hile first person shooters have garnered an admittedly rabid fan base, it’s hard to argue that despite the popularity of the genre, it’s changed little over the years.  Despite all the fancy options and modes, first person shooters at their core are all  about killing your opponent before they kill you.  In 1998 Epic Games unveiled their first Unreal Tournament title for the PC and immediately it was hailed as a masterpiece.  But, throughout the years, the series has done little to venture outside of its well maintained structure of shoot or be shot.  Well all that’s about to change in their upcoming game Unreal Championship 2: The Liandri Conflict for the Xbox.  Despite being a wholly competent FPS, the title expands on that genre to new, never before seen levels.  With a deep storyline and series-first third person control (that’s actually worthwhile) and combat, The Liandri Conflict is bound to go down in the annals of gaming history as the first major step towards evolving the FPS genre.

Perhaps the most notable new feature that you’ll recognize is the ability to play the game in third person.  Hitting the Black button while playing will instantly switch you into the third person perspective, which gives the on-screen action a whole new flair.  But, it’s not just for show.  Playing in third person ultimately gives you a much wider angle of vision around your character, making it not only easier to find and target enemies, but also avoid those frustrating shots in the back that in were rampant in first person.  To go along with the new third person control is a whole new melee combat system.  Each character in the game (14 in all) comes equipped with a special melee weapon.  While running around in third person you can whip out your melee weapon and take on enemies at close range.  You come packing two main attacks, a quick and light strike, as well as a slower and more powerful strike.  While in the air, you can also perform a potent aerial strike by holding down and then releasing the right trigger.  While the melee attacks are indeed a force to be reckoned with, they do come with a catch.  Since most characters are incredibly nimble, getting close enough to strike them with your weapon can sometimes leave you with a face full of lead.  There’s a careful and intricate system to go about engaging in melee combat and it’s a system that’s never been tested in an FPS before.  But thankfully, it seems to work pretty darn well.

The third person perspective also plays heavily in to character movement itself.  Characters can now double jump and even go one step further by performing wall jumps and even dodges.  While the moves can be performed while playing in first person, utilizing them in third person shows off some of the new character animations.  Characters flip and jump around like they’re starring in some new kung-fu movie, and watching them do this while also avoiding fire is a an impressive sight.  Since the game now focuses more heavily on quick footwork and the ability to either pursue or evade your enemy by using your environment as a stepping stone, the newly implemented dodges and jumps are a helpful tool to this means.

Another eyebrow-raising new addition is the changes to the Adrenaline system.  Running around the arenas, you’ll notice special adrenaline packs scattered about.  When you pick up enough, you can initialize special Adrenaline abilities.  The entire system is mapped to the X button and a quick press of it will bring up a small on-screen menu.  The menu is broken down into two sections, so to access the second part you just need to quickly tap the X button a second time.  Each section of the Adrenaline menu features three abilities, for a total of six powers available to use.  Each ability is to mapped a controller button so you are ensured of having quick access to it as well as the ability to quickly select it.  Powers, while temporary, can sometimes give you the edge needed to win an event.  They come in a variety of flavors, such as the damage-reducing Repulse shield, the gravity defying Nimble jumping ability, and the Speed power, which allows you to dart around opponents. Each character has their own unique abilities, so it’s up to you to discover which ones are the best for each system.  While turning your opponent into a bloody stain is still the best way to stay alive, the new Adrenaline powers take combat to whole new levels.  Gone are the days of simply holding down the fire button and waiting until your opponent is dead.  With mastery, the system has unlimited potential and will really give those gamers itching to squeeze very ounce of gameplay out of the title a great time.

To bring the series back to its story-driven roots (the first Unreal game as a plot-based linear experience), The Liandri Conflict features a fairly lengthy single player campaign (entitled the Ascension Rites) that follows the character of Anubis from lowly trainee to Unreal champion.  Along the way he makes plenty of enemies and surprisingly enough, a few friends, too.  For fans aching for more elaboration on the Unreal universe and the characters that inhabit it, the story mode offers up quite a bit to take in.  You’ll run into plenty of new faces, as well as some old familiars, giving the experience much needed depth and variety.  While the storyline for the single player campaign is full of surprises, the actual gameplay is pretty in-tune with what you’d expect from an Unreal game.  Naturally, you play through a series of different events, each with its own stipulation for victory.  Events run the gamut of pretty much everything that you would expect, such as Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, Capture The Flag, and even special on-on-one battles.  Some events require a certain number of kills to win, while others operate on a point system.  Either way, the mode variety for the single player campaign gives you a heavy taste of what’s to expect in other modes in the game.

If you’re just itching for action and can’t be bothered with things like plot or direction, the Tournament mode should more than suffice.  Essentially, it’s a series of events with the story element omitted for your convenience.  When you first fire up Tournament, you’ll only have a few different characters to choose from.  But as you play through the game you’ll unlock more characters to use.  The requirements range from easy (beat the Ascension Rites campaign) to moderate (beat the Tournament with a certain character) to the insanely difficult (beat the mind-numbingly hard Challenge Mode), but either way you look at it, the mode offers up enough depth to keep you playing for hours.  True, there may not be a ton of characters to choose from, but the satisfaction you get in unlocking a new one is well worth the effort.

The last single player feature is the Challenge Mode.  Here you’ll find the most difficult events in the game, many of which border on the insane.  In all there are 17 different events, ranging from things like taking on a team of Skaarj warriors with a serious upper hand to taking on two of the most famous Liandri Tournament winners to ever step into an arena.  While the mode only really serves as a way to unlock one character in Tournament Mode, the sheer difficulty of each event it actually a great way to hone your skills without going online to do so.  The AI is incredibly sharp, ensuring that each time you step in to an arena, you’ll need to utilize all of your skills to conquer it.

But, if you do want to go online, or at least play via System Link, The Liandri Conflict has you more than covered.  The online functionality of the game is massive, not only because of its scale but also because of its ambition.  Taking the new third person combat to the online masses will certainly be a new experience as well as one that should still remain incredibly fun.  Six modes are available for online play; Capture The Flag, Deathmatch, Nali Slaughter, Overdose, Survival, and Team Deathmatch.  If you’re creating your own online game, you’re also given the option to customize your game’s feature set, such as adding mutators for enhanced player abilities, setting frag limits, and even adding bots to the match.  There are a ton of different maps to choose from, too, including those built for varying numbers of players and some classic Unreal locales that should prove familiar to die-hard fans.  With support for eight players, the online action promises to be fierce and merciless.  Interestingly enough, the game will also support downloadable content.  While we don’t quite yet have the details on what’s planned for release, it’s probably safe to assume that more maps are in the works.

Visually, The Liandri Conflict looks gorgeous on the Xbox. The new dodges and jumps are fluidly animated and the screen explodes with impressive particle effects every single time a weapon is fired.  The cutscenes are pretty well detailed, too, although they’re not all that realistic and some characters seem more detailed than others, especially when it comes to facial modeling.  For all the great visual features in the game, I have to admit that there are a few hiccups every now and then.  First off, the visuals seem to be more detailed and fluid while playing in first person, especially when you take part in melee combat.  Some melee moves seem a bit too robotic and stiff when stacked up against the fluid dodges and jumps.  Also, the game features a lock-on system that can sometimes backfire.  By pressing the right analog stick in, you can lock-on to the nearest opponent.  But, considering the high flying acrobatics that fill pretty much every event, the camera sometimes has a hard time keeping up with the aerial maneuver.  The result is a camera that sometimes jerks around and shoots skyward, making it pretty difficult to use.  The lock-on feature is entirely optional, of course, so I just found it much easier to simply ignore it.

To match the retina-searing visuals is some ear-pounding sound.  From the classic announcer voice to the agonized screams that spill from your enemies as you fill them with lead, the aural feast offered up in The Liandri Conflict is entertaining to say the least.  And, it doesn’t hurt that the game is packing some nicely epic (no pun intended) music to accompany the on-screen carnage.

Unreal Championship 2: The Liandri Conflict is in the unique position of forever changing the FPS genre.  While any developer could have simply implemented a third person camera into an FPS title, Epic Games has done it and amazingly gotten it right the first time.  I have to admit that I was skeptical of the feature at first, but after having played the game and experienced it first-hand, it now seems like second nature and I leave myself scratching my head and wondering, “Why hasn’t this been done before?”  But, the great thing about The Liandri Conflict is that it’s not just about the third person viewpoint.  Whether it’s the extensive single player modes of the intense multiplayer action, every single FPS fan is bound to have something to get excited about.