Peter Clark on UT Dreamcast

Unreal Tournament on the Dreamcast seems to go some way to comparing the Dreamcast to a poor man's PC, but when you think about just what's going to be included it's astonishing how close the action is to its roots (especially when considering the incredible system requirements on the PC). The game will include Deathmatch and Capture The Flag modes according to Peter, so that's no Assault and no Domination modes. What's slightly concerning is how he addresses the question of how long the game's been in development. "We started right after E3, so it's been about four months." The game is expected to ship for thanksgiving in the States, so it will have had approximately five months from start to finish.. But it's not all bad. The control system will be right on - playing on a DC controller is difficult but you can use the Dreamcast keyboard and mouse if you choose (making the experience almost identical to that on the PC). The question of interaction with the PC version (ala Q3A DC) is a hazy one, as Clark states that since there's no storage device provided capable of applying upgrade patches, the game will ship as is and stay that way, so any subsequent changes to the code by Tim Sweeney and co. at Epic could cripple anybody's intentions to play online. As UT is a multiplayer game first and foremost this may be of some considerable concern! Undoubtedly gamers who own the DC version will be able to play against one another over SegaNet. Sadly of course the Dreamcast's 56k modem means that pings are in the region of 200+. Oh but hang on, in Europe and the UK the modem is a 33.6kbps version. To be honest this doesn't bode well for gamers trying to avoid an epensive PC upgrade to play it. Clark does state in the interview however that UT DC will include lots of new maps and other extras, and full scene anti-aliasing, a big buzz-phrase in the industry at the moment. Meanwhile, Quake III Arena DC is set for an October 10th release in the States.