I will always have a soft spot in my heart for the original Unreal Tournament.  There is something about the original’s unbridled ass-whoopn’ that has never quite been matched by any other game.  The game was violent, blunt, and unforgiving.  The arenas were rough and dark, abandoned structures given a second life as the perfect places to watch competitors fight for their own.

The games that followed (2003, 2004, III, and Championship 1 and 2) never retained that feeling.  The environments became overly intricate, even delicate looking in some instances.  The players went from simply dodging to flipping and twirling off walls.  These are supposed to be hardened warriors, not ballerinas!  Nevertheless, these games have added some great things to the series and still provide a fun, competitive gaming experience despite how far they have strayed from the original game.

Even with the series’ advancements there is one thing, or rather a collection of things, that the Tournament has never gotten: a true sports game treatment.

The original trophy, like the Stanley Cup's evil twin.

For those who haven’t played the original game, Unreal Tournament is a bloodsport tournament conceived as the result of the conflicts that happen in the single-player Unreal games.  In the original the “story” section of the game involved fighting through each of the maps and working your way up the ladder of game types.  Game types included Deathmatch, Capture the Flag, Domination, and Assault.  In the team games you play for the faction of your choice.  As the player completed every map in each game type they were award a trophy, which culminated in a final one-on-one fight and the championship trophy.

It was a simple tournament structure that was used to hold together what was primarily a multiplayer experience.  The structure was slightly enhanced in the 2003/2004 editions so that teammates could be added by the player as the team grew for the bigger game types, such as Bombing Run and Onslaught.  These two installments brought along other changes as well, such as vehicles.

For Unreal Tournament 3 the structure of the “Tournament” was changed completely to resemble a war campaign.  Events like Capture the Flag were somewhat rationalized by saying that the flags were key to the enemy being allowed to respawn soldiers, so they must be stolen to win the battle.  Cutscenes were used to tie the story together and missions are selected on a large map, indicating that there is a larger battle going on.  Although the core game was still reasonably fun, this type of story was never needed and wasn’t all that great.

Throughout all of this time the Unreal Tournament series has never capitalized on the fact that is, at its core, a bloodsport.  UT started out by following in the footsteps of Quake’s multiplayer and gathered a dedicated online following over the years, including some sports-like competition.  This following includes all of the game types that have been added and each seems to spawn its own techniques and specialists.

Lately Unreal Tournament doesn’t attract the same following as it used to.  I’m not talking directly about sales, but about the game’s presence on gaming league sites like Major League Gaming and the Team Warfare League.  In these online communities it has very little presence while a game like Left 4 Dead has its own seasons and ladders.  L4D is a great game, but one might think it is at a disadvantage in terms of online competition, especially next to a game with “tournament” in the title.  This is where the Unreal Tournament series has to push its potential to the limits.

1. A Brief History of the Tournament 2. Making it a Sports Game