Review: Unreal Tournament (Dreamcast)

When I started uni (and you'll be able to age me by this one), at the end of the first year - you know, when you're supposed to be studying hard for exams (except if you did Chemistry and then, due to have a test every week for the entire year, you didn't have any at the end) - we ran (i.e. taped to the ceiling) a whole bunch of network cables along the halls of residence corridor, thus allowing for giant games of Quake and, more usually, Unreal Tournament.

I loved that game! The fact that there was absolutely no plot, just running around and shooting each other, with the occasional smug cry of victory and mocking. The only thing about Unreal Tournament I didn't like was that one person, and I suspect this shows a little something about his character, would simply grab the sniper rifle, go to the highest point on the map, then sit there for the entire game and pick people off. Most annoying.

Of course there were other versions of Unreal, not on PC, but I never played any of those. You could convince your parents you needed a PC for uni to do important work on, but I'm not sure convincing them to buy a Dreamcast would be a similarly easy task.

Fast forward a few years and, using the school comic con as an excuse, I finally got round to buying a Sega Dreamcast...plus Unreal Tournament.

It's definitely not as good as the PC version, mainly because the maps are much smaller. However, it's still an enormous amount of fun when you get 4 people playing together. Playing on the internet, against people on the other side of the world, is great, but nothing beats shooting the person sat next to you. The small maps have an advantage in that it doesn't take very long for newcomers to learn where everything is and aiming is relatively simple, so introducing the game to people is quick.

The surprise and testament to how great it is, is that we've had a bunch of the children s' friends round and all they ever want to do is play Unreal. They've gone home and asked if they can have a Dreamcast too, which has caused their parents much confusion.

Yes, I know the game is a '15' but the game is so fast that you've run off to find the next target before noticing the red bits splattered across the landscape. It's only non-participating game observers that will take any notice of that.

Dreamcasts are pretty darn cheap to buy these days. The game is cheap too. Do yourself a favour and get both, then enjoy many happy hours of fun-filled gaming.