In conjunction with the launch of Xbox Live, the broadband service for the Xbox, Atari has shipped the hotly anticipated game, Unreal Championship to retail stores this week. Exclusively for Xbox, Unreal Championship is the latest addition to the award-winning and top-selling Unreal franchise, known for its intense first-person action, fine-tuned gameplay and awe-inspiring graphics.

NVida today released some new Unreal II - The Awakening screens, showing off the Unreal sequel on the GeForce FX technology. "Unreal II - The Awakening is the sequel to the original Unreal and takes place in the same fictional universe - but the main player character and the locations are different than those found in the first game." Read more for the impressive shots!

ATI Technologies Inc. today announced that the grand-prize winner of the upcoming ATI - VE3D Unreal Tournament 2003 Deathmatch Challenge - sponsored by ATI and VE3D.com - will receive the award-winning RADEON 9700 PRO (valued at US $399) and US $1,000 in cash.

The online tournament, beginning December 12, 2002, will pit contestants against each other in one-on-one elimination games of Unreal Tournament 2003. The sole survivor will win the grand-prize while three runners-up will each receive a RADEON 9700 PRO board, the first in the world to support Microsoft's DirectX 9.0. Over 4,000 players are expected, with thousands of anticipated matches.

Registration for the ATI - VE3D Unreal Tournament 2003 Deathmatch Challenge is taking place now until December 12, 2002. Registration and further details can be found HERE!

Epic Games just released source files for the recent version 2136 of Unreal Tournament 2003. This zip file contains all of the .UC source files + debug .U packages for the official 2136 patch, as well as an updated version of the UDebugger. Go get it at 3DGamers (9.6MB)!

Shutter the windows and stock up on caffeine! Atari's Unreal Tournament 2003 for personal computers, one of the most anticipated video game sequels ever, invaded the charts as the #1 PC product, excluding expansion packs, for two weeks following shipment on September 28. Developed by Digital Extremes and Epic Games, the game is the follow-up to the 1999 smash-hit Unreal Tournament, which won "Game of the Year" honors and became the multiplayer game of choice for amateur and professional gamers alike.

Epic has just released a new patch for their recently released FPS, Unreal Tournament 2003. The upgrades brings your retail copy to v2136 and has a massive slew of fixes, tweaks and upgrades. Read more for a detailed fix list links where to grab it...

Noticed on FileShack there's been some UT2003 goodies today. First off, the Unreal Tournament 2003 stand-alone server for Windows and Linux have been released. You will need to get a cd-key from Epic to run it. And also the original Unreal Tournament 2003 3DStudio MAX character source files are being offered on PolyCount. They were created using 3D Studio Max R4 with Character Studio so you'll need that in order to play around with them.

GameKult tossed up a bunch of new screens from the upcoming XBox title, Unreal Championship. "release date Q4/2002" Go check them out!

Mark Rein 'Vice President' at Epic Games Inc. posted up following information about Unreal Tournament 2003 on the official forum:

Infogrames told us that some stores should have copies as early as today. The chains I recall are: BestBuy, EB, Target, Wal*Mart and Gamestop - there might be others but I'm not at my own computer right now so I can't verify the list. From what I understand they can sell it the minute they get it. There is no "street date" for this game - at least not in the USA. I have no idea why they would hold it back in the UK or Europe - that would certainly NOT be our preference.

The latest addition to the Unreal universe will immerse console gamers in the adrenaline packed first-person frag-fest that has revolutionized PC gaming. Designed specifically for Xbox and the Xbox controller, Digital Extremes has incorporated console-specific features such as joypad-activated special moves, double jump, power-ups, unlockable features and more to keep gamers glued to their couches with knuckle-whitened tension.

Well, we are all eagerly awaiting the Unreal Tournament 2003 release due on the shelves in a matter of days. We had the chance to check out a late beta build and so the time is right to knock up a preview article. Needless to say that we had lots of fun and this is the proof!

Atari today announced that the trial version of Unreal Tournament 2003, one of the most anticipated PC games of 2002, has already become one of the most popular game demo debuts of all time with nearly 1.2 million downloads between its debut last Friday night, September 13 and Wednesday, September 18. The demo is available at unrealtournament2003.com.

CVG today got the rumors confirmed with Infogrames about that Unreal II has been pushed back to a first quarter 2003 release.. Read the full scoop here!

Mark Rein from Epic Games just released following good news that Unreal Tournament is now GOLD!! Here is the clip:

Just before 5AM Eastern Standard Time this morning we shipped the release version of Unreal Tournament 2003 to manufacturing. It should be in production later today and in stores before the end of the month. We want to thank everyone on the forum for all of the valuable feedback. In the week since we shipped the demo we worked pretty much non-stop to squash a lot of bugs and incorporate some of the great feedback we got from players all around the world.

The Unreal Tournament 2003 demo patch is now available for download (3MB), and it fixes a number of items, including Voodoo 3 and Matrox G400 support. Find out more and click here for a list of mirror sites!

Mark Reign from Epic games Inc. today made a interesting post on the official UT2003 forum about the upcoming demo. Here it is:

Demo should be ready this week

Hi Folks,

The demo is nearly ready to go. It should be out sometime within the next few days. Keep watching this space (the stickies) for an announcement. When it's ready we'll just be releasing it randomly to a few major sites so that hopefully it will spread like wildfire and everyone will be able to get it from their favorite games site. There won't be any special exclusives or anything like that. We want everyone to be enjoying it the minute it goes live.

More details to follow, keep watching this space.

Update: The forum is now updated with following news from Mark Reign.. I'm expecting the demo to be out sooner than 5 days but things have a way of cropping up and biting us in the ass so you never know. It could be as early as tomorrow or as late as the weekend but I'm pretty confident that it's this week.

The people over at Unreal Admin Page tossed up an interview with Epic Games Joe "DrSin" Wilcox about some UT2003 Server only questions. Here is a clip:

Shaggy: Can we have an in game graphical interface to set admin/game options fitted as standard - I find the command line stuff too slow and easily screwed up so it would be nice if I didn't have to wait around for ages until some nice person wrote a mod for it.?

DrSin: Yes, but probably not until the first patch. Michel Comeau (DarkByte) is doing it once all the default in-game menus are done. He also wrote the new web admin system so I would expect it to follow the functionality fairly closely.

Unrealik from gamezone.cz let us know that the German site pcgames.de tossed up a bunch of new Unreal Tournament 2003 screens and also a new exclusive video from the game. Take me there!

The official UT2003 forum over at Infogrames is today updated with some more information about the upcoming demo. Here is a clip:

• Level Designers are reviewing the AI in their maps to make sure that the bots know how to Shieldgun jump, Translocate, Double Jump, and Low Grav jump to EVERY available spot in their maps.
  
• The single player campaign is being tested and finalized.
  
• The Redeemer is in and fully functional and is very close to being bug free.
  
• All levels are being finalized for ragdoll (low poly) collision.
  
• Extras are being put in. Select a mesh for your player avatar and the voice is now hooked up to announce it. Kill someone with a redeemer and their body goes flying. Sound matches up with the redeemer explosion properly. Mutators are being tested in random combinations with each other. Instagib with zoom and translocator and QUAD jump is quite a kick!

NVIDIA Corporation the worldwide leader in visual processing solutions, announced today that its Graphics Processing Units (GPUs) are powering the hottest games of the year at the Electronic and Computer Trade Show (ECTS), being held at Earls Court in London from August 29-31. NVIDIA's stand will serve as the only place to experience some of this year's most eagerly-awaited PC games in action, including: Unreal Tournament 2003, Tomb Raider: Angel of Darkness, Delta Force: Blackhawk Down, Breed, Battlefield 1942 and Tron 2.0, all of which take advantage of the NVIDIA GeForce4 family of GPUs to deliver stunning 3D worlds and [BDR1]the most life-like images ever before seen in PC gaming.

The long awaited follow-up to Epic Games' groundbreaking single player opus, Unreal, Unreal 2: The Awakening incorporates the same absorbing story-driven gameplay, cunningly ferocious enemies and nail biting tension that made the original title the top choice for first person action fans worldwide. Developed by Infogrames' Legend Entertainment, Unreal 2: The Awakening uses next-generation Unreal technology created by the masterminds at Epic to deliver intense life-or-death action in the most breathtaking scenery ever displayed in a computer game. Check out the fact sheet below, included are some screens that you might seen allready!

Built by Digital Extremes, part of the team responsible for Unreal and Unreal Tournament, Unreal Championship is introducing groundbreaking multiplayer gameplay to the Xbox video game system from Microsoft. The latest addition to the Unreal universe will immerse console gamers in the adrenaline packed first-person frag-fest that has revolutionized PC gaming. Designed specifically for Xbox and the Xbox controller, Digital Extremes has incorporated console-specific features such as joypad-activated special moves, double jump, power-ups, unlockable features and more to keep gamers glued to their couches with knuckle-whitened tension.. 2 Shots below including a fact sheet!

Unreal II is the sequel to the original Unreal and takes place in the same fictional universe - but the main player character and the locations are different than those found in the first game. Today we updated our archive with some more screens. Unreal II: The Awakening is developed by Legend Entertainment.

Infogrames today tossed up this announcement about testing Unreal Championship for Xbox on the official Unreal Championship forum:

Can't wait for Unreal Championship? An avid Xbox gamer? If you can get to the Santa Monica area on Thursday, August 8th between the hours of 5:30 and 8:30pm and are over the age of 17, we're looking for you! We will be testing the latest build of Unreal Championship for Xbox and would like to get your feedback on the good, the bad and....well...whatever! A moderated play session will be followed by a simple Q&A and then an open floor of discussion. We'll be video taping proceedings for our own reference. If you're interested click here!

The Official IRC Chat that took place on August 2nd in #ut2003 on irc.enterthegame.com is now available to check out! Here is a clip from the chat:

Have any outside companies expressed interest in porting UT2K3 over to Mac or linux, or is that something Epic might look at doing?

MarkRein[Epic] We've already ported UT2003 over to Linux on the server side. There will likely be a client but no promises. There are no specific plans yet for Mac.