Welcome to Unreal Championship. You have three seconds to kill Ravage before he reduces you to a leaky piece of meat. That pretty much sums up Unreal Championship’s pace. Bloody, violent, and non-stop, heart pounding action. Better bring your reflexes, son.

From the opening movie (that players of the PC hit Unreal Tournament should wax nostalgia over) you’re treated to a taste of just what the tournament IS in the world of Unreal. And that’s a multi-billion dollar television spectacle held by the Liandri corporation deemed the “bloodiest sport in the galaxy!” That’s right, all those viewers are tuning in to see you get 30 frags and win that match, so try not to disappoint them.

Sadly, the story stops short there. Aside from brief character histories and statistics, you won’t find a deep emotional attachment to that hot girl with the Flak Cannon on your team…but who has time for storylines and a plot when there’s killing to be done? And, frankly, you couldn’t ask for a prettier environment to go on a bloody rampage in. All of Unreal’s levels, weapons, and character models are gorgeously done, with little to no slowdown.

It’s truly an impressive credit to the Xbox with so many pretty things happening at once. Some arenas are huge, sprawling caverns with beautiful trickling waterfalls, while others are more confined space stations with steam and gas leaking from pipes overhead. The variety is endless, with the always delicious possibility of downloadable content to come.

Sound wise the effects are top notch. With every link beam and shot of flak you unleash you’ll hear a great sound effect to go with it, and the screams are a welcome return. And that announcer? Why isn’t he in every game? As far as the music goes, it’s pretty much your standard rock and roll background music. It’s not something you’ll demand a soundtrack of, but it does it’s job…getting your adrenaline going for a fight.

Speaking of adrenaline… Unreal Championship isn’t just a cheap rehash of Tournament. One of the new features is the Adrenaline Meter. Whenever you get a frag, score in Domination, or pick up the little “Adrenaline Capsules” scattered throughout the level, you’ll get an Adrenaline boost. When the meter reaches full, you’ll be able to unleash any of four new Adrenaline Combos that can do as much as regenerate lost health, or make you a speed demon.

Add that to a newly added double jump (with the exception of droid characters, who have one super jump) and some spiffy new mutators, and you’ve got all the classic Unreal gameplay from Tournament and then some. And let’s not forget the addition of two new game modes, Bombing Run and. Domination’s newest cousin, Double Domination.

I have to say that Bombing Run is probably the bloodiest game of basket/football I’ve ever seen. Just picture Bret Favre with a minigun or Kobe Bryant with an assault rifle, and you’d have it. The “ball”, which is actually an explosive, starts at a point on the map. The idea is to rush to the ball, pick it up, and score by taking it to the other teams base and running, or shooting, the ball through the goal. The only downside to having the ball is, unlike when you play Capture the Flag, you can’t shoot opposing players when you have the ball. You can, however, pass, making teamwork a must to be a successful unit.

Those familiar with Unreal Tournament’s original game mode called Domination will welcome the new and improved Double Domination. With only two points to control, the team doesn’t score by seconds, but instead by “dominating” both points at the same time for 10 seconds without the opposing team returning it to their color. It’s hard to go into words to describe just how intense some of these games can get, as last second saves are a blast.

The controls throughout this entire experience are well done, but that was sort of expected, as they’re mapped after a little game called Halo. My only complaint regarding the controls is that it can be hard to jump with the A button and aim at the same time, but you can easily remedy this by clicking in the left stick for your jump.
On a side note, there are a few things that just didn’t make sense, and might put a damper on your gaming experience.

Despite the plethora of characters available to choose from, there is no character customization mode available. That may not mean much, as most people don’t care if their hair is black or brown, but when which character you choose dictates which weapon you start with, it can be brutal. So if you’re a guy and you wanted to be a “normal” human with a Flak Cannon and a starting HP of 120, you may have to settle for starting out with a mutant freak with 70 HP to have that Flak Cannon.

Gone are the days of everyone starting out with Enforcers. Meaning in the right hands, every time you kill that irritating Lightning Gun sniper, he’ll respawn and get right back to nailing head shots on you, and there’s nothing you can do about it because you respawn with a BioRifle. This can get irritating, but not so much so that you won’t have fun.

All of the above you can apply to both the single player and multiplayer aspect of Unreal. But this game has FAR more replay value if you go online with it. Yes, the game does have bots, and yes, you can still take on 15 bots at once, but isn’t it more rewarding to frag EZGaMeR and here him complain about it through the communicator? My answer is yes, and while you think about yours, I’m going to beat you to that Rocket Launcher. See you online, flak monkey!