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alt title(s): Unreal Tournament; Unreal Tournament 2004
"In 2291, in an attempt to control violence among deep-space miners, the New Earth Government legalized no-holds-barred fighting. Liandri Mining Corporation, working with the NEG, established a series of leagues and bloody public exhibitions. The fight's popularity grew with their brutality. Soon, Liandri discovered that the public matches were their most profitable enterprise. The professional league was formed: a cabal of the most violent and skilled warriors in known space, selected to fight in a Grand Tournament. Now it is 2341. Fifty years have passed since the founding of Deathmatch. Profits from the tournament number in the hundreds of billions."
One of the most iconic FPS franchises, made by Epic Games. it started as a primarily single-player game, but its multi-player successor, Unreal Tournament, saw such great success that the series has essentially split into two branches now (although the SP side may have ended):
Single-Player games:
- Unreal: You are a prisoner being escorted to a planetary prison on a ship, the ship crashes on a planet. You wake up sometime later and escape from the wrecked vessel (sometime after various other survivors). However, the planet proves to be anything but safe as you find the peaceful natives, the four-armed Nali, are subjugated by an extremely violent and technologically advanced insectoid-reptile race called the Skaarj (pronounced "Scar"). The Nali texts bring up various references to a messiah finally ridding the planet of the Skaarj... Unreal stuck out from a lot of other FPS games at the time by being more like an adventure game, with less of a focus on combat and action set-pieces (although there are still plenty) and generally very non-linear levels with the onus on you to find out the backstory of the planet and various races on it. As well as having groundbreaking graphics and an excellent soundtrack. It saw a lot of critical acclaim, however, it was somewhat overshadowed by the release of Half Life a few months later. It also had a subsequent Expansion Pack called Return to Na Pali, which starts after the events of the original game.
- Unreal 2: The Awakening: As Epic Games decided to focus on the "tournament" side of the franchise, the rights for a sequel were given to another company, Legend. As might be expected, the game saw a large change from the original. You are John Dalton, an ex-marine "space marshal" on a ship maintained by a small crew; Aida, your Stripperiffic first officer, Isaak, your gruff weapons expert, and Ne-Ban, your Alien pilot. You are sent on a mission to find various ancient artifacts of extreme power which are also being hunted by various other factions and races. It focused on more story-driven set-piece laden linear levels and lots of character interaction, as well as pitting you against Humans for the majority of the game (the only link to the original being a few cameos by the Skaarj). Due to all these changes and generally being regarded as a pretty mediocre FPS many fans of the original pretend it never happened. Its place in the Unreal timeline is set between the first Tournament game and RTNP.
Perhaps in part due to Unreal 2's lukewarm reception, the SP side of the Unreal world has not been explored since, although Epic Games have dropped some hints they may be willing to work on a sequel in the future.
Multi-player games:
- Unreal Tournament: Unreal Tournament takes place in another part of the universe to the SP Unreal games, focusing on a tournament (involving both Humans and Aliens) that started as a way to occupy deep-space miners and eventually grew to become a massive sport event watched by countless spectators. It got lots of critical acclaim and was considered by many reviewers as a superior game to its main rival Quake 3. Its success was such that Epic Games decided to entirely focus on the MP side of the franchise for the future.
- Unreal Tournament 2003: This game is an attempted update to the UT formula, with various modified mechanics, a new graphics engine and new game modes. Many found its "feel" and maps inferior to the original game, and with the release of UT 2004 it has pretty much entered into Dis Continuity (coincidentally, it came out around the same time as Unreal 2).
- Unreal Tournament 2004: The "full" version of UT2003, with new maps, far more options (including ones to emulate the gameplay of earlier games), even more gamemodes, further refined gameplay and engine, and all this along with almost everything UT2003 had. Oh, and it had vehicles. It saw far greater acceptance than UT2003 and is mostly thought of as a very worthy successor to the original UT.
 - Unreal Tournament III: A recent update to the UT formula, with some serious changes and additions to the gameplay, trying to reunite the already Broken Base, another major graphics update, and new maps. Its real lastability lies in the almost limitless potential for modding, though, but the single-player campaign is a fun ride in itself, and multiplayer... oh boy, the multiplayer. On release, its reception was mixed, (the broken multiplayer/UI had something to do with this) but with the recent Titan Pack update the popular opinion of it seems to have improved a bit.
Console exclusive games:
- Unreal Championship: The first Unreal game done for the first Xbox, essentially a port of the PC game Unreal Tournament 2003. It was notorious/notable for being one of the first console games which used patches to fix some issues. Its storyline is placed in a different setting where the Overseers, an alien race, took the Earth before the Humans would do any resistance. The Tournament made those who opposed to the Empire fight each other.
- Unreal Championship 2: The Liandri Conflict: The second console exclusive game, also for Xbox. This game is set after the events of Unreal Tournament III. It's notorious/notable for its combat system, where there's a strong emphasis on melee combat and mobility (it has a wider moveset than Unreal Tournament 2004) and all the characters have different abilities and starting weapons. Basically, it's a mix of an FPS with a fighting game. The story focuses on the Nakhti empire, an Egyptian-based civilization whose Ascension Rites' Tournament decided who was the one that would rule the Empire.
Like many popular FPS series, modding potential is a large part of its appeal and success; both the SP and MP part of the series have seen many releases. Part of the dodgy reception of UT2003 and Unreal 2 is the fact that their modding tools were half-broken. Of particular interest is the fact that all of the original Unreal's assets and textures are available in Unreal Tournament, so with the right mod (along with transferring the music and maps from the original game to the UT folders) it is essentially possible to turn UT into one big "super-game" with a full SP and MP component.
Unreal, Return To Na Pali and Unreal II provide examples of:
- AFGNCAAP: Prisoner 849. In Return To Na Pali, the intermission voice changes depending on the character you choose. You can choose to be:
Action Girl (Gina) * In fact, due to her being the "default" player character, some might consider that she's the main character of the game.
- Air Vent Escape: How you get off the Vortex Rikers prison deck in the first level of the first game. If you look closely, you can just about make out a Skaarj watching you through the fog from the other end of the tunnel, but he vanishes as an explosion rocks the corridor. The Air Vent Escape also turns up a couple more times in various levels throughout the series, such as ISV Kran, UMS Prometheus, and Foundry Tarydium plant - in the latter, the vent nearly collapses into lava with you still inside!
- All Up To You: Inverted, in Unreal your only goal is to survive.
- "Your first priority is to keep your already-battered body in one piece. Failure to achieve this will render any secondary objectives somewhat irrelevant."
- Amazon Brigade: The Liandri Angels, on Unreal II.
- Artificial Limbs: Kurgan from the original Unreal has a bionic leg. Likewise Dimitra seems to have most of her face covered in a bionic mask. The Mercenaries' arm cannons are probably these as well.
- Alien Blood: The Mercenaries in Unreal have green blood.
- Apocalyptic Log: Many of the translator messages in Unreal and Return To Na Pali' are these, especially the ones you find aboard the Vortex Rikers and ISV Kran.
- Authority Equals Asskicking: The Skaarj & Krall Elite, also the Warlords and the Skaarj Queen.
- Back From The Dead: Possibly, the Warlord, assuming the one in RTNP is the same one you "killed" aboard the Skaarj Mothership.
- Badass Army: The Skaarj.
- Beast Of Battle: The Titans in Unreal.
- Bee Bee Gun: The biomass ejaculator in Unreal 2, a gun that shoots spiders.
- Yes, it's officially called an ejaculator tube.
- Bigger On The Inside: For levels set inside the Vortex Rikers, ISV Kran, Terraniux and the Skaarj mothership - most obvious in the case of the Skaarj mothership, where the final core area consists of wide-open spaces. Done subtly though, as you rarely see the whole ship up close in any one level to gauge their true size, and they look suitably huge from outside. Averted with the UMS Prometheus, where you move in and out of the ship over the course of the levels.
- Blatant Item Placement: In Return To Na Pali, the UMS weapons are inside of crates. Some of those crates were thrown with so little aim that they hit hard some of Nali villagers.
- The Bodega Bay continues to throw them down for the player even AFTER they try to kill him/her.
- Blade On A Stick: Wielded by the Krall in Unreal. Their staffs can also shoot energy bolts, just for good measure.
- Body Armor As Hit Points: Unreal 2 has an interesting aversion, where the level of your shields affected their effectiveness. At full shields they'd absorb 100% of any damage you took, but below 90% or so you started taking partial damage to your health with the shields only absorbing a percentage of total damage, which got lower and lower as your shields dropped (i.e. at 50% shield strength your shields would absorb less than half of the damage of a hit). It's not uncommon to die with with your shields still at 33% or more.
- Also in Unreal and Return To Na Pali to a lesser degree. Armour absorbs a constant percentage of damage, so you can have a lot of armour but low health and die quickly as a result. The only item that absorbs 100% damage (thus effectively granting you extra hit points) is the shield belt.
- Boss In Mook Clothing: Brute Behemoths, Skaarj Berserkers, and Skaarj Lords.
- Call A Rabbit A Smeerp: Nali names for many things - for example starships are "thunderbirds" or "metal chariots", Skaarj are "the demons from the stars" (or just "sky demons"), while humans are "two-armed soft skins". Inverted with the Nali Cow and, appropriately enough, the Nali Rabbit (which looks more like a kiwi). In the level "Temple of Chizra", they put an eightball gun on an altar and call it the "stick of six fires".
- The Chosen One: Prisoner 849 in Unreal, see Shaggy Dog Story for why it may be a (unintentional?) subversion.
- It gets weirder - one of the Nali diaries specifically mentions a saviour princess, which only raises further questions as to the messiah's identity if you're playing as a male character...
- And not only does the Nali depiction of the lightning goddess Vandora look human (apart from the 4 arms), she has the exact same hair and face as Sonya, minus the respirator mask. Nah, it couldn't be...could it?
- Conveyor Belt O Doom: Return To Na Pali: Foundry Tarydium Plant ("It has been 0 days since our last accident")
- Cool Mask: Sonya from Unreal wears a respirator.
- Continuity Nod: There's a reference to Unreal Tournament at the beginning of the second game, when Raff tests your armor suit in a pseudo-deathmatch fighting.
- Also, the firing range has targets that look like Brutes and Pack Hunters.
- Crowning Moment Of Awesome: In the original Unreal, the first appearance of the Skaarj. In the first part of the Rrajigar mines, steel bars lock you in a narrow corridor, then one by one all the lights go out. You hear a menacing growl, and then alarms blare and the action music starts as a Skaarj scout leaps from a hidden alcove to attack. However, there's a way to escape from that area.
- The first appearance of the MechaSkaarj in Unreal 2, a homage to the above: the lift you are on judders to a stop, and again all the lights go out. Something lands heavily on the lift roof, and begins to cut the cables. Again the alarms blare, and as the lift drops out of control you see the Skaarj reflected in the sparks coming from his Wolverine Claws as he digs them into the wall to slow his descent.
- And continuing with the same game, the suspenseful scene just before the appearance of the Izarians: a body is dragged under a door as you run to help, then one of the Izarians darts Alien-style across a corridor, complete with Scare Chord.
- The way the Araknids batter their way through the air vents on Hell is quite cool as well.
- Crowning Music Of Awesome: The original Unreal is full of it, and Unreal II also has its moments.
- Unreal's flyby song is great.
- Defensive Feint Trap: Injured Skaarj and Krall will sometimes retreat to lure you into an ambush.
- Dialogue Tree: Unreal 2 when every you ran into someone who isn't about to die or try and kill you.
- Doomed Hometown: Many Nali villages on the first Unreal game as well. In fact, the entire planet Na Pali can count as a whole Doomed Planet, since even after the events of RTNP there're Skaarj still on the planet.
- Downer Ending:
- Unreal: You finally manage to escape the planet, but your escape pod runs out of fuel and you are left floating in space, although this was resolved (and you finally manage to really escape) in the Expansion Pack. The unfortunate side effect of this is that it starts the Human-Skaarj war, with the humanity almost pushed back into doom.
- Unreal 2: You manage to destroy the artifacts, but your crewmates had died, and John is left alone in space listening to Aida's final message.
- Elaborate Underground Base: Outpost 3J in the original Unreal.
- Electric Boogaloo: Unreal II: The Awakening.
- Eleventh Hour Super Power: The Singularity Cannon dropped from the Tosc (and capable of killing one instantly) in Unreal 2, although every Tosc has one too.
- Elite Mooks: The aptly-named Krall Elite and Mercenary Elite from original Unreal.
- Emergency Weapon: Unreal's Dispersion Pistol.
- Empire With A Dark Secret: Locations such as Dark Arena, Velora Temple and Nali Castle suggest a darker, more violent side to the Nali's past, the effects of which possibly led them to become the spiritual, pacifist race they are now. Maybe that would explain why they appear as playable characters on Unreal Tournament.
- Enemy Civil War: Can happen in Unreal if one monster accidentally shoots another in the back. Skaarj Berserkers will fight with just about anybody.
- The Skaarj and the Mercenaries don't get on either, judging by the Skaarj scout standing over a dead Mercenary and trying to find a way into the Terraniux when you reach the ship.
- And the Mercenary prisoners in the Skaarj mothership - the Skaarj were probably looking to eliminate the Mercs along with everyone else who crashed on Na Pali to protect the secret of their presence on the planet.
- What about the priceless moment in Cellars of Dasa, where a bunch of Krall (who normally have teamwork as their hat) jump out and start fighting a Titan?
- Everyone Calls Him Barkeep: The Mercenaries.
- Everything Trying To Kill You: Some of the wildlife wandering around Na Pali is harmless, but if you look at their scripting, even they are set to "Attitude to Player: Hate."
- Evolving Weapon: The Dispersion Pistol on Unreal, with many upgrades across the maps. Many weapons on Unreal II, after Isaak tweaks them.
- Face Heel Turn: The UMS crew trying to kill the player on Return To Na Pali.
- Faceless Goons: The Mercenaries from Unreal, and the UMS space marines in both RTNP and Unreal 2.
- Floating Continent: Multiple floating islands, one you actually get to visit in Unreal.
- Fore Shadowing: Translator messages in Unreal often make reference to future levels (even ones some distance down the line). The Sunspire you visit about halfway through the game is also clearly visible in many other levels' skyboxes.
- Gangsta Style: Alt fire mode for the Automag (with a realistic corresponding drop in accuracy).
- The Guards Must Be Crazy: Krall can occasionally be seen sleeping, talking or playing dice while on duty.
- Hand Cannon: The Brutes dual-wield rocket launchers as pistols.
- The Hero: By game, may be a/sub/in-verted:
- Unreal: Prisoner 849.
- Unreal II: Lt. John Dalton.
- Hey Its That Voice: Isaak's got awfully pink skin for a Dunmer, although John Dalton's the perfect Redguard.
- Hive Queen:
- Unreal: The final boss, the Skaarj Queen.
- Unreal 2: The Araknid Queen, and the Drakk Caretaker (the last real boss you fight, although there are a couple levels after it).
- Kick The Nali: Mainly
the Skaarj and Krall and Mercenaries ALL sentient enemies in the game.
- Even the player. Some levels command you to do this in order to progress.
- Huh? Where was it actually required for you to kill a Nali to advance?
-
My mistake, some of them are at zones where you can't do nothing to rescue them. One of the levels (Bluff Eversmoking) required you to kill a poor crucified Nali to obtain a superhealth powerup.
- That's more Mercy Kill than Kick The Dog. There is however a similar situation in Chizra's temple where you have the option of murdering a Nali priest to get the superhealth he's levitating over. Although there is another solution - you can lure the Slith closer to scare him off the platform.
- King Mook: The large, psychotic Blue Skaarj fought near the end of Unreal. Return To Na Pali has an unusually large, 15 foot tall Skaarj Lord with double the normal amount of health as a surprise boss at the end of the "Bounds of Foundry" level.
- Oh, yes, I remember that. There was also another, greeny one, and a red one IIRC, all three of them with a glowing "pseudoinvisibility" effect. The one on RTNP was just bigger, with no such effect.
- They were all part of an experiment to mutate Skaarj with tarydium so they would have natural energy shields. Unfortunately it had the side effect of sending them into Unstoppable Rage, so they were locked up. Of course, once Prisoner 849 destroys the generator powering the forcefields...
- Last Breath Bullet: Warlords attempt to do this to the player as part of their death animation. Similarly, if a Skaarj warrior is decapitated he will swipe blindly at the air with his claws before falling down.
- Late To The Party: Happens repeatedly in Unreal. Though you sometimes hear other survivors being killed, the closest thing you see to another living human is a body being thrown across a corridor by a Brute. Or possibly the captain of the Vortex Rikers, who spasms and dies as you approach.
- Lightning Bruiser: All types of Skaarj.
- Locked Out Of The Fight: In the first level of Unreal - which is just as well as you have no weapon at the time.
- Mac Guffin Delivery Service: Lampshaded in Unreal 2. Genre Savvy Aida points out that, if the Artifacts form a dangerous galaxy-threatening superweapon, why the heck are you collecting all 7 of them instead of just taking the 3 or 4 pieces you have already and dropping them down a black hole? Sadly, Dalton is a military man through and through, and replies that orders are orders.
- Mecha Mooks: The Drakk in Unreal 2.
- Mega Corp: Inuit, the company that owned the ISV Kran. Also, the main companies from the Tournament/Championship games (except Phayder) are mentioned in Unreal II as well.
- Mercy Kill: You can do this to the crucified Nali you find in various parts of Unreal and RTNP. In Bluff Eversmoking, you are actually rewarded for your compassion if you do this.
- Mission Pack Sequel: Return to Na Pali. Also the "Fusion Mappack" and XMP, for Unreal and Unreal II.
- Misguided Missile: The player pulls this on the UMS Bodega Bay in the closing cutscene of RTNP.
- Nice Job Breaking It Hero: Nice job killing the Skaarj Queen and starting the Human-Skaarj wars, player.
- Non Action Guy: The Nali as an entire race are this. Although in Unreal you find several dead Nali with weapons next to them, and some Skaarj logs make reference to "rebellious activity", which suggest that at least some of them are actively fighting back. The novel Prophet's Power based on the game develops this idea further.
- No OSHA Compliance: Where do we START?
- This is, of course, lampshaded on all of them - it's stated Liandri confiscated the factories involved due to unsafe working conditions.
- And then, they've turned the facilities into Arenas, but that's another question.
- Number Of The Beast: The Black Hole Gun in Unreal 2 starts with 666 ammo.
- Offscreen Teleportation: Some of the enemy spawners in original Unreal game indeed only spawn enemies when not looking into the particular spawner.
- One Bullet Clips: Unreal's Automag (oddly, the only gun in the game that needs to periodically stop firing to reload).
- "Try to keep track of how many bullets are left in a clip. Attempting to change clips with a pissed off Skaarj in your face is not advised."
- Painfully Slow Projectile: Gasbag fireballs and Titan rocks (just as well because the latter is a one hit kill). Other weapons vary, but most can be dodged if your reflexes are fast enough. Averted by Mercenaries (with their machine gun alt fire) and by certain Skaarj troopers, who use the same hitscan weapons the player can use. Too bad for you...
- Playing Possum: Skaarj do this on occasion. However the fact that they lie in a different position when faking makes it quite easy to tell if they are "really" dead or not.
- Powered Armour: The Mercenaries and Skaarj Troopers in Unreal, the UMS space marines in RTNP, EVERYONE in Unreal 2.
- Proud Warrior Race Guy: Arguably, the Skaarj ("Vigilance is the guardian of honour.")
- Quad Damage: The Energy Amplifier.
- Scenery Porn: Especially Unreal, which pioneered it for video games in its era. And because of the standard set by Unreal, a whole lot of the fan map packs also qualify. Go ahead, browse some reviews
 .
- Shaggy Dog Story: Unreal: Despite your character rampaging across the planet, twice, and killing a Skaarj Queen and two Warlord leaders, along with various references to being the Nali's Savior, the Tournament games, which, according to Word Of God, are set several years after, still reference the Skaarj hunting Nali.
- Shoot The Medic First: The best tactic against the Drakk in Unreal 2.
- Shout Out: The Skaarj are heavily inspired by Predator, including such homages as dreadlocks and wrist-mounted blades.
- There're also several level designer name drops in Unreal, such as a tombstone marked "Myscha", *
which is the name of its levelmaker, Elliott 'Myscha' Cannon the Vortex Rikers registration number, and the captain of the ISV Kran being Mikael Leatham...despite the fact that the rest of the crew appears to be Russian.
- Two of the levels are called Nyleve's Falls and Harobed Village (read them backwards).
- Space Police: The Terran Colonial Authority in Unreal II.
- Starfish Aliens: Ne'ban in Unreal 2. He's some sort of glowing, jelly-like... thingy that wears a humanoid robotic suit to operate in human environments.
- It gets weirder. Apparently Word Of God is that Ne'ban's species are intelligent parasites that use the glowing, jelly-like thingies as host bodies. So Yeah.
- Stock Scream: In the first level of the first Unreal game, many screams sound like you've heard them for numerous times. Air Vent filled with green fog is especially flooded with them.
- Storming The Castle: Unreal's last leves requires you to do a raid on the Skaarj Mothership and terminate the Skaarj Queen.
- Stripperiffic: Aida, your First Officer in Unreal 2, wears a uniform that consists of a black spandex bikini. It's actually a very jarring contrast to her actual character, a bitter cynic with a deep, husky voice that sounds like a younger version of Lunch Lady Doris.
- Another example from the same game - is there any practical reason for some of the Liandri Angels to be completely naked under armour that includes a transparent bubble canopy?
- Male geneticists/designers?
- Super Window Jump: A Skaarj gets the drop on you this way in the Sunspire in original Unreal. Happens again in Unreal 2.
- Tear Jerker: Some of the translator logs in Unreal. One particularly poignant example is the story of some of the ISV Kran survivors that unfolds over several levels. In the Sunspire you find a dead team who were looking for a captured crewmate, Kira Argmanov. One of the dead crewmen appears to be her boyfriend ("I love you Kira, I swear I'll find you."). Later, at Bluff Eversmoking, you find another dead search party (also looking for Kira), which includes Medical Officer Tatiana Zimna who left you several messages on the ISV Kran. From Krall jailer logs lying about the monastary, you discover that Kira was being held there but the Nali helped her to escape, but in the end you find Kira dead in the bell tower. This makes the story of the Kran's crew something of a Shoot The Shaggy Dog.
- This is later referenced in the bio of one of Unreal Tournament's warriors, Luthienne:
"Having survived the Wreck of the ISV-Kran, Luthienne was forced to watch all her friends and crewmates die at the hands of the Skaarj until she and 3 others were rescued two years later. Irreparably scarred by her experience, she has entered the Tournament to confront her inner demons and ultimately to silence them through her own death."
- What about the way John's crewmates were killed after returning to the TCA base in Unreal II?
- Tech Fu: The Mercenaries, who wear powered armour, wield a rocket-launcher/minigun combo on one arm and sport personal deflector shields. Arguably also the player, who is helpless without the guns and pickups found within the game.
- Mind you, poor Prisoner 849 isn't really going to get very far in a fist fight against Brutes, Skaarj, Mercenaries or a Titan.
- Next to a sketch of a Brute in the Unreal manual: "Franco tried to go toe-to-toe with this thing. At least he died quickly."
- There Is No Kill Like Overkill: The Minigun from the first Unreal game, and the Black Hole Gun from Unreal II.
- There Was A Door: The Brutes in Unreal and RTNP are fond of this. In their first appearance in Nyleve's Falls a Brute smashes its way through a door behind you (which is sneaky as you'll more likely be focused on the Brute in front of you that has just thrown a human survivor against the wall and annihilated him with a volley of rockets). In Foundry Tarydium Plant, a Brute bursts through a ROCK WALL to get at you.
- The Unreveal: What exactly is the "Talon Project", the top-secret data you are sent to retrieve from the UMS Prometheus in RTNP? Who knows, because Prisoner 849 flies off into the sunset with it, and s/he isn't telling.
- Use Item: There's an inventory system on the first Unreal game.
- Useless Useful Stealth: Played straight and averted in Unreal. The invisibility power-up is great for sneaking past Titans (although about half of the Titans you face in the game are part of unavoidable boss battles...) but never seems to work on more intelligent enemies like Skaarj.
- Video Game Caring Potential: The Nali. The fact that keeping them alive usually nets you a valuable item (or sometimes a shortcut) doesn't hurt either.
- We Will Meet Again: Your first encounter with the Skaarj Warlord in Unreal, where after being defeated, he just taunts you and teleports away. However, he's Killed Off For Real aboard the Skaarj mothership.
- It's possible that he survived, as you fight another warlord on the final level in Return To Na Pali, just before the end.
- What Could Have Been: Unreal II has a HUGE case of it. There was A LOT of cut content from the game, seen here. The final game would have weighted 8GB (which was A LOT for it's time) and had to suffer a lot of cut-content. The special mention in this area is the multiplayer part, which was cut because of
UT2003.
- Wolverine Claws: (with occasional EnergyBalls) The Skaarj. On Unreal they use them as a mele� Spin Attack against the player. Unreal II follows the pattern with their MechaSkaarj, who also gain the ability to deflect bullets with their claws (reducing the vulnerability to rapid-fire weapons that they displayed in the original Unreal).
- Womb Level: There's one in Unreal 2.
The Tournament and Championship games also provides examples of:
- Action Girl: All the females in the Tournament and Championship games. The special mentions goes to Lauren *
who was part of Malcolm's winning team on UT2003 and is the leader of Iron Guard, being also a Tournament champion and Jester. * Reaper's sister
- Anti Hero - In an odd way. Your player character is somewhat generic (no personality - there's not much a storyline, duh) and is just fighting in the tournaments to usurp the current champion. Nothing world-saving (or, indeed, actively evil) about that.
- After The End: After the events of Unreal and the so-quoted Seven-Years War among the Humans and the Skaarj, (which was quoted in many characters & map descriptions, specially on the Tournament games, but wasn't covered at all in any game at this time) many cities on the Earth lays in ruines, according to a map description in Unreal Tournament 2004. This would lead, allegedly, to the events on the first Unreal Tournament, where the Tourneys were created to prevent bloody miner fightings. Look how all of this has turned on. Na Pali (the planet where Unreal and Return To Na Pali takes place) can count as well, as the Tournament games can show. It seems that killing the Skaarj Queen wasn't enough to stop the Skaarj raid on the planet.
- Alien Blood: The robots from UT have purple. The Skaarj bleed green. Also, the Necris on Unreal Tournament III have nanoblood.
- Announcer Chatter
- Applied Phlebotinum: The Necrification process, which uses Nanoblack as its technology.
- Armor Is Useless: No matter how much health, armor, or shield you have, get shot by a fully charged Bio goop, a well-placed Shock Combo with Double Damage/Damage Amplifier, a full pack of 6 rockets, or the Redeemer and you're gone for good.
- Considering the redeemer is a suitcase nuke, that's pretty justified.
- Ascended Extra: Malcolm, Brock and Lauren were originally just the names given to different face textures you could use in the first game. Then comes UT2003, where it turns out that Malcolm was the one who won the whole Tournament, with Brock and Lauren as part of his team.
- Oh yeah, and the Krall are playable in UT3, too.
- Let's not forget all the Ascended Extras on Unreal Championship 2. It could have been a fighting game if Unreal wasn't a FPS franchise. For example, aside from the trio mentioned above, Badasses Gorge and Arclite from Unreal Tournament 2003/4. Sapphire, from the same game, can count, she has the same bio as her counterpart from UT200X series, but she has a very different looking.
- Gorge was the reigning champion before the events of UT2004, having dethroned Malcolm in a 'surprise final bout' in UT2003.
- Asskicking Equals Authority: The Nahkti ascension rites, where the winner is crowned emperor.
- Authority Equals Asskicking: Akasha in Unreal Tournament III.
- Back From The Dead / Was Once A Man: The Necris race, which are Unreal series' undead race, is composed of this. Special mentions goes to Brock and Lauren in Unreal Championship 2, who were brought back as Necris after murder and suicide, respectively.
- Bad Ass: Gorge, from UT200X and UC2. A former criminal who was able to break both Malcolm's 9-tourney winning streak and his spine, and even murdered Brock who tried to kill him in vengeance.
- Badass Boast: Virtually everything that comes out of Xan Kriegor's mouth.
"Witness my perfection"
- Badass Crew: All and any of the teams in the Tournament and Championship games qualifies. Special mentions goes to the Juggernauts, (led by Gorge) Thunder Crash, (led by Malcolm) Iron Skull, (led by ClanLord) The Corrupt, (led by Xan Kriegor) and Ronin. (Led by Reaper)
- Banned In Germany: Shortly after the retail release of Unreal Tournament III, a special version was made for Germany, which didn't had blood. The first Unreal Tournament is also banned in that country, to the point of being the only game not included in that local edition of the anthology.
- Battleship Raid: The Skaarj Mothership Assault level in Unreal Tournament 2004. A literal Raid which is a Shout Out to the first Unreal game as well.
- Beam Spam: The Link Gun, from Unreal Tournament 2003 towards. Also, an Instagib match with many players on any Tournament game.
- Bee Bee Gun: The Mine Layer of Unreal Tournament 2004.
- Bio Augmentation: The Juggernauts in 2003 and 2004 are all geneboosted humans. They're also (with one exception) all career criminals.
- Blatant Item Placement: Ammo near weapons. Weapons in unlikely places. Powerful weapons in pretty much unrisky zones. (Normally in the first UT, the Rocket Launcher, one of the most powerful weapons, can be found at a non-hazardous risky but exposed place. Ditto for the Shock Rifle, tho.) Also look to this same entry above. You are, of course, fighting in an arena...
- Blofeld Ploy: In UC2, after berating a Liandri official for letting Anubis enter the ascension rites, Selket turns round and bitchslaps a random Nahkti warrior.
- Blood Sport: Well... the Tournament and Championship games, for sure!
- Bond One Liner: Victory taunts in UT.
- Car Fu: Quite frequent with vehicles in the Onslaught, Assault, and VCTF game mode of Tournament 2004, along with Warfare and Vehicle CTF in Unreal Tournament 3. Kills dismounted enemies, regardless of how much health they have. The Scorpion, in 2004 at least, has a pair of extending blades on the side just for this purpose.
- Canon Discontinuity: For Epic themselves and many people, Unreal Tournament 2003 never existed, and said game is a beta version of Unreal Tournament 2004 instead.
- Also, Unreal Championship has been erased officially from the Unreal timeline.
- Chainsaw Good: There's one of these on the first Unreal Tournament, with a Shout Out to Doom.
- Same goes for the Ripper in the same game, and the Ripjack in UC2 which fired saw blades. The secondary fire launched an explosive saw disc. Insta-kill if you aimed for the neck.
- Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: Betrayal mode, on UT3's Titan Pack. The premise of the game is: "Kill enemies to fill the pot for your team. Kill your teammates to get the pot for yourself."
- Cool Boat: The Koos Galleon on Unreal Tournament, the Koos Barge on the Titan Pack of Unreal Tournament III.
- Cool Mask: Iyrash on Unreal Tournament. Romulus and Remus on Unreal Tournament 200X. Some of the default player customization packs which came with Unreal Tournament III allows the use of such masks.
- Conveyor Belt O Doom: There's a Conveyor map in the first Unreal Tournament. Also the maps CarbonFire and Shaft (the latter from the Titan Pack) from UT3 may count.
- Crowning Level Of Awesome: By game:
- The Unreal series as a whole had the almost constant iterations of Deck 16, (Unreal, Unreal Tournament, Unreal Tournament 2004 and Unreal Tournament 3) Curse (Unreal, Unreal Tournament, Unreal Tournament 2003 and Unreal Tournament 2004) and Morbias (Which in some way *
renaming: DM-Gael on UT200X or another * through bonus packs: DM-Morbias from UT3 has appeared officially on almost ALL the Unreal games, except Unreal II for obvious reasons)
- The Tournament games (and the first Championship too) had Facing Worlds, one of the best all-time CTF maps according to Gamespy. It has seen many visual & gameplay variations: from an asteroid (the classic version) to a bloated egyptian floating land (UT200X) to two temples, one being infected by the Necris. (UT3)
- Hourences, as mentioned on Promoted Fanboy above, has created two new classics by himself. These are Torlan (an Onslaught map which was the only UT200X map appearing in UT3, for Warfare, and also has the distinction of being the most played Onslaught map of the game) and Rankin. (By far, the most played map of the game, look at the global UT2004 stats in Promoted Fanboy for proofs) It helped a bit that both maps were available since the first demo.
- Your final fight in the first Tournament is a 1on1 match against Xan (or Malcolm, Xan, or ClanLord, on UT2004) on Hyperblast: a ship going hyperspace.
- Barricade, a castle in the first Tournament... that's floating. In a lightning storm.
- Inferno, in UT200X, a map which takes place in Hell. We're not making this up.
- Crowning Moment Of Awesome: Any assault map in Unreal Tournament and Unreal Tournament 2004 (plus, many of the objective-based Warfare levels on Unreal Tournament III) qualifies, but two special mentions goes for Overlord, the recreation of the D-Day event of the World War II, which appears in the first Unreal Tournament; and Mothership, the raid to the Skaarj Mothership, (natch) which includes a full-fledged space fight with ships!
- Crowning Music Of Awesome:
Most of the soundtrack in Unreal 1 and Unreal Tournament. The later games also have their moments. PERIOD.
- Level-wise: Foregone Destruction, (UT Facing Worlds' song) Go Down, (UT Deck 16's song) Onslaught 01, (UT2004 Torlan's theme) Rankin's song, (UT2004 Rankin's song) and Legacy. (a.k.a. Anubis Fights Selket, from UC2)
- Non-level-wise: Four words: '''Unreal Tournament Main Theme'''. The the Liandri Conflict remix is also awesome.
- Did we mention the Skaarj Mothership?!
- Cutscene Power To The Max: Dominator, Malcolm, Gorge, and Xan (among them two of the final bosses) in the SP intro of Unreal Tournament 2004. To recap: Dominator can stab an opponent with his Wolverine Claws; Gorge can ram opponents before filling them full of lead; Malcolm's Assault Rifles can kill multiple people in about half a second (impossible ingame due to how weak the rifle is); and Xan has near-invincible armor, taking multiple rockets to the back with no repurcussions.
- Cyber Cyclops: Xan Kriegor. 'nuff said. Also Cyclops (d'oh!) and Axon on Unreal Tournament 2004.
- Deadly Upgrade: By using the Titan mutator in UT3 Black, * you can become a Titan, a big hulking bud who has just two (very deadly) weapons and can't complete objectives such as capturing flags and taking nodes, skulls, and orbs. Later, while in Titan mode, the user also can become a Behemoth, which has the same weapons with more damage, its bigger than everything... but has 30 seconds of duration. When time runs over, the player will explode in the same manner as the Redeemer's missile.
- Death From Above: The Ion Painter on UT200X which calls a Kill Sat. Epic later added the Target Painter on UT2004. An interesting bullet on the Target Painter is that it calls the Phoenix, which was originally designed (according to Word Of God) to be another driveable vehicle. Anyways, both weapons counts as BFGs.
- Talking about vehicles, the Cicada, available on UT2004 through a Bonus Pack and UT3 in many maps, and the Raptor, available in both games, counts as well.
- It's often fun to Goomba Stomp an unlucky opponent with a goddamn tank, regardless of how long it took you to drive it up the cliff and how likely it is to fail.
- Death Is Not Permanent: The Respawner technology, never mentioned until Unreal Tournament III.
- Defeat Means Playable: Xan in the first Tournament game; Malcolm, Brock and Lauren in UT2003; Malcolm, Clan Lord and Xan in UT2004; and the Necris and playable team leaders in UT3.
- Doomed Hometown: Twin Souls colony, on Unreal Tournament III. That leads Reaper onto a big Roaring Rampage Of Revenge, which ends worse.
- As noted above, many cities after the war against the Skaarj at the time of Unreal Tournament 2004.
- Double Jump: From Unreal Tournament 200
3/4 towards. The series never looked back since then, neither in Unreal Tournament III.
- Downer Ending: It seems that the Unreal series likes these.
- Averted in the first three Tournament games, (99,
2K3 & 2K4) where all you do is kick Xan Kriegor's ass in the first, Malcolm's ass in the second, and both of them, plus the Skaarj ClanLord in the third.
- Unreal Championship, the port of Unreal Tournament 2003, ended with your character getting locked up in the tubes in one of the arenas, constantly frozen in place and unable to do anything except watch people kill each other. And get shot by errant fire.
- Unreal Champioship 2: The Liandri Conflict has Anubis being forced to fight Selket in the Ascension Rites' finals, where the loser is Killed Off For Real, after rejecting Malcolm's offer to join Thunder Crash. After you defeat Selket, Anubis has a very big mourn about the gal he loved and was forced to kill "in the name of the rite". Jerl Liandri himself approaches, and gives him the choice of bringing back Selket to life as a Necris, betraying everything he held dear, or left her dead. Guess what's the choice of Anubis. It can count as a Bittersweet Ending as well.
- In Unreal Tournament 3, Reaper kills Akasha, but his teammates are murdered, and he ends the wrap-up cutscene surrounded and horribly outnumbered by Necris shock troops, so he presumably dies in style, rocket launcher blazing. Oh, and the series mascot/hero Malcolm also turns out to be an asshole, but that much was obvious from about 1/2th way through the game. It's a bit subverted, since Reaper wanted revenge against the Necris and led his own team to the doom. See Was It Really Worth It below.
- Dual Mode Unit: The Leviathan in Unreal Tournament 2004/III.
- Dynamic Difficulty: There's an option on the Tournament games to make the AI to change dynamically their AI, depending on how well the player is playing.
- Elaborate Underground Base: The Ocean Floor, one of the Assault levels of the first Tournament game.
- Electric Boogaloo: Unreal Championship II: The Liandri Conflict.
- Elite Mooks: In Unreal Tournament 2004's Invasion mode, the Warlords, and Mancubi-things that did even more damage than the warlords.
- Ironically averted in normal multiplayer, especially if people are using custom models. Anyone, ranging from RAAM to Halo Hunters to hulking abominations made out of starships and bioweapons, can be mowed down by dual assault rifles.
- Emergency Weapon: Unreal Tournament's Impact Hammer (in UT3 it also has the ability to hijack vehicles and steal enemies' powerups!!!) and UT2003/4 Shield-Gun.
- The Empire: Two races have one: the Skaarj, (quoted all along on all the games, with the exception of UT3) and the Necris. (Mainly on Unreal Tournament III) The Overseers on the first Unreal Championship counts as well.
- Equal Opportunity Evil: As Szalor says in UC2, "We subjugate all inferior races, not just humans."
- Executive Meddling: The first release of Unreal Tournament III suffered in equal parts from this and Internet Backdraft.
- Face Heel Turn: Malcolm on UT3.
- Faceless Goons: The Izanagi troopers who aren't Ronin in Unreal Tournament 3, though they're actually good guys. (Insofar as anyone are the 'good guys' in Unreal).
- Technically can be gone with some of the masked players in the Tournament games.
- Fackler Scale Of FPS Realism - Way up.
- Femme Fatale: Selket, in Unreal Championship 2. She dies.
- Finishing Move: Unreal Championship 2's Coup De Graces.
- Flawless Victory: You're even rewarded for this in the single-player of Unreal Tournament 2004.
- Floating Continent: Multiple floating islands which you actually get to fight on, in the Tournaments: Orion's Barricade, Facing Worlds and the LBX-7643 asteroid, the first two on the first UT game, and the latter on UT2004.
- Follow The Leader: Maybe Doom and Quake had began the multiplayer experience in the FPS genre, but the first Tournament game (along with its rival, Quake III Arena) paved the way for the multiplayer FPS. 10 years later, it's still one of the biggest feuds.
- Frickin Laser Beams: The Lightning Gun from UT2003/4 averts this.
- Fun With Acronyms: Many meanings were suggested for ASMD, such as "Atomic Shock Matter Disruptor". Word Of God eventually confirmed that it simply stood for "And Suck My Dick". Similarly, the GES in the biorifle name stands for "Green Exploding Shit".
- The FLaG Generators for CTF matches in UT3. FLaG stands for Field Lattice Generator.
- Gaiden Game: Unreal Tournament towards Unreal, no less.
- Game Breaking Bug: Well, let's call it "GUI Breaking Bug": shortly after the first retail release of Unreal Tournament III, there was a bug in the GUI which made the players unable to connect or find to any server, in most cases. This was later addressed on one of the first patches, but made a big impact on the game's reception. Plus, the GUI was an incomplete one, without Favorites.
- Also, there was a bug where the game didn't saved your progress on the campaign. Both of them were fixed as of now.
- Gameplay And Story Segregation: Averted in UT3, respawning is accomplished with advanced alien technology. It wears out after a certain number of respawns, though... hence the deathmatch system, where you have to kill a certain number of enemies in order to break their system. (This doesn't really work for the other game modes, but it's a good effort.)
- In Deathmatch, respawners seem to be the basic model. In CTF/VCTF, respawners are fueled by the FLaG devices. And in Warfare, your Power Core provides the energy needed to keep your respawners rolling.
- All that's left on UT3 is to explain what's the source on Betrayal and Greed.
- Gameplay Derailment: Related with the vehicles,
- Gangsta Style: Unreal Tournament's Enforcer's alternative fire. The UT 3 version replaces this with burst-fire, though keeping the crosshair on an opponent for about two seconds causes you to fire this way.
- Gatling Good: Every game has a minigun in some form or another, though lately it's use is more aimed to being the only non-explosive high-end weapon, as opposed to the doomsday device it was when used correctly in original Unreal.
- The Government: The New Earth Government on the Unreal Tournament games. It's mostly mentioned on Unreal Tournament and UT200X. The T.C.A. from Unreal II can be its spiritual predeccesor.
- Green Rocks: Blue glowing crystals (tarydium) that pretty much everyone uses as a power source.
- Similar to Real Life nuclear power, in that it produces dangerous waste material when used for such a purpose. Unlike nuclear power, said waste is then used as ammo for the Bio Rifle.
- Tarydium was also used for the Stinger Minigun on both Unreal and UT3, and for all the energy weapons on Unreal Championship II.
- Guest Fighter: Mortal Kombat's Raiden, as an unlockable character on Unreal Championship 2. His bio on the UC2 site sets him exactly in the middle of the events of MK3. Also, he has the taunt "You fight like Johnny Cage!" and his Coup De Grace was token directly from the MK games. It helps that Midway was Epic's publisher at the time. Shao Kahn's announcer voice is usable, as well.
- Have A Nice Death
- The Hero: By game, may be a/sub/in-verted:
- Unreal Championship 2: Anubis. Partnered with Sobek.
- Unreal Tournament III: Reaper. He even has his own
Five Four Man Band:
- Hive Queen: On Unreal Tournament III, the final stage is a one-on-one deathmatch against Akasha, the High Inquisitor of the Necris.
- Implausible Fencing Powers: The Shield-Gun (and vehicles and turrets which uses shields) in Unreal Tournament 2003/4 can deflect energy weapons like shock cores and link pulses.
- Improvised Weapon: The Impact Hammer and UT3's Stinger Minigun are both stated to be former mining tools.
- In Vehicle Invulnerability: Averted in UT 2004; it's possible for a sniper to shoot you out of the lighter vehicles, you still take damage in some of the heavier ones if you're hit hard enough, and the Redeemer's pretty much going to kill you no matter what.
- It's Raining Skaarj!: Invasion mode on Unreal Tournament 200X. Also the intro sequence to the campaign of Unreal Tournament III changes the Skaarj for Krall.
- The Kingdom: The Nakhti. (Started as the Anubans on UT200X/UC, but had a strong emphasis on Unreal Championship 2)
- Lampshade Hanging: The Unreal series as a whole, starting with Unreal Tournament 2003/Unreal Championship/Unreal II LOVES to use and abuse of this trope.
- For example, the following dialog of Reaper's first contact with Malcolm, on Unreal Tournament III: *
Reaper: Nice office...
Malcolm: Some crib, huh?
Malcolm: My name is Malcolm.
Reaper: Reaper.
Malcolm: Izanagi hired me to run Special Ops.
Reaper: That can't be cheap.
Malcolm: Sounds like you know my rep.
Reaper: Who doesn't? Most grand tournament trophies, ever. Leader of Thunder Crash, AKA 'Thunder Cash'...
Malcolm: A'ight, I get it.
Reaper: ...all of which makes you a highly decorated... civilian.
- Large Ham: Every announcer. But the award goes for the UT2003 one.
- Lightning Gun: The Pulse/Link Gun in the Tournament games. There's also an Electric Sniper Rifle in UT200X and the first UC.
- Loading Screen: UT2004 and UT3 offers useful in-game tips while loading matches. One of these in the latter, however, is about online chivalry:
Practice good sportsmanship. You were a n00b once, too.
- The Maze: UT2003/2004's Serpentine. This is the final level on 2003, you fight against Malcolm here.
- Mecha Mooks: The Corrupt and Automatons in the Tournament games (Xan Kriegor included) and Raptor and Devastation in Unreal Championship II.
- Mega Corp: Well, let's try to name all of them: Liandri, Axon, Izanagi, Phayder...
- Melee A Trois: The gametypes Domination and Team Deathmatch in the first Tournament game allowed battles of 3 and 4 teams.
- The Missingno: The Demoguy in Unreal Tournament III. May cross with Urban Legend Of Zelda.
- More Dakka: The minigun in any Unreal game.
- Most Annoying Sound: You would want to turn off the announcer after hearing it for many matches.
- Nano Machines: The nanoblack used to create Necris.
- Nice Job Breaking It Hero: In some way or another, the main protagonists of the games of this series suffer from this:
- Nice job killing your beloved for the sake of the Rites', Anubis.
- Nice job guiding your teammates onto doom, Reaper.
- Nitro Boost: The Scorpion and the Viper, on Unreal Tournament III.
- Non Action Guy: Inverted with the Nali, being brought as playable characters on the first Bonus Pack for Unreal Tournament.
- No One Could Survive That: the 'feign death' function can at times be incredibly useful if used correctly.
- Nostalgia Levels: Aside from those mentioned on Crowning Level Of Awesome, Epic also ported many other obscure levels like those made for the console versions (Osiris and Flux, both from the PS 2/DC versions of the first Tournament game on UT200X) or those who had appeared on Bonus Packs (Mojo, Shrapnel, Cybrosis) along with some non-so-remembered old levels. (Phobos, Morpheus and November on UT200X, Gauntlet on UC2, Koos Galleon and Turbine on UT3, etc.) In Unreal Tournament 2004 there's also a level based on the Rrajigar mines of the first Unreal game.
- Numbered Sequels: See the entry on this page for the explanation.
- Official Couple: Brock and Lauren, starting from Unreal Tournament 2003, and carried on until Unreal Championship 2, where, according on their bios, Brock gets murdered by Gorge after a revenge attempt because of Malcolm's defeat at his hands in the end of Unreal Tournament 2003. It should have took a while, since they had rebuilt their old team back on UT2004, and it stayed as one of the teams of UT3. Lauren commits suicide some time between Unreal Tournament III (where Brock didn't appear) and this game. Both are resurrected as Necris on Unreal Championship 2.
- One Hit Kill: Instagib. That's all.
- What? There are way, way more one hit kills than that. 6-rocket spread, point-blank hit with the Flak Cannon, headshot with Sniper Rifle, fully charged Biorifle goop, Redeemer, Shock Combo, a headshot with the Ripper...
- Well, it depends on how much armor and health you have at that moment. With the Shield Belt and 199 health it's pretty difficult to do this with Point Blank Flak Cannon, Sniper Rifle/Ripper headshot or a Shock Combo.
- Out Of Continues: How UT 3 justifies its deathmatch missions in the single-player story: the player's team has to exhaust the rival team's respawners to kill them for good.
- Playing Possum: The first and third Tournament games allow the player to feign death. It's more believable in 3, due to Ragdoll Physics.
- Playing Tennis With The Boss: The Impact Hammer can reflect rockets. In Unreal Championship II, you can reflect any fire with your melee weapon, even sniper rounds.
- Quad Damage: The Damage Amplifier in the first Tournament game. Epic later added the adrenaline system on 2003/4 and the enhanced system for UC2 did the rest.
- Ragdoll Physics: Starting with the Tournament games after the first one, no less.
- Real Is Brown: Mostly Unreal Tournament 3, though not to the extent of most other modern games, and the result is actually quite stylistic and... unreal. Oooh... It should be noted that custom maps don't have to be brown, though. The other games in the series are otherwise very colorful.
- Ret Con: Xan Kriegor bleeds red in UT, suggesting he is a human in Powered Armour or possibly a Hollywood Cyborg. In UT2004, he bleeds green and is outright stated to be a robot.
- The Necris, who in UT are explicitly described as aliens who have "declared a kind of guerilla war against Earth". The term Phayder isn't explained, but appears to be some sort of military unit or assassin's guild. In later games, Necris are humans resurrected using nanoblack, and Phayder is the corporation that makes them.
- The Skaarj are retooled from the Lightning Bruiser into the Mighty Glacier for UC2 for game balance reasons.
- Roaring Rampage Of Revenge: What Reaper seeks on Unreal Tournament III after his colony is overrun by Krall. Malcolm surely had something to do with this.
- Roboteching: Cicada. Full stop. Also the AVRiL. (No, not THAT Avril.)
- Rubber Band AI: Most of the final fights in the Tournament games use this, the better you do, the more "skilled" the opponent becomes. Considering that, in an FPS, the computer has the ultimate advantage, (that's where aimbots come from) this can make things very difficult.
- Scenery Porn: UT3 ups the ante in a VERY impressive way. Source engine has nuthin' on me, bitchas!
- Have you took a look at the outdoor maps of Unreal Tournament 2003/2004? They qualify too!!!
- Screw The Rules I Have Money: The Liandri Mining Corporation. Just look at any description on any game starting with Unreal Tournament which mentions them. Hell, they even were one of the main forces behind the Tournament itself!!!
- Malcolm's ways of dealing with people on Unreal Championship 2 and Unreal Tournament III can count for the first item as well.
- Shaggy Dog Story: The Tournament games imply that, despite the losses incurred on the planet Na Pali, the Skaarj were still strong enough to not only wage war against humanity, but push them back to Earth and nearly win the war, within one year.
- You fight like NALI!!!
- The latest news on this trope came on Unreal Championship II with the Nali Hunting gametype. Brought by the Skaarj, this melee gametype consists on killing poor Nali (and, of course, your rivals) with your own hands. In the story mode, you have to fight in this stage against a Skaarj.
- Shout Out: The map DM-Morpheus on Unreal is clearly inspired by The Matrix. Word Of God confirms this.
- Some maps are based on third-party content. Word Of God stated that Facing Worlds and Serpentine were inspired by third-party maps from the first Unreal and Quake II.
- The Chainsaw of the first Tournament game, as stated above, has a Shout Out to Doom.
- The map AS-Junkyard, from Unreal Tournament 2004 is a huge Shout Out, from its description to the objectives of the map itself, to Scrapheap Challenge / Junkyard Wars.
- And, of course, AS-Overlord, from the first Tournament game, is inspired by the D-Day.
- Standard FPS Guns: Largely averted. Most of the weaponry has a different feel to it, and one of UT's selling points is that its weapons invariably have some function attached to the alt-fire button. Sometimes it's only "zoom in" on the sniper rifles, but the Shock Rifle has two fire modes that can combine, and the original rocket launcher in the first Tournament game had five modes on one gun (single rocket; multiple rockets; heat-seeking rockets for either of the former; single rocket-as-grenade, multiple rockets-as-grenades).
- And I will list them here:
- The Bio-Rifle is essentially a glowing green minelayer, but can charge up to fire one giant cluster mine... goop stuff.
- The aforementioned Shock Rifle fills both the marksman gun role and the secondary, when shot by the primary creates a giant explosion. This explosion was nerfed in later games, but it's still something to fear.
- The Pulse/Link Gun is the game's assault rifle analogue, but the latter can repair vehicles and link up for extra damage.
- The (Stinger) Minigun is just like other FPS counterparts, but with selectable rate of fire (decent speed and fairly accurate or fast and inaccurate) in 99, explosive rounds in 2004, or a large shard of Tarydium in 3.
- The Flak Cannon is basically a combination shotgun (with BOUNCING shot for those pesky corners) and grenade launcher.
- The Rocket launcher can fire singly or up to three, (or six, depending on the game) in a horizontal line, a tight corkscrew, or locked on to an enemy player in any of the previous modes if you give the gun a second to acquire them.
- And finally, the Redeemer is the tactical mini-nuke BFG... that can be piloted. With a missile's eye view.
- Storming The Castle: The last act of Unreal Tournament III invokes this with the Ronin team going on to Omicron-6 (Necris' planet) in order to finish Akasha.
- Most of the Assault levels in both Unreal Tournament and UT2004 require you to do this, due to the nature of the game. There's an inversion on one of the maps of the original game (AS-Rook) which takes place in a castle; the objective is to escape. But, at the same time, another map plays this straight. (AS-Mazon)
- Stripperiffic: Sapphire and Selket◊, in Unreal Championship 2. To some extent, Akasha, in Unreal Tournament III.
- Static Stun Gun: Raiden's Stun Trap in Unreal Championship II.
- There Can Be Only One: Last Man Standing mode, on the Tournament games.
- There Is No Kill Like Overkill: The Super Weapons - the Redeemer being a personal, portable, potentially remote-guided tactical nuclear missile; the Ion Painter calling down a gigantic laser beam from space; and finally the Target Painter calling in a bomber to drop five or so nukes in one deadly bombing run.
- Add the Leviathan to that. A
walking crawling death machine.
- Unreal Tournament III added the Necris Darkwalker, a War Of The Worlds based tripod
human-sweeper colossus which delivers a hugely destructive laser.
- They Changed It Now It Sucks: The general reaction towards Unreal Tournament 2003 and Unreal Tournament III at their launching moment.
- Training Level: All the Tournament games features this, in different ways:
- In the first Unreal Tournament, you have a training level by team tier: one for Deathmatch, one for Domination, another for Capture The Flag and the remaining one for Assault.
- Unreal Tournament 2003/2004 don't feature any training level, but there're demos for those who are itnerested to learn the gamemodes.
- And the latest installment in the series, Unreal Tournament III features these in the Story Mode, with the first 5 levels (excluding the second one) showing the user how to play the gamemodes. You start with a 1on1 fight against Jester, then move out to a Team Deathmatch with your comrades, then to a CTF match, then a Warfare level for those who are familiarized with 2004's Onslaught, and, finally, with the introduction to the new features of Warfare.
- Treacherous Advisor: Malcolm in Unreal Tournament III.
- Tripod Terror: The Darkwalker in Unreal Tournament III.
- Updated Rerelease: Without counting the compilations, the Tournament games falls as victims of this trope:
- The first Unreal Tournament had the Game of the Year edition, which included Rocket Arena UT, Chaos UT, and the first three Bonus Packs.
- The PS 2/DC editions included most of the Bonus Packs' stuff, plus original content.
- To some extent, Unreal Tournament 2004 towards Unreal Tournament 2003: UT2003 + its two Bonus Packs + extra content.
- UT2004 also has the Editor's Choice Edition, which included several mods and the Editor's Choice Edition Bonus Pack, which was later released as another free Bonus Pack.
- Unreal Tournament III: Black Edition => UT3 + Titan Pack. It's only sold at Steam, and had many Free Weekends, where the people could download the ENTIRE game for free on a determined weekend and tried it.
- Warrior Poet: Bishop, from Unreal Tournament III, spouts Bible passages while killing people.
- Was It Really Worth It: Related to UT3's Downer Ending: Reaper's Roaring Rampage Of Revenge led him to the loss of his entire team, where his sister was. He wants revenge on Malcolm, who not only allowed the final actions of the game, (the infiltration of Reaper's team on the Necris planet) but also revealed that he was involved in the Twin Souls colony raiding. But, in fact, it was actually him who led his team to the death. Your Mileage May Vary, of course.
- What Could Have Been: Unreal Tournament III and Unreal Championship had a lot of broken promises... The most prominent one on both: massive multiplayer battles which involved giant maps and up to 64 players.
- Wolverine Claws: (with occasional Energy Balls) Unreal Championship 2 has both Szalor and Torgr, the player can actually use the Razik and Claws with both of them. If the beams hits another Skaarj in UC2 is a Wasted shot.
- Wolverine Publicity: Expect to find Malcolm in any Unreal game, even as a cameo character. Well... starting from Unreal Tournament 2003, at least. Still, he's loved by the Unreal fans, who claim for him to be included in Unreal Tournament III.
- Zeroth Law Rebellion: The story behind AS-RobotFactory, in Unreal Tournament 2004. Taken from the description:
This scenario is a recreation of the Liandri robot uprising on the mechanical asteroid of LBX-7683 and the subsequent quelling of this rebellion by human forces. LBX-7683 was an outpost for research and development of the next generation of Liandri robots. Liandri's best scientists were able to introduce increasingly sophisticated artificial intelligence into the machines that they designed. Eventually, they rebelled against the humans and took the asteroid as their own, brutally disposing of their creators and mining the rich materials embedded within the rock for their own gain. Liandri's commanders devised a plan to strike directly at the production facility manufacturing the robots. During an all-out assault on the world, a small team was inserted with the sole goal of destroying the AI generators, thereby destroying the ability of the machines to reproduce themselves and ending this uprising.
The series in general provides examples of:
- Blind Idiot Translation: Oh, men, the spanish translation, in any of the Unreal games... SUCKS SO BAD!!!. Special mention goes to the one made for Unreal Tournament 2004: the control configuration menu is very messy.
- Ditto for German translation. It's incomprehensible if you don't know what they are trying to say.
- Obvious Beta: Many of the games of the series, translation issues aside, would ship with many issues. The most notorious ones are Unreal Tournament III's broken GUI at its shipping moment, and Unreal II HUGE loading times. The maps aren't exempt of this: in the first Tournament game, the map AS-Rook has a glitching wall, (in an area which couldn't be reached, anyways) and an invisible collision box in the map DM-Pyramid.
- Boom Headshot: Despite that the first Unreal game already gave the player to finish everything with headshots from the Rifle, Unreal Tournament was the game which introduced the Headshot announcement. This later carried on onto many games.
- Broken Base: Almost half of the Unreal community will stick to the first Unreal Tournament, no matter what other Unreal is there. The remaining part has a notable presence of Unreal Tournament 2004 people, plus those who play the non-Tournament games and those who play Unreal Tournament III.
- Compilation Rerelease:
- Totally Unreal: Unreal + Unreal Tournament
- Unreal Gold: Unreal + Return To Na Pali
- Unreal Anthology: Unreal Gold + Unreal Tournament GOTY Edition + Unreal II (plus the multiplayer expansion XMP) + Unreal Tournament 2004: ECE Edition. *
Unfortunately, Midway couldn't get the rights to publish the mods.
- Complacent Gaming Syndrome: The series in general suffers from this. UT3 is the worst offender.
- Dueling Games: With the Quake series, natch. Specially, Quake III Arena vs. Unreal Tournament, and to some extent, Quake II vs. Unreal.
- Excuse
Plot Universe.
- Fan Dumb: Nearly all of the examples of this trope can be found online or on any Unreal forum. Of course, not everyone who plays this game or is in an Unreal forum is a Fan Dumb.
- First Installment Wins: Kind of aversion, "Second Installment Wins" in the whole saga, and played straight in the Tournament games, where the first Tournament is the most praised of the bunch.
- While it's somewhat of a "second installment wins" for the whole franchise it's also played straight with the SP side of the franchise, where Unreal is almost universally regarded as superior to its sequel.
- And also averted with the Championship games, where Unreal Championship 2 is considered way better than its predeccesor.
- Game Mod: THE series for mods outside of Half Life; both the Singleplayer and multiplayer side of the franchise have seen a large quantity of high-quality releases.
- Due largely to the fact that it was the first game that didn't require knowledge of C programming to make a mod. Unreal 1 featured UnrealScript, which was simpler and less complex than C. Also, the main game itself was written in UnrealScript, which gave people a strong example to look at.
- There will be at least one person using a custom model on your map.
- Many well-known coders and artists (in the Unreal community, of course) ended working for Epic Games or any other development house who used some of the Unreal engines in their games. See Promoted Fanboy below.
- If your mod is good enough, this goes even far, since Epic Games has done in the past many Updated Rereleases (see below) which included many community-made mods into their ships.
- Girl of a Thousand Voices: Sioux "UnrealGrrl" Blue, who does nearly ALL of the female voices of the Unreal series. May it be a female announcer or a female player, you'll always hear her.
- Grey And Gray Morality: A common topic on the franchise as a whole. There's no such thing as "100% good" or "100% evil" characters; all of them are guided by their own interests.
- The Skaarj are bastards though.
- Loads And Loads Of
Characters Skins and Models: And how!
- Promoted Fanboy: Epic Games likes to rely on its own community. As a proof, the first Unreal Tournament came to the stores with around 8 mappers having worked on it. (Some of them gathered from the same Unreal community) The game was a success. Also, its modding and mapping community grew very well. By the time Unreal Tournament 2004 came out, the quantity of mappers grew up to almost 20. The most played map of the game, Rankin, which also made its way onto the demos, was made by the community mapper Hourences. He also made the most played Onslaught map of the game, Torlan, also in the demos as well. Both maps were made for that game in particular. Hourences is now working on the RPG The Chronicles Of Spellborn, and has released two books called "The Hows and Whys of Level Design". Due to this, Epic Games tried to do UT3 more "modding friendly", and the success it has depends on your mileage.
- In an interesting bit, before the launch of Unreal Tournament III, a short contest was done in the Epic Forums, to give a name to a map. The winner was keyrat, who was credited in the game.
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