Double Domination is a tweak of the old Domination mode. This time, there are only two control points, and a team must control both for ten seconds in order to score. Point totals are small and last-second saves are frustrating.

Bombing Run is best described as UT-football, or reverse-CTF. Teams battle to bring a ball from the field to the goal in the enemy base, passing and shooting it as they see fit. The player with the ball, however, is completely defenseless and must rely on the team for protection.

Weapons and mutators have stayed mostly the same. With a decent arsenal already, weapons have only been tweaked for balance or replaced by functional equivalents (e.g. the rocket launcher now fires 3 rockets instead of 6 and a rapid fire assault rifle takes the place of dual enforcers). The mutators (mods) let you change various aspects of the game and are still easy to apply. A number of fun ones shipped with the game, such as slow motion death, or a change in head size depending on how well the player is doing.

As for the much touted Karma physics engine? Watching it in action as bodies (or body parts) fall is a real treat, but unless you fire up the slow motion death mutator, you're not likely to notice it. People die so fast and the action is so constant that your eyes will be searching for your next victim, not admiring your last kill.

Multiplayer / Instant Action:
Not much more to add here-this is an multiplayer centric title and most everything said applies both to MP and SP. The bots are still the best in the business, closely mimicking human MP behavior. Game speed and friendly fire damage are easily adjustable via slider; mutators and map selection are easily done via a two-list menu. Connecting to a game shows just how multiplayer friendly this title is. Servers are already sorted by game type, with separate tabs and lists for LAN games and each of the four modes. The load time is short and the system does not hang like other games do when getting server data or switching between the lists. The net-code itself remains wonderfully efficient-boasting only a 33.6k minimum requirement. It was indeed quite stable and playable on my 56k connection, though of course, your mileage may vary depending on the quality of your provider.

And if you feel like playing with yourself, instant action provides the MP experience for one. Any game type and any map can be played, with all the same settings applied.

Conclusion:
Simple enough-buy this game. If you're a fan of multiplayer action shooters, this is the very best there is. If you want to show off your fancy rig, you can finally have a game designed to run on today's high-end hardware. If you loved Unreal Tournament, then you're going to love UT 2k3. It's the same high quality, high intensity multiplayer frag-fest as its predecessor, with new tricks and a sweet new look. Doom 3 be damned, this is the first of two new Unreal titles to come, and let me tell you, the future is looking very good indeed.