If you feel a slight singeing on the side of your face, chances are you're being cut down by the alternate fire of the pulse laser

The best looking of the 3D shooters now wants to be the most played. With input from the finest minds behind Quake, and Unreal, Unreal Tournament has promising vital statistics...
Steve Owen

So it’s just an add-on for Unreal then?
Stop that right now! GT would have our eyes out if we gave that impression. Oh no, GT and Epic are at pains to point out that it is a standalone game, sold separately at full or nearly full price... although it does use the Unreal engine, installs into the same directory and can use any existing level maps you have.

What does it do then?
Right, down to business. Unreal Tournament is going to do what is promised with Quake III: Arena only it’ll come out first.

A multiplayer game then...
Tish tosh. Forget multiplayer only - although multiplayer is naturally included - because Unreal Tournament brings the thrill of the Deathmatch to the Norman No-Mates at home.

What, like the bots you could get for Quake 18 months ago?
Ahhhmmm... yes. But the guy who wrote the bots add-on for Quake, Steve Polge, now works at Epic and created not only the AI for the enemies in Unreal, but also the all-new bots in Unreal Tournament.

And...?
They are utterly incredible. In the version we played this week we took on four computer-controlled bots on medium difficulty level and were given a challenge greater than anything we normally get at 6pm on the office network. There’s a range of bots, some of which aren’t very good but learn tactics as they play, others that are good tacticians but have to learn how to use the level, and the real killer bots that are stunningly quick, accurate and intelligent.