you move onto a ladder called challenge. This ladder is a deathmatch against different bosses. In this ladder, you’re put into an arena, and go one on one with a boss. The multi-player is exactly like the single player mode; just you can use a multi-tap with up to 4 players. You may also use an i.LINK to hook up your PS2 with a friend and play on multiple televisions.