Epic working on Unreal Championship sequel
With third-person mode, spins and flips and combination moves? Eh?
Microsoft has just announced Unreal Championship 2: The Liandri Conflict, a sequel to one of the console's first online games currently in development at Epic Games and due out in Q4 2004.
"Big wow," you're probably thinking. "Unreal Tournament 2004 is out this Friday, so why should a fairly similar console title that isn't out for ages interest me in the slightest? Next please!" Well, hold your horses there, Mister. This doesn't sound like a mere crossover.
For a start, it's got a third-person perspective and a combo moves aspect. You can still play the game from the first-person perspective, but now you have the option to switch to the third to help with mastery of melee attacks and defensive combo moves, including one called "reflect" which bounces attacks back in the direction they came with an added kick. Sounds a bit like Jedi Knight 2, which can't be a bad thing. All we need now are "laser swords".
We're told the game's characters will be a lot more agile than their PC cousins, too, jumping, spinning and flipping around to make full use of the environments. And those Adrenaline boosts should come in handy for charging up attacks and defensive moves now too, as well as increasing speed and mobility.
Although Xbox Live is obviously the focus, offline modes will also be catered for thanks to a pair of new single-player options. The campaign mode will involve fighting through new cities and arenas as they take on the role of Anubis in his attempt to retake the Nakhti Rite of Ascension Tournament from the Liandri Corporation. A separate tournament mode will then allow you to unlock characters and work your way through a more traditional ladder approach to the single-player aspect.
Then of course there's the System Link and particularly Live aspect, which will take advantage of the Live leaderboards system and thus ought to appeal to anybody who ever fell in love with their ngWorldstats ranking page...
Hrm. Actually, at the end of the day it still doesn't sound like the most revolutionary game in the world, does it? Still, it's another FPS for Live owners to keep an eye on, and given the reported quality of UT2004 we'd imagine it's worth doing so.