Quelques heures après son annonce pas vraiment surprenante, Unreal Championship 2: The Liandri Conflict continue de se dévoiler peu à peu au travers de très nombreuses previews : on en trouvera chez PlanetUnreal, GameKult, Gamespy (qui héberge une vidéo du jeu sur Fileplanet), BeyondUnreal ou encore Gamespot (qui propose également une vidéo du jeu).
Qu’en tirer ? Pas mal de choses :
- Unreal Championship 2 ne se base absolument pas sur la série des Unreal Tournament, dont elle ne reprend ni maps ni textures. Le jeu n’aura pas non plus de véhicules.
- UC2 comprendra 14 personnages aux caractéristiques différentes. Chacun aura ses propres armes (de corps-à-corps ou pas) et ses propres combos, qui permettront de faire des coups spéciaux à la manière d’un Mortal Kombat.
- Le jeu est très orienté baston corps-à-corps (en vue à la troisième personne), mais permet aussi de se battre comme dans un FPS classique. Les maps seront par contre bien plus petites que dans UT2004.
- On choisit ses armes (deux, en fait) avant le début des parties. Il y en a aussi deux de plus par défaut.
- Le multi profitera évidemment du Xbox Live!.
- Il y aura toujours des tricks pour se déplacer. Le jeu est d’ailleurs annoncé comme très rapide.
- En solo, il y aura une campagne au scénario ridicule et des tournois 1vs1 en deux parties.
- Les armes permettront de bloquer les coups avec le tir alternatif.
À part ça, on apprend aussi (sur BeyondUnreal) qu’Epic compte sortir un autre titre exclusivement sur Xbox. Pendant ce temps, Epic Games annonce que son deal avec Microsoft ne concerne que la Xbox et qu’il pourrait bien continuer à sortir ses jeux PC chez Atari (ou pas).[–SUITE–]
Le communiqué de presse annonçant le jeu :
Smarter, Faster, Deadlier…Microsoft Announces Unreal Championship 2: The Liandri Conflict
Unreal Championship is returning to Xbox, as Microsoft Game Studios today announced that Unreal Championship 2: The Liandri Conflict for Xbox® is currently in development and is scheduled to arrive on retail shelves in fall 2004. Unreal Championship 2: The Liandri Conflict is being developed by Epic Games, the creators of the best-selling Unreal franchise.
Unreal Championship 2: The Liandri Conflict will revolutionize the shooter genre with its high intensity melee combat system, optional third-person perspective and unique character combos. No longer solely bound to the first-person perspective, players can switch to third-person mode for lethal melee attacks and defensive combos; including the devastating reflect move, which sends an incoming attack back to the sender with interest.
Characters in the game will also be more mobile and agile. Each Unreal character will use their own personalized arsenal of jumping, flipping and spinning moves to help players make full use of the new environments. Unique Adrenaline combo-powers supercharge the strength and deadliness of character attacks and defenses, while cranking up character speed and mobility to superhuman levels.
Unreal Championship 2: The Liandri Conflict will offer gamers two new single player experiences to challenge their Unreal combat skills. In the single player campaign, players will fight their way through new cities and arenas as they take on the role of Anubis in his attempt to retake his people’s Nakhti Rite of Ascension Tournament from the machinations of the omnipresent Liandri Corporation. In the single player tournament, gamers will fight through a tournament ladder as one of the many unlockable characters in the game. Unreal Championship 2: The Liandri Conflict will also offer players the chance to fight head-to-head in eight player tournaments over Xbox Live or System Link. The game will take advantage of Xbox Live’s leaderboards, making it obvious who the ultimate tournament champions are.
Epic Games Inc, based in Raleigh, NC and established in 1991, is a developer of cutting-edge computer and video games. The company is best known as the creator of hit PC 3D action games Unreal and Unreal Tournament, both award-winning blockbuster hits having each sold more than 1 million units each. Epic is also well known as creator of the Unreal Engine which it has licensed to several major game developers. To date over 10,000,000 games have been sold that utilized Epic’s Unreal Engine technology and the number is growing steadily each year. Prior to their 3D success, Epic Games was well known for the hit shareware games Jill of the Jungle, Jazz Jackrabbit and Epic Pinball. Additional information can be obtained through Epic’s Web site at www.epicgames.com.
Et le communiqué de presse d’Epic clarifiant l’imbroglio autour d’Atari et de Microsoft :
The fact that we chose to do an Xbox exclusive game for Microsoft does NOT IN ANY WAY indicate that we are « leaving » Atari. It simply indicates that this particular game will be published by Microsoft. This game is designed 100% from the ground up exclusively for Xbox and takes advantage of the platform like no other game we’ve seen. It does not share content with any other game in the way that the original UC and last year’s UT shared content and it doesn’t compete directly against the latest Unreal Tournament game. So naturally with the game being the ultimate exclusive Xbox title it made sense to publish this title with the company that know Xbox the best – Microsoft.
Now that Epic has two complete development teams it is possible for us to multiple Epic-quality games simultaneously in-house and give each one the love and attention it requires. The people who have been playing UC2 this week on the press tour and buying Unreal Tournament 2004 seem to agree with us that this strategy is working. I expect that the developers who come to our booth at GDC next week will also see the payoff on the technology side.
