A lot of games have been making claims and allusions to the classic arena shooters of the past, namely Unreal Tournament and Quake 3: Arena. But as the latest collection of top plays from Unreal Tournament 4 shows, there’s nothing quite like the original.
First-person shooters haven’t gone anywhere in the last few years, but there’s been a certain level of quality I’ve been missing. You just don’t tend to see the one pixel, predictive mid-air rockets that you used to any more — and that’s because over the last decade or so, arena shooters have slowly fallen out of vogue.
With Dirty Bomb, Lawbreakers, Overwatch, Reflex and Toxikk, that’s starting to change. And hopefully that will mean the quality of frag videos will gravitate more towards insane flick shots and mid-air rockets rather than Call of Duty no-scopes and kill streaks.
If you’re doubting my assertions, then the latest top plays from Epic’s official Unreal Tournament channel should help you understand. These are the kinds of moments I grew up laughing about in multiplayer games over a decade ago — the kind of moments that aren’t really facilitated too much these days.
Hopefully those times are coming back again. I wonder if you’ll be able to snipe the head of X-Wing pilots in Battlefront; that’d be cool. If you’ve got a good enough rig you can check out the new Unreal Tournament for free, once you’ve made an account for the Epic Games forums.
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6 responses to “Unreal Tournament Video Proves There’s Nothing Like The Original Arena Shooters”
A long, long way to go before they catch up with the glory holders of the Q3A and UT days.
This comment and this article x1000000!
Post Quake 3/ UT the competitive FPS genre went through a LONG period of boring, team based, brotastic real-world garbage.
Flat levels, boring guns, slow movement, weapons that spray if you’re moving too fast…. These things all SUCK!
We’ve seen over the last few years an evolution (devolution?) of the brotastic military shooter towards a more dynamic experience.
Games like Titanfall have wall running, Halo and Destiny have large double jumps. Hell, even COD has a grappling hook and mega-jumping now.
It’s still not back to the days of crazy jumppads, strafe-jumping and rocket launches being flung around like they were made of cardboard…. But it’s a start.
As a long time player of FPS from Duke Nukem/Doom/quake1/2/3/Unreal/Tournament and so on, I truly agree with everything you’ve said.
The frenetic movments and rocket jumping of Q3/Arena were the pinnacle in my mind – I preferred Unreal Tournament but only because Teleport shenanigans were easier for me to learn than Quake 3’s ” Rocket-jumping and railgun popping mid air, then swapping back and rocket-jump as you hit the ground. Halo and UT3 Black were my saviors of the FPS genre for a long time.
All these shitty COD games and such (that I also own and play of course) are finally stepping back to the old school way of fps. What once was old is again new. 😀
Not to put a scare into you, but it’s been a while since they rehashed the ww2 shooter. Won’t be surprised when that comes out. Maybe this time Infinity Ward can release collectors edition flask THAT ACTUALLY OPENS in Australia…
Dirty Bomb isn’t really an arena shooter. It plays more like Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory than anything else I’ve played. Severe lack of rifle grenades though.
Oh god… facing worlds with instagib on… such good memories.
YES!! Am loving the new UT and have been following/playing it since the Pre-Alpha started. I’m really liking how its being devolved by Epic and the community in sync, so far its delivered a lot of great things.
UT is back!