Where did it all start?
Once upon a time, Epic MegaGames were the creators of high-quality 2D games such as Jazz Jackrabbit. Life was good. Then some upstart within Epic suggested a ‘third dimension’. Rather than Jazz Jackrabbit 3D (now THERE’S a game I’d spend money on), they created a first-person shooter to compete with the popular Quake 2 of the day. That game was Unreal.Unreal in itself was a pretty fine piece of work. The flowing nature of the single-player was a popular aspect. However, the game’s multiplayer was something of a niche market due to poorly executed multiplayer code – the game simply was not up to scratch in a frantic battle.
Unperturbed, Epic started work on a sequel to Unreal, but decided to focus their attentions (in the same way iD were doing with their forthcoming Quake 3 Arena) purely on an intense multiplayer experience. A couple of years after Unreal, Unreal Tournament hit the shelves and the crowd went wild. One of the defining games of the late nineties, its perfect balance between action and strategy contributed to years of fine multiplayer (both Internet and LAN).
Now, years after the Unreal franchise first saw the light of day, Infogrames and Epic are offering the next in line, Unreal Tournament 2003.