LARUTO
05-04-2005, 07:54 PM
Several years ago I purchased a FPS for my PC known as Star Wars: Jedi Knight 2, Jedi Outcast. As soon as I tried the MP I noticed that the game placed an added priority on the use of melee combat as opposed to the use of shooting tactics like most other MP shooters, oddly enough this 'new' method was fun. And now several years later we are presented with another franchise, which is in no way new to the genre of FPS, that tries to once again place that added emphasis on melee combat.
The most obvious thing that most people will notice at first is that the game is, at its heart a MP game, but it still presents you with a lot of single player replay value. You start off with your main story featuring Anubis, which is well fun albeit short. Then you have all the different tournament options, which allow you to play as any of the game's cast, this mode may lack the polish of the main story but it's still okay. The various challenge modes are also quite nice, I particularly liked having to go into battles being down by a few kills and having to work my way back up b4 time ran out. And to add to all of this, you have the traditional Unreal bots, which are, once again, the best available. The bots you find yourself up against seem to at times learn from your errors and take advantage of your every slip up and through this, the true purpose of the SP is revealed... it serves to prepare you for the truly awesome MP mode.
Being an Unreal game should serve as an indication to everyone that this game is meant for the xbox live subscribers more than anyone else (but i must say that split screen is no slouch either). The more popular mp modes have returned, ie death match, capture the flag etc, but the presence of mutators which can decrease or increase adrenaline, or even cancel melee combat entirely (which forces some classic shooting action) will certainly lead to some interesting xbox live matches. Some may complain that the melee weapons are just, a gimmick and that the original weapons have been toned down for this console release, but I disagree. The melee weapon combat is at a level that no other game has been able to achieve. Easy to learn, yet difficult to master, melee combat is truly a fine addition to this title. The original weapons have, the way I see it, been optimized for the console (in some cases weapons are easier to aim) and not toned down as some may feel.
Oddly enough one of the best things about the game is a new tactical element that they have implemented, yes I said tactical about Unreal. When going into matches you are given your default melee weapon and a pistol class weapon and then you have a choice of one explosive class weapon and an energy-based one. Some may say that this takes away from the core game play element that was defined by the original UT and Q3 by disallowing you to pick up new weapons on the fly, but too me it forces the player to think about the persons they are playing against and the abilities of the characters they selected. However I do think that nothing would have been lost if they gave gamers the option to select whether or not they wanted to use pre-selected weapons over pick ups.
As for whether or not this game will ever surpass its PS sibling, the answer is quite simply not at this time, for there exists no home for the mod community on the console front, save for map editors. I don't think the fatalities were really necessary, as they really don't add anything terribly new to the experience, except for a flashy kill.
On a closing note, I do not have xbox live @ home... and I would buy this game despite the seemingly 'lackluster' single player.
i'll give it a 9 out of 10
The most obvious thing that most people will notice at first is that the game is, at its heart a MP game, but it still presents you with a lot of single player replay value. You start off with your main story featuring Anubis, which is well fun albeit short. Then you have all the different tournament options, which allow you to play as any of the game's cast, this mode may lack the polish of the main story but it's still okay. The various challenge modes are also quite nice, I particularly liked having to go into battles being down by a few kills and having to work my way back up b4 time ran out. And to add to all of this, you have the traditional Unreal bots, which are, once again, the best available. The bots you find yourself up against seem to at times learn from your errors and take advantage of your every slip up and through this, the true purpose of the SP is revealed... it serves to prepare you for the truly awesome MP mode.
Being an Unreal game should serve as an indication to everyone that this game is meant for the xbox live subscribers more than anyone else (but i must say that split screen is no slouch either). The more popular mp modes have returned, ie death match, capture the flag etc, but the presence of mutators which can decrease or increase adrenaline, or even cancel melee combat entirely (which forces some classic shooting action) will certainly lead to some interesting xbox live matches. Some may complain that the melee weapons are just, a gimmick and that the original weapons have been toned down for this console release, but I disagree. The melee weapon combat is at a level that no other game has been able to achieve. Easy to learn, yet difficult to master, melee combat is truly a fine addition to this title. The original weapons have, the way I see it, been optimized for the console (in some cases weapons are easier to aim) and not toned down as some may feel.
Oddly enough one of the best things about the game is a new tactical element that they have implemented, yes I said tactical about Unreal. When going into matches you are given your default melee weapon and a pistol class weapon and then you have a choice of one explosive class weapon and an energy-based one. Some may say that this takes away from the core game play element that was defined by the original UT and Q3 by disallowing you to pick up new weapons on the fly, but too me it forces the player to think about the persons they are playing against and the abilities of the characters they selected. However I do think that nothing would have been lost if they gave gamers the option to select whether or not they wanted to use pre-selected weapons over pick ups.
As for whether or not this game will ever surpass its PS sibling, the answer is quite simply not at this time, for there exists no home for the mod community on the console front, save for map editors. I don't think the fatalities were really necessary, as they really don't add anything terribly new to the experience, except for a flashy kill.
On a closing note, I do not have xbox live @ home... and I would buy this game despite the seemingly 'lackluster' single player.
i'll give it a 9 out of 10