Tag Archives: 2002

Unreal Championship

A remake/port of Unreal Tournament 2003 for the original Xbox, and one of the first games to use Xbox Live.

A remake of Unreal Tournament 2003 for the original Xbox, and one of the first games to use Xbox Live. It can be considered a console adaption of Unreal Tournament, which it shares a lot of maps with.

Sadly this is one of the games that is trapped on the original Xbox, it was not made backward compatible with the Xbox 360 or the Xbox One, despite its sequel being supported. Perhaps this is deliberate since Unreal Tournament 2003 isn’t available on Steam, but the original and 2004 are, are Epic ashamed of these games?

Game Modes

Deathmatch: Standard deathwatch action, either team-based gameplay (two teams fighting each other, Red Vs Blue) or a free for all
Capture the Flag: Very similar to the PC original, you have to capture the opposing team’s flag three times (more or less, depending on the game settings) and return it back to base. If both teams have the opposing team’s flag, then no teams can score until the opposing team’s flag has been returned, which can be done by killing the flag carrier and picking up the flag.
Double Domination: Similar to capturing the flag, here you and your team have to capture two points for 10 seconds in order to score a point for your team. Kind of like a king-of-the-hill mode. Once either team reaches a predetermined score, the game is over. This is one of the games does that is better played online rather than offline since the bots suck at defending the captured base.
Bombing Run: Basically a reverse capture the flag, but kind of like football. Here you have to take control of the ball (Spawns in the middle of the map) and then fire it into the opponent’s goal. When you take control of the ball, expect to be target #1 by the opponent team. A nice side effect is the ball will replenish your health, slowly.
Survival: 1 vs 1, whoever gets the most kills wins, really deathmatch but with only two players.

Characters

There is a distinct story between the different characters, but this is only referenced in the characters biography’s, there is very few cut scenes in the game involving characters, aside from the opening with Brock and Lauren. Characters here have their own statistics, although many share the same voice lines, i.e human males use the same voice as each other, but the Aliens have their own, each with male/female versions. It’s not like fighting games like Tekken where each character has their own fighting style, more so they have unique statistics for their team.

  • Gen Mo’Kai: Alien looking species who take part in the tournaments, seem to be very agile but have weak strength
  • Automatons: A bunch of robots built by the Liandri corporation
  • Mercenaries: Regular humans, fairly typical stats for each character, ideal for newcomers to the game
  • Juggernauts: Big muvvafuckers, the strongest race that can take the most damage but are slow and the least agile characters in the game
  • Anubans: Look like humans but dress like they’re from Egypt, bit more agile than humans but are very high jumpers and acquire adrenaline more quickly
  • Nightmare: A bunch of weird and scary looking but have generally good stats. Supposedly their appearance is a result of the different experiments that have been done to them

Many characters would appear in Unreal Tournament 2003 and 2004.

Multiplayer – Online Play

As one of the first Xbox Live titles, Unreal Championship was a popular title that was played online and the game made full use of the Xbox Live features. Until Microsoft shut down the original Xbox Live in mid 2010.
On the flip side you can sill play the game online using the system link features, which was Microsoft terms for LAN play where multiple Xbox’s are connected to the same network. This can be done either by connecting a crossover ethernet cable from one Xbox to another or by connecting both Xbox’s to a router using a standard ethernet cable
xLink Kai can be used to play online by using the system link features to play games over the internet, this requires the xbox to be connected to a PC which will emulate an Xbox LAN network

Left: Score display screen, Right: Hidden third person view, avaliable by using a custom save file

DLC

Additional maps were released on Xbox Live that could be purchased and downloaded from around May 2003. These maps could then be played online or in instant action mode. These maps include:

  • AquaMortis: This area features a open ocean area that contains a shark, who will kill once a player falls in
  • Inferno: Hell themed map
  • Leviathan B: SciFi arena themed map
  • Otaros Run: Capture the Flag map, A large-ish map set in the forest, similar to Tokara forest in UT2003
Installed DLC, which uses a different format

These maps are installed in the TDATA directory and can be used for all profiles on the Xbox. I’m not sure if custom maps can be installed and played this way since they are in a different format, would be good if custom maps could be played like the PC version. As far as I know, you cannot use UT2003 maps on Unreal Championship.

More information on Xbox DLC

Weapons

Left: View from the translocator camera, and your typical Xbox Live Gamertag, Right: The lightning gun

  • Shield Gun: The weapon you will only use when you are out of ammo and have no pickups in sight, alt-fire fires a shield that can protect you from limited damage but can only take so much damage.
  • Assault Rifle: One of the weapons you start with, does basic damage and is really the gun you only use until you can pick up another. Alt-fire shoots out a grenade that explodes shortly after being shit.
  • Mini-gun: A chain gun or sorts, ideal for spraying bullets at multiple enemies. Has a slight charge time of around a second.
  • Flak Cannon: The GOAT, fires a bunch of small projectiles which disperse quickly. Best used in close combat as it almost functions as a shotgun
  • Lighting Gun: A sniper rifle of sorts, shoots out a lightning bolt. Alt fire can be used to zoom into an opponent.
  • Rocket Launcher: Fires a rocket, alt-fire will lock onto a target
  • Translocator: Not really a weapon but more of a utility, allows you to fire a beacon which you can use to teleport to where the beacon had landed, useful for teleporting to hard to reach areas but you cannot translocate when carrying a flog. Attempting to do so will cause the flag to be dropped, but it can still be picked up by a teammate or returned back to base.

Adrenaline

Throughout playing the game and killing opponents or by picking up adrenaline pills, you will acquire adrenaline which can be used to apply power ups by quickly entering a button combination whilst playing:

Regeneration – Press down four times quickly – Regenerates health to twice the staring health, and gives up to 150 shield points
Berserk: Press up three times quickly – Increases damage inflicted to opponents, and reduced the damage taken by the player
Invisibility: Press Right twice, then Left twice – Makes your character invisible to other players, not much use on instant action / campaign as bots have been reported to still attack the player
Agility: Press Down twice, then Up – Increases your characters running and jumping ability

Early Alpha

A build of Unreal Championship was leaked in 2011 which was an early alpha version but was compiled and running on PC (Windows). There are quite a few changes compared to the actual release, with many maps being completely different.

The menu interface is different, with it using a planet-like interface for the character selection screen, here you can see the actual3D models, complete with animations compared to the 2D portraits in the final release.

Some geometry errors when playing on more modern systems, this game would have been developed and tested on DirectX 8 compatible hardware, and would have used Nvidia based hardware like the original Xbox used.

In the menu, Up/Down is used to select the map, whilst left/right is used to select the game mode.

There is no settings section to customize the game, but the ini file can be edited to change the game rules, such as the amount of kills needed to win (1000 by default)

Some sound effects come from the original Unreal Tournament, notably the respawn sound.

To exit the game, bring up the console by pressing tab and then type ‘exit’
There is no pause menu, but pressing F1 will bring up the score/players.

The game can be played using a keyboard, but the controls are centered around a console control. Weapons can be selected using the number keys (1-9), the mouse wheel can’t be used to select a weapon
F9 – Take a bitmap screenshot
F10 – Adjust Gamma
F11 – Adjust Brightness
F12 – Adjust Contrast
The Numpad number keys will spawn a weapon, and the regular number keys can be used to directly select a weapon.

A vehicle can be spawned by pressing H, which can be used to travel through the map quickly, very similar to the hoverboard in Unreal Tournament 3.

A third-person view mode can be activated by pressing F4, however it’s very buggy, and the weapon aiming is buggy.

Sky Interactive – Part 1

A look at Sky’s interactive services offered in 2002, back when interactive TV was a thing

Also can’t mention Sky interactive without the Red button dude, who’s sole purpose was to promote Sky interactive services by pressing your red button, even though that only worked on a Sky channel.

sky guide interactive

Interactive Menu

sky gamestar

Sky Gamestar

Sky’s interactive game service

sky gamestar cartoon network

Sky Gamestar – Cartoon Network

A dedicated section of gamestar with games based on Cartoon Network shows

sky interactive dominos pizza

Domino’s Pizza

At one time you could order Pizza through your Sky Digibox

sky active 2003

Sky Active

sky active 2001

Sky Active

The Classifieds and info section, for local jobs and marketplace

sky cinema listings

Cinema Listings

View and book local listings, this only worked with Odeon cinemas, which was useless because there were no Odeon cinemas in my area.

sky active sky+ domino's pizza

Adverts

Sky used to advertise their services and competitions whilst interactive screens were loading

Lovetomeet

A dating service that relied on the internal modem

sky interactive hsbc

HSBC

Before internet banking there was Interactive TV banking, again I only saw HSBC and LLoyds TSB being supported, other banks were not on the service

sky movies

Sky Movies

Exclusive to the Sky Movie channels, shows local cinema listings and to purchase DVD’s, a nice feature of this service was you could see behind the scenes clips from moves.

Sky active mobile

Your Mobile

Download ringtones, logos and custom voicemail, back when ringtones were polyphonic (think Nokia 3210, Ericsson T28s)

Sky active shopping

Sky Active: Shopping

Home shopping was considered to be a main feature of interactive TV, since customers could see the items themselves. Sky allowed a range of retailers to have presence on interactive, and even had their own storefront, SkyBuy

Sky marketplace

Marketplace

Some sort of eBay/Gumtree service, customers could buy and sell locally

Sky News Active

Sky News Active

Activated by the red button, a very useful service where you can browse news headlines, view ‘Active Channels’ which were small channels dedicated to certain subjects or headline coverage. These could also be tuned in using the Other Channels feature, bypassing the service

Sky Movies Active

Sky Movies Active

This is where you could see the behind the scenes stuff from movies, similar to bonus scenes on DVD’s

Sky Winzone

Sky Winzone

Sky Active 2002

Sky Active

Another view of the main Sky Active home screen

Interactive today

Sadly Sky axed most of their interactive services, so here is the interactive menu that you are left with

Does it work? Well…

It seems the only OpenTV interactive TV services available is BBC Red Button and the S4C language changer, none of which use the modem/return path. I’m not sure if the services offered on Sky Q are the same, I believe it’s mostly Netflix/Prime type of applications that are video on demand services.

The Sims Xbox 2002

Fun with The Sims – Console Version – Part 2

Last month I looked at the console release of The Sims in depth, mainly studying the game files and the format they are saved in.

One type of file that took my interest was the ngh files, specifically the story, chall and default.ngh files. I know these had some bearing on how the game stored the default neighbourhoods.

The Sims Xbox
The level 3 house
The Sims Xbox
Party Girls household in the level 5 house

The story and chall/challenge files were essentially customized neighbourhood’s, even to an extent we were able to extract and load them on a standard PC copy of the game, albeit with some workarounds but the lots and to some extent, sims were mostly playable, minus some missing objects that were exclusive to the console version.

I wonder what would happen if we swapped these files around, like if we tricked the game into loading the story neighbourhood in play the sims mode, in theory it should allow us to play the story mode sims and their respective lots in a sandbox style mode, along with full customization. What happened if we added the challenge/multiplayer lots into the mix?

The Sims Xbox, Roomies
The Roomies

To do this we need access to a modified console, since we will be modifying the games data files, and its easier if the game is stored on the Xbox hard drive rather than having to compile / burn a disc image.

File List

Story.nghDefault files for ‘Get a Life’ mode
Chall.nghDefault files for the Bonus multiplayer modes
Default.nghDefault neighborhood for the ‘Play the Sims’ mode

Getting Started

For this I used the Xbox version of the game, purely due to the fact it is running a soft modded dashboard with FTP access, which makes it easier to manipulate the files without having to rebuild iso images. Before we start. Ensure you have backed up your games files, specifically the ngh files that we will be swapping around.

To to this we simply rename the ngh files to the one we want to trick the game to load, so to create a sandbox neighborhood with story lots and sims we simply rename story.ngh to default.ngh. We might have to change the original default.ngh to default2.ngh to prevent file conflicts.

Loading Story lots in Play the Sims mode

Possible – Works well and all story mode sims appear without any issues. The level 4 house does exist and appears in the map screen but cannot be selected since this lot is not accessible directly from the game – the lot appears on 4 Sim Avenue which was disabled by the game quite late in development, I’m not sure if they’re is a way to access the lot with cheats or debug actions. It does appear for a short second before moving away to the next lot.

The Sims Xbox menu
Unoccupied families, some debug sims appear here

Some sims are duplicated (Dudley/Mimi Langrabb) and some test sims exist such as Jane House. In the xbox version there is a sim called DJ Tooter who never appears in the actual game, and seems to be slightly corrupted as is thumbnail uses an image from the Pc version.

The Sims Xbox Create a Family
This surprised me, the games CAS is normally limited to 4 sims per family, but here we have up to 8 sims without any issues
The Sims XBox create a sim
Editing pre-made sims causes them to lose their custom thumbnails

All of the above sims and lots can be moved in and played without any restrictions. No issues with saving or loading lots.

Loading Story lots in Challenge mode

Varies a lot, some lots work but you cannot complete any objectives. Some lots don’t load correctly

Loading Challenge lots in Play the sims mode

Possible – outcome is the same as when we imported the files into the PC version, only this time we have access to all objects and sims looks the way they are intended instead of the default face/skins. Interesting is some families have more than 4 sims, in fact one family has 8 sims, yet the game runs fine although switching between them is far from ideal since you have to spawn the button multiple times to cycle though the sims. Normally the game limit’s you to a max of 4 controllable sims per lot. Some sims here are copies of the story mode sims, with some differences with the personality points. There are a lot of unoccupied sims, which serve as the NPC’s for these mode’s.

The Sims xbox original
You can see the a house on 4 Sim Avenue, which is not normally accessible from the game

Not all lots are playable, one lot appears (The Frat House) in the neighbourhood view but we cannot access it despite there being a family that is occupied in the lot. They don’t have a telephone so you are unable to call or invite them round but they do attend party’s and will walk by the lot occasionally. Other lots don’t appear on the screen, because there are only space for 6 lots and this mode has 8. We are missing one of the Handyman/maid lots which exists in the game but we cannot make it appear since they are mapped to houses 08 and 09 which do not show up in game, the console neighbourhood only holds up to 6 lots.

Loading Challenge lots in Get A Life mode

This one works somewhat, the game tried to load the Dream House at the start of the game, but loads the Maid’s house instead, and we are unable to complete any of the objectives needed to progress through the level the game also ends after a minute and quits back to the main menu screen.

On the Gamecube version though the dolphin emulator, if we use the level skip debug command, we can load the first level, however sadly we hit another road block where we get endless dialogue boxes from MOM. The script gets stuck in an endless loop since the sim in question does not spawn on the lot. Unfortunately we are unable to continue past this point, even with the debug commands.

Loading Sandbox/Play the Sims lots in Challenge mode

Only some lots load, many load a blank lot with no sims. Sadly we are not able to complete any of the challenge mode, and some lots load to a blank lot with the game stuck at 3x Speed, since there are no sims on that lot and the build and buy modes are disabled in this mode.

Loading Sandbox Play the Sims lots in Get A Life mode

Not much luck with this one, game crashes when trying to load the dream mansion lot. Possibly because this hood does not have enough sims to populate, or the lot does not exist.

Downloads

Xbox Premade Save Files

Works best on a modded xbox with an FTP supported dashboard,

There are two files, one for the Story mode sims and the other for the Challenge mode sims. Both neighborhoods have all playable families and lots with a couple being inaccessible due to limitations with the ‘Play the Sims’ mode of the game

Xbox: copy to E:/UDATA/4541002F/

If your Xbox is not modified you need to use software that can write to FATX volumes, along with a supported USB drive and a XBOX to USB cable or Action Replay. You will then need to use the Xbox dashboard to transfer from the memory unit back onto the hard drive.

Download Link:

https://app.box.com/s/qxdhk0ivy6uivypnxn3hrgybz0qyv7ul

Can the same be done on The Sims Bustin Out?

Probably Not.

The NGH files look to be embedded into one of the many arc files, which is a customized format used by the game. We can extract the game files using the same QuickBMS script, however I have yet to come across a NGH file. It’s possible Bustin Out uses its own structure that makes it incompatible with the format that the PC and console versions use.

If you look at the Bustin Out lots, they seem to look similar to the first console release in terms of build mode tools, but some lots have custom backdrops, like Tinsel Bluffs having a city/mountain backdrop and Casa Calente having a seaside backdrop. The original console version however had a standard stone wall surrounded by green grass, in style with the neighborhood theme.

The sims themselves however may be compatible, they both have the same personality system, and the create a sim items are mostly the same in terms of customization.

To be frank with the Sims Bustin out, as much as I liked the game, the free-play mode was disappointing compared to the previous since console installment. With only 3 Freeplay lots there isn’t much room for a proper sandbox style game which limits what you can do. Also EA had designed 5 careers that were exclusive to Free Play mode

I can’t understand why the other Bustin out premade sims were not fully playable, whilst you could control them you they were unable to progress through their careers, or where you able to marry or move them out or switch them to a different career. I understand that those sims are tied to some goals but surly if you have completed all goals you should be able to unlock the ability for proper control of these sims, since they are no longer needed to fulfil your sims goals. Some sims were not controllable at all (Dudley/Mimi Landgrabb, Bella and Charity if your sim was a male) It seems like EA wanted to focus on the story mode of the game rather than the sandbox as to not distract from the PC version of the game, which had it’s seventh expansion pack around the time of Bustin Out’s release, as-well as the upcoming Sims 2.

See it in action

The Sims – Story mode sims in Freeplay mode – YouTube