There have been many video games created over the last decade, but what does it take to be the very best?Great graphics, revolutionary game play, replay ability, learning curve, online playability, and pushing the envelope of the title-specific genre. Taking each category into consideration, there is one video game which takes the proverbial cake, and then cuts it in half and blows it away.Unreal Championship 2 for the original Xbox is the best video game ever created. There has been no competition to this title and it will be recognized by all who have truly played it as the top game.

                I stress the “truly” on the above statement because out of those who have tried this game, only a third will take the time to learn how amazing it is.  The learning curve is extremely large; therefore, the difference between achieving a novice rank and a masterful rank online is not determined by hours, but by days.  This is a major plus when evaluating this title because looking at games like Halo and Gears of War where a nine year old kid can become a professional player in a month, Unreal Championship 2 takes an experienced gamer at least half a year to breach that learning curve and become a master.  I have achieved this level of skill by playing online for countless hours upon countless days and I have enjoyed every minute of it.  When you reach the top like me, unlike Halo or GoW, there is no one who can touch you other than your masterful ranked peers.  This is because once you have truly mastered UC2, truly become one with your weapon choices and learned all their little advantages, you can easily take on a newcomer on any map and beat them ten to nothing without breaking a sweat.  And as an avid gamer, having played many games including Halo and GoW competitively, I know that this title is one of the very few that can boast this achievement.  This is because in both those titles anyone can beat anyone on any given day.  However, UC2 requires so much more skill to be better than someone that once you are better than someone you are better unconditionally until they reach your level.  That feeling of being legitimately better is one of the best you can get; Halo and GoW are good, but that feeling is one of the reasons why UC2 is great rather than good.

                However, one cannot become great online at a game when there is no online; that is where this game really delivers.  UC2 was made back when the use of Xbox Live was very limited, and this game pushed Lives’ capabilities to its limits.  It introduced the first polished online ranking system, had quick lag less connections which was unheard of back then, and the ability to see what your friends were doing and invite them into your game party.  These leaps forward in ease of connectivity and global connection were the first stepping stones to making Xbox live what it is today.  This great and visionary online competitive play gave the game a whole new dimension of playability which is a big part of why this game is the best.

                The great online connectivity can only be a success if the game can deliver good actual game play.  That is where Unreal Championship 2 skyrockets to the top of the charts.  It was the first, and to this date, the only game that combined 3^rd and 1^st person shooting with melee, the ability to switch on the fly, and the ability to deflect bullets.  This melee ability transcended traditional shooters by adding a new way to kill your enemy.  You could be almost dead, with a little bit of health left until death, and then pull off either an amazing shot or deflect your enemies shot back at them.  This made the playing field so fair because for the first time it gave the player a way to defend him/herself against oncoming bullets.  However, if you had your melee out you cannot shoot at the same time which further leveled the playing field.  And this new dimension was just the start.  They introduced power ups, character specific adrenaline techniques, the lock on ability and so much more.  The game play was the fastest I had ever experienced.  Characters blazed around the map and with the added ability to jump off walls, defy gravity, and bend physics which made for some pretty impressive battles.  Coupled with the revolutionary online abilities this game stands alone at the top of the gaming hierarchy.

                Yet as amazing as all this was, any gamer can tell you it would have all been for naught if the graphics were terrible.  In a time when technological advances are being made every day, these games are now expected to have great graphics and flashy visuals or else gamers just lose interest.  The creators of Unreal Championship 2 decided to take this one step further and give the games the graphics of not just the current generation, but of the next generation.  Having been made four years ago, if one was to look at it and compare it with the games of today there would be very little difference.  Looking back, at the time it was made, it seemed light-years away from what we were playing.  It was the first of its kind, using actual bitmap textures for the characters rather than cell shading.  This technique is still used in game development to this day.  A great game needs great graphics, but the best game had ground breaking graphics.

                All the above positives made for the greatest replay value any game has ever had.  When new games came out, one would find me still playing UC2, still trying to improve my skills.  I, as well as many others, knew we had the best game so why just settle for the newest game?  As I have said before, to become truly good at UC2 required days of practice, not hours.  You could choose between 12 playable characters plus ten downloadable characters.  These would all come with their own adrenaline abilities and different weight classes which directly affected speed, mobility and health.  There were also eight weapons, your melee weapon, and many power ups.  Thus, the replay value, one of the core aspects of a great game, was incredible giving just another reason why it was the best game ever created.

                Finally, to be the best game you need to push the envelope of the genre.  Unreal Championship 2 didn’t just push the envelope of a shooter game, it transcended it.  With the new melee features it gave us, the ability to use those and switch between guns while at the same time changing between 3^rd and 1^st person view on the fly, one could no longer call it just another shooter game.  Thus the new genre emerged, an unnamed and unparalleled genre which will most likely never be achieved by another game again.  While one will find it under the shooter genre in your local video game store, it is only because there is no category for its genre. 

                Therefore, since this game is so far ahead of all others past and present, it is the undisputed best game ever created.  It has all the greatest features that all games strive to achieve.  But not only is it revolutionary in all those aspects, it captures the true essence of what all games try to be: fun.

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