Where it Shines:
ULTRAKILL - 10/10
MEGAKILL - 10/10
RAMPAGE - 10/10
GODLIKE - 10/10

The Good:

This game is the most fun I've ever had playing an FPS, and I grew up with Quake, Goldeneye, Perfect Dark, Timesplitters, etc. It's aged incredibly well, still has servers online, and full bot support if you just want to solo. The campaign has so many modes that are so fun to play to this day. The weapons are satisfying to use and the pure joy of just hearing your kill streak shouted at you by the announcer is just *chef's kiss.

The Bad:

I honestly can't complain about this game at all. Is it flawless? No, probably not, but I feel like I can't really give it a perfect score still as there is room for improvement.

Summary:

You can keep your Halos and CODs and Forknife and whatever else the heck you want to play - UT is just the greatest multiplayer FPS every made, purely for how fun and unrealistic it is. Highly recommend even today.


note on my ratings:
half ⭐: hot trash garbage
⭐: below average, needs work
⭐⭐: average
⭐⭐⭐: pretty good
⭐⭐⭐⭐: excellent
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐: all time favourite
half star ratings between those mean it's slightly better or worse than stated in this list.
*

THE game of my early teens and the first franchise I even considered myself a fan of.

UT99 for me wasn't just a Multiplayer game, in fact I barely played with other people, mostly played against Bots.

What I saw and felt was the atmosphere, the cool characters, interesting locations, the awesome guns and snappy gameplay.

Just simply existing in this world, sometimes choosing to defend the base from Ai instead of rushing into battle, hearing the bots communicate over the coms. Analysed their tactics and movements to learn the game.

I played this game my way, and in doing so got immersed in the world created (however unreal it was)

While many were introduced to the FPS genre by legendary games like Doom or Quake, I landed at just the right time to pick up Unreal Tournament. It was a visceral and eclectic introduction to the genre with an all-in-one package that featured a little bit everything and a focus on variety.

From the incredible map designs like Phobos and Facing Worlds, the chaos of everyone having personal teleporters, and the various character models to play with, UT was a game that took the best of everything that came before it and put it in one place. Each of its weapons feel like it's own playstyle (a design that would go on to inspire the modern hero shooters), it had the iconic announcer voice, and of course there were so many different game modes and modifiers - aka Mutators.

You could play a very grounded and tactical capture the flag game, or go wild with a deathmatch on a low gravity map, and insta-kill weapons. While you can say that UT never really came up with any of these concepts it did put them all together to create a fun game that was at just the right time for anyone to pick up and play. You didn't have to be the best at everything, know all the glitches, or adopt a meta. If you were new you could grab just about any weapon and get some kills while the more experienced players knew tricks like how to make the shock rifle bubbles explode and master rocket jumps. And of course you could always find the Redeemer nuclear rocket launcher and even the playing field by sending gibs bouncing around the room spraying blood everywhere.

While later versions of the game would focus more on gimmicks, elaborate game modes, and battlefield style vehicular combat, UT was very much the purest form of it's own playstyle. It exists now as a kind of perfect bubble that encapsulates the features, mechanics, and gameplay from that era. It may not be as ground-breaking, prolific, or well remembered but for me it still holds many of my favourite FPS experiences before the genre got so bogged down by legacy IP's and homogenised gameplay.

PC: 10/10

Masterpiece

PS2: 4/10

If it ran at a decent framerate I'd give it an 8 or 9.