Anyone who laughed at the announcement of Epics multiplayer game had now better be laughing on the other side of their face. Epic could have released Unreal Tournament months ago but instead they spent the time polishing it 'till it shined, and it shows. The guns are great fun to frag with thanks to pounding sounds and dual fire modes and the levels are simply wonderful with battle locations such as inner city slums, space stations, a moving train, a war boat, an even an underwater base.

Gameplay is not limited to deathmatch either with a number of Capture the Flag levels that are both standard mirror image levels and levels with differences between the two bases that none the less balance well during play. The unique gameplay modes of Domination and Assault are also great to play. Frantically trying to reach the final Assualt objective in good time or bolting around a level to recapture Domination points is nothing short of a blast. There are also many user created levels available as all original Unreal multiplayer levels are compatible with Unreal Tournament, and level designers in the community already experienced with the UnrealEd are starting to release some excellent levels already. Epic deserves to be highly commended for creating such a wonderful game.

As you may have worked out we like Unreal Tournament a hell of a lot. It has devoured much of our spare time and even a bit of our work time (damn you Epic). While there have been some outstanding and highly recommendable titles this year such as Outcast (which Jon loved), System Shock 2 (which Pete loved) and Quake 3 Arena (which everyone loves despite CD key problems), the sheer variety, entertainment and extensive polish applied to Unreal Tournament by the Epic boys has convinced us to give it the Sharky Extreme Game of the Year Award. It's that good. And if that isn't a high enough recommendation we don't know what is.

Pete Closs
Games Editor