My fondest memories of any job I've ever had are of working at a mail order catalogue company. The job was dull, but four of us would play Unreal Tournament for the whole lunch hour every day and it was the best fun I'd ever had playing games. Consequently, Unreal Championship could just be the title I have most eagerly awaited this year.

For those of you unfamiliar with Unreal, it's a frantic, no-holds-barred fragfest where up to 16 players run around an arena at high speed, blasting their opponents to pieces. It is the fastest and most lethal shooter around, there is no planning or strategy that lasts beyond a few seconds, its all about reactions and adrenaline. Some people (like myself) thrive in this kind of game, whilst others find it to be too fast-paced. Halo has a plodding pace compared to this (which is no bad thing!) and involves far more thoughtful combat. Those of you who are used to Halo in multiplayer be warned - this game is at least twice as fast and three times as deadly!

The components of any great shooter come down to three things: artificial intelligence, map designs and weapons. Unreal Championship excels in all three. The artificial intelligence of the bots (computer players) is outstanding, you never quite know what they are going to do next. They use strafing and jumping to dodge erratically, making it as difficult as possible for you to hit them. They are also very good with their weapons, shooting accurately even whilst in mid air and make use of shield, health and adrenaline power-ups just like you do.

The map designs are superb as expected, but we've never seen anything quite so impressive, wide-ranging and large-scale in a multiplayer shooter before. Although there are still plenty of the claustrophobic indoor arenas with low ceilings and narrow corridors, a whole host of new environments and outdoor levels have been introduced. Each map is designed with the skill and understanding that Epic Games have always demonstrated, making for some extremely enjoyable levels. We get to play in dark forests, sand-swept deserts, snow topped mountains, rocky hillsides and burning lava pits. The scope of the different indoor arenas is equally excellent, ranging from sprawling to confined and ancient to futuristic with varied themes to the scenery.

The graphics are a stunning accomplishment and surpass almost all other titles on Xbox. Whilst not quite as detailed as Halo, all of the textures are very well defined, the objects are solid and it makes for one of the most convincing collections of environments yet. The sheer spectacle of some of the levels when you first see them will bowl you over. In Lava Giant 2 (based on the popular Capture the Flag level from Unreal Tournament), there are now bizarre plants from which sparking ash gently rises and a mist of heat and smoke hangs in the air. There are lava pools and strange rock formations as far as the eye can see and the sky above is a deep orange. Endagra features a very impressive nebula effect in the sky above, contrasting the bleak whiteness of the ground below and Adrift is another crisp snow level with wispy clouds floating across a blue and pink-tinged sky. Meanwhile some of the ancient Egyptian levels feature grand and spectacular architecture and one has an amazing sandstorm raging overhead. Additions such as chirping birds and crickets in the forest levels and howling wind in the sandstorm and mountain levels add to the realism of the environments, as do the sounds of your footsteps on rock, metal, sand and snow. The music soundtrack is also great, featuring a variety of pumping tunes that add to the killing action.

Finally, we have one of the most powerful and lethal collections of weapons you could possibly hope to get your hands on. Old favourites are here alongside new additions, each with a primary and secondary firing function. The flak cannon fires a short-range blast of molten metal fragments, or a medium-range ball of fragments that explodes on impact while the minigun gives you a choice of rapid or medium fire, the latter being more accurate. The rocket launcher can fire single rockets or up to three at a time and the shock rifle features a combo weapon - you can fire long-range energy beams or energy spheres that explode on impact. However, fire off a sphere and then shoot it with the energy beam and the resulting explosion is very powerful.

So what of the new weapons? The link gun is basically a revamped plasma rifle, firing plasma blasts or a plasma beam, but with a sublime new feature. If you zap a fellow team mate who is using a link gun as well, it enhances the power of their link gun twofold. If two or three of you combine your beams into another player, the result is a super destructive weapon! At first you wonder what the T.A.G. rifle does, a weak laser beam fires out that has no effect on your enemies. This is actually a locator beam for an ion cannon in the planet's atmosphere! Fire the beam at the same spot until the satellite repositions, then a blast will hit that spot that eradicates all life in the surrounding area! It's a weapon of mass destruction with a very cool graphical effect. The lightning gun fires a powerful bolt of lightning and also has a zoom function, making it the only sniper rifle available whilst the shield gun can protect you from enemy fire as well as delivering a powerful blow when in contact with the enemy. The assault rifle is the new standard weapon, combining a machine gun and grenade launcher.

The translocator has also been improved, this handy device is fired from a gun and you can instantaneously transport to the spot where it lands, but it now features a camera so you can see what's going on before you beam to it. This is particularly useful during Capture the Flag levels, you can leave it near the enemy base then beam in when they are all assaulting your base. The graphical effects on all the weapons are outstanding - the weapons look great, are beautifully animated and the weapons fire and resulting explosions are huge, with booming sound effects to accompany them. The player deaths are also suitably gory, exploding in a shower of blood and body parts!

There are 6 game modes on offer in Unreal Championship. Deathmatch is a no-rules free-for-all where the person with the highest frag count wins, either within a time limit or reaching a target. Survival is the only other single player game, a last man standing competition where you do not respawn (reappear) if killed. This is the only game type that usually involves a bit of caution and planning! Team Deathmatch splits the players into red and blue teams where the highest scoring team wins, Capture the Flag is a competition to infiltrate the enemy's base, grab their flag and return it to yours, Bombing Run is similar but with a bomb that you must fire through your enemy's goal and finally Double Domination requires you to secure two locations for a space of 10 seconds to score a point. The team games are more fun for beginners to play as you have a 50/50 chance of winning.

There are a couple of new innovations that really enhance the gameplay - adrenaline, new species and weapon affinities. As well as collecting medi-kits, health vials and energy shields, there are adrenaline capsules to collect. Each capsule gives you 5 points, as does fragging an enemy. When you max out your adrenaline at 100 points, one of four powers can be activated using a quick combo on the left joystick. Berserk increases your weapon's effectiveness and strength, Regeneration speedily increases your health to double your maximum, Agility increases your speed and jumping capabilities and Invisibility, well, renders you virtually invisible. These abilities really shake-up the gameplay and add a great new element, as you can use them at crucial times to affect the outcome of a match, especially in Bombing Run and Capture the Flag.

Of the species available, the human Mercenaries are the standard race, with no particular strengths or weaknesses. The robotic Automatons are the quickest and can jump the highest, whilst the alien Gen Mo'Kai are the second fastest race but can take less damage than the rest. The genetically enhanced Juggernauts move sluggishly, but can shrug off hits like a rhino shrugs off flies, the Anubans absorb adrenaline with extra efficiency and the Nightmare race, although weak at first, increase their health by inflicting pain and death on others! Not only do all the members of each race look awesome but this variation in character strengths and weaknesses adds another strategic element to your choice of species, whilst the weapon affinities gives you more freedom to specialise with a certain weapon. Each character has an affinity for a particular weapon and when killed they respawn with that weapon - so if you love the flak cannon, then you can choose a character, from any species, that will always have this weapon. As well as this, there are three types of affinity that enhance the weapon - Ammo increases the ammo max per clip that the character can carry, Damage increases the amount of damage the weapon does and Fire Rate improves the rate of fire of the weapon.

After you've played through the 29 challenging levels in Single Player Mode at Skilled difficulty level or higher, you should be more than prepared to go online. Unreal Championship has a System Link mode, but sadly no split-screen, which is a big omission in my book. Even if they'd had to reduce the quality of the graphics, 4-player split screen really is a must with first person shooters. However, this is primarily an Xbox Live title and that is where it shines the most. Be warned though, there are some very tough players out there and it's a harsh difficulty curve. If you don't put in some practise on single player then unless you have played other Unreal games to death you will get slaughtered, and slaughtered in style. You average life expectancy will be about 5 seconds and it will get very frustrating very quickly. Being fragged all the time is as annoying as fragging others all the time is satisfying! You'll always find rock hard opponents but give it some time and you will get into the zone and do some serious fragging of your own. Unreal Championship is a merciless game to play online, so be philosophical and take the defeats on the chin whilst lapping up the victories. When you first start, jump into a team game so you have some players on your side - there's nothing as satisfying as when your team pulls together to score that goal or those last couple of frags, especially when you end up as the hero of the day. Team games also encourages chat and the chance to try out some cool tactics.

There are a few things that disappointed me about this game as an Unreal Tournament fan. Newcomers to the game will love it (as long as they can stand the pace), but us Tournies can see something lacking. Although the new levels and weapons are awesome, the levels seem to have lost their personality and soul a little bit. Phobos in UT was one of my favourite levels, a small space station orbiting Mars' moon. You could go out and look at the stars and moons, speeding to the top of a tall tower that allowed you to survey half the level and snipe from afar. There were also branches of the station where you could run to get the mega-damage, mega-shield and anti-grav boots. Another level was set in a spaceship travelling at hyperspeed, then there were ones set on asteroids, one was a castle and another an old monastery. The capture the flag level set on a large asteroid orbiting earth, with two huge towers at each end, was an awesome sight to behold. There aren't any levels like this in UC and I think that is a crying shame, although the new outdoor levels are fantastic I really miss the space-based levels. Surely the Xbox could have handled doing such a simple backdrop as space. Also, the levels seem in some respects simpler than those in UT with few levels containing any places where you can stand safely and snipe or with coveted power-ups to find and vantage points to fight over, not to mention the occasional secret door to discover. There are also nowhere near as many deathmatch maps than in UT. However, with downloadable levels, characters and I assume weapons to come in the months ahead, Epic Games have a chance to put this right and I for one will be requesting my UT favourites be revamped and introduced as downloads for UC!

Certain weapons including the Sniper Rifle, Ripper and Redeemer have been taken away, which is almost unforgivable - you should never introduce a weapon then remove it in a sequel. The original Sniper Rifle in UT was much more discreet for sniping, the Ripper was so much fun firing razor sharp metal discs that bounce off the walls and the Redeemer was a short-range nuclear missile that you could guide around the level yourself, with the resulting explosion wiping out everyone nearby! I can understand why the Ripper and Redeemer were removed however as the Ripper's bouncing discs could cause a lot of slowdown and the Redeemer is perhaps too powerful a weapon to have available. Anyway, as painful as these losses were, I have managed to move on and begun to explore the potential of the new features and weapons on offer and the innovation of the link gun and T.A.G. rifle is excellent.

My final gripe is that you cannot change your character online without leaving the match, signing out of Xbox Live and then returning - by which time your space in the game may have been taken by someone else. Each level has a 15-30 second loading time too, which means to change characters takes a couple of minutes.

I've thought long and hard about whether to knock marks off UC purely because I feel it's lacking elements of its predecessor and I've decided that to do so would be unfair. The merits of this latest title should be judged alone and without comparison they are absolutely outstanding. Just please be advised - Unreal Championship has hidden depths you would never expect from a first person shooter. It is not initially accessible or enjoyable for everyone and it must be played for several long sessions before you really start to understand the game's true potential. It's only then that you begin to realise just what an astoundingly playable and addictive work of gaming genius this is!

Unreal Championship is without doubt the new king of multiplayer first person shooters on Xbox. Even though you might love Halo multiplayer, there is simply nothing that surpasses the experience of playing with 15 other people without lugging three huge TVs around to your mate's house for a session. You can banter and bark orders to the other players and it makes for a great experience. Unreal Championship has a vast range of graphically gorgeous levels, an awesome array of death-dealing weapons and enough strategic elements and depth to keep you coming back for more. As long as you can take the pace, this is a game that will get the adrenaline flowing like no other!

Reviewed by Geoff Holland for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).