Weapons

Each weapon has been completely rebuilt with a larger-than-life (hey, this is Unreal) look and hyper-detailed textures. All animations have been done from scratch. The three starting weapons/tools are completely new or altered.

  • Assault Rifle - The new co-default weapon. the Assault Rifle features a (rather inaccurate) primary machinegun dealing out 7 damage per hit. The secondary launches a grenade handing out a wholloping 70 damage with a radius of 240 units. The grenade will be dropped from your gun or lobbed farther in direct proportion to how long the Secondary fire is held.

  • Shield Gun - This default weapon is primarily defensive. Holding down the alt-fire button will yield a glowing green shield that will absorb enemy fire and bounce back energy weapons (i.e. Shock and LinkGun). The Shield Gun has a default ammo of 100 that drains as long as you keep the shield up, and as it absorbs enemy fire.

    You can use this weapon offensively at close-quarters by holding down the primary fire and "bumping" an opponent. The damage dealt depends on how long the weapon charges.

    You can also use this gun to do "jumps". Charging the gun, pointing it downwards, releasing it as you jump will give you a considerable boost. Of course, you will also sustain damage. Another type of jump would be a team "jump". Charging your weapon, pointing to the direction you wish to propel your teammate, and firing as your he/she leaps onto your Shield will catapult them higher than they could possibly jump. This is great for "boosting" Flag carriers to higher positions.

  • Translocator - A default weapon/tool. Launching the beacon will send a beacon flying forward. Pressing your alt-fire will translocate you to the location of the beacon, while pressing the primary fire will recall it. Once your beacon has left the launcher, you can press the translocator button again to view a "beacon cam" that lets you view where you are about to translocate to.

    Translocating onto an enemy player will result in that player's instant death. Be careful, if an enemy destroys your beacon, translocating to it or attempting to recall it will result in YOUR instant death. You must run over the damaged beacon to recall it.

    The translocator differs from the UT weapon in that it is limited in it's rate of fire. You are allowed up to 5 instant translocations, each one taking a bit of your total "charge". The weapon uses a set amount per translocation, and you must allow it time to recharge if you run out. Shooting and recalling a beacon produces no such penalty.

  • BioRifle - Firing this gun will send gobs of toxic goo arcing forward, sticking to whatever surface it hits. The primary fire sends single gobs (43 damage, radius 120 units), while the alt-fire (250 damage, radius up to about 380 units) can load up a very large gob, depending on how long the alt-fire button is held.

    This weapon fires a little farther in primary than did it's UT cousin. The shot is less arcing and more direct.

  • Flak Cannon - The primary shot of this weapon fires hot metallic shards in a "shotgun-like" spread. They will bounce one time off of a surface such as a wall or floor. The alt-fire lobs a grenade-like shell that explodes on contact.

    This weapon has less "bounce" in it's primary fire than it did in UT, reducing the ability to spam rooms full of bouncing shards. The alt-fire is also lower-arcing than it was previously.

  • Ion Painter - A new "SuperWeapon", this gun can be found in hard-to-reach places in maps, and has no pickup ammo. It is found only on outdoor maps (you will notice the sattelite in the skies). Pointing this at a specified target and holding down the fire button will begin focusing an ever-growing beam of light from the orbiting sattelite, resulting in an enormous, destructive ray of death from above. The target must be fully in view of the sattelite.

    The alt-fire brings up the zoom view from the LightningGun. This allows you to accurately pinpoint a long-range target. Especially nice for things such as targeting the enemy base through the castle window in CTF-Magma.

  • Lightning Gun - This weapon replaces UT's SniperRifle, and attempts to address some of it's shortcomings. This weapon fires a single bolt of lightning, with SniperRifle-like accuracy. However, it leaves a light trail behind it, making your position fully visible to the rest of the players. This weapon also has a small amount of "splash damage", in that nearby players may also receive a small arc of electricity. A direct shot to the head results in a "HeadShot", delivering instant death to an unarmored player. Each shot depeletes the energy from the gun, and delivering a fully charged bolt requires a short wait between shots.

    The alt-fire zooms in on your target. An oval shaped window allows you to put crosshairs directly on your victim. The rest of the window is obscured by scan lines. The window is also subject to intensified lens-flares, further neutering this gun.

  • Link Gun - This gun's primary fire sends balls of plasma, in a line, hurtling toward your opponent. The secondary shoots a swirling stream of plasma. The "lockdown" of the secondary has been removed, meaning that an opponent can now jump while being targeted. In fact, if the targeted player jumps it will push him/her away from you.

    Finding another player (or two) with the LinkGun will allow you to Link up with them creating a more powerful beam. Teammates using a LinkGun are easy to find. Their team beacon (over their head) will be green. You must first fire your secondary at them, linking with them. The lead player will then use his amplified beam to take out enemy players more quickly. A total of three players can be linked.

    Obviously, the Linking aspect of the gun is new to UT2003, as is the non-locking attributes of the secondary. Other than new animations and look, this gun remains very similar to it's UT counterpart.

  • Minigun - The modes of this gun have been reversed from UT. The primary now delivers a faster (but less accurate) burst of machinegun fire. The secondary delivers a slower, more accurate, more powerful burst of shots.

    This weapon also differs from the Unreal Tournament version in it's spin-up time. The barrel of the Minigun now spins for a few seconds before it begins firing.

  • Redeemer - Swallow This! Another Superweapon, this one returning from UT, this is your average, garden-variety, fully guideable nuclear warhead! The primary sends the missle hurtling at whatever direction you happen to be pointing. The Secondary fire will allow you to guide the missle remotely to it's target. Either way, don't be anywhere near this thing when it goes off!

    This weapon is largely unchanged from Unreal Tournament. It features a new look and a new remote-view window.

  • Rocket Launcher - Changed considerably from UT, this weapon's Primary is now a super-fast rocket. A direct hit from this rocket deals 90 damage to UT's 70.

    Unlike the UT weapon, you can now only load up to three rockets before releasing them upon your victim. This feature has been moved to the Secondary fire, meaning (for those of you counting at home) that the grenades are gone. Holding down the Primary after rocket loading has begun, will result in a spiraling, tightly focused trio of rockets to allow you to accurately pinpoint a large amount of doom.

  • Shock Rifle - The new ShockRifle features a laser-like Primary and shoots a beautiful glowing ball of energy for the Secondary. The primary is a hit-scan weapon, just like it's predecessor, but the animation is instantaneous this time, making it visibly easier to hit with.

    The Secondary energy ball can be shot with the Primary, resulting in a vortex-like explosion. The potential is 200 damage with a 275 radius. This is actually more damaging than UT's ShockCombo and the radius is larger, though with the larger characters it results in a smaller damage area. It should be noted that the Secondary fire is noticeably slower than Unreal Tournament's, though it has been sped up from the demo.

Items

Each item has been rebuilt featuring insanely detailed textures and animation (at the highest settings).

  • Adrenaline - These orange and white capsules are placed in groups around most maps. Picking one up adds to your adrenaline level (kills also add to your adrenaline level). When you reach 100 you can perform key combos to get a little boost in the form of Speed, Booster, Berserk, or Invisibility. (more on this in the gameplay section)

  • Ball - One Ball is placed centrally in each BombingRun map. When you are holding the ball, you cannot use your weapons or translocator. Primary fire shoots the ball forward, while Secondary fire locks on to a teammate to pass to.

  • Damage Amp - Picking up one of these will cause your weapon to glow purple.. and double the damage from it. The effect lasts until the Amp bar on your HUD is depleted.

  • Health - You receive 25 health for each one you pick up, up to the maximum 100.

  • Health Vial - You receive 5 health for each of these. With these vials, you can push your health past the 100 max, all the way up to 199.

  • Big Keg O' Health - 100 health points for picking up this monster.. er.. keg of health. Like the vials, this will ignore the 100 max and will take you up to a possible 199.

  • Shield Pack - This will absorb up to 50 points of damage above and beyond your health meter.

  • Super Shield Pack - Like the smaller pack, damage will be subtracted from this first. This adds 100 points of protection.

    Comments:

    QAPete: My comments in the Demo review are suitable for the weapons, with the following changes/additions:

    Shock Rifle - secondary projectile speed has been increased slightly since the demo, so for me, all is good in the world of the shock rifle.

    Redeemer - it's hard to quantify why I like the UT 2003 Redeemer better than the UT version, but it probably has to do with the more modern, eye-pleasing aspects of flying the beast, as well as the improved explosion effect.

    Ion Cannon/Painter - fun, but annoying. The Ion Painter (which you use to target the Ion Cannon satellite), is only useful to target things below horizontal. No targeting the enemy that's above you on the ridge, sniping. I don't really understand this limitation at all, as the weapon is otherwise uber-useful, and packs quite a punch. The explosion animation is jaw-dropping.

    hal: The weapon balance has swung back in the direction of the Unreal balance, away from UT's over-the-top, powerful, spammy weapons. Tweaking continues through patches, and speeding up the Minigun will no doubt help balance the RocketLauncher. Speaking of the RocketLauncher, I love the increased speed. It's so fun to knock someone into the air and then nail them again before they hit the ground! The Shock Rifle is still powerful, but for some reason I'm having trouble pulling off close combos. I don't like the feel of the Lightning Gun as well as the SniperRifle, though I agree with toning it down some. Overall, not quite perfect (UT was not perfect), but a move in the right direction.

    I am blown away by the amount of detail in each weapon and item skin. Turn up the character detail to the highest setting to truly appreciate it. Even though I play with weapon view hidden, I do miss the running ammo count seen on the sides of some of UT's weapons. That was a nice touch for people who played without the weapons bar in the HUD.

    Join us for Part 2 of BeyondUnreal's UT2003 Review where we take a look at each DM, BR, and DD map and give you our honest opinions of each.