Unreal Tournament 2004

I have played this game for more than 200 hours, counting how long I spent playing it and its mods. This does not include the time I spent playing around with the editor. Buy Unreal Tournament 2004 now if you don't already own it. It will bide the time until Unreal Tournament 2007 is released. Bring on 2007.

Let me say this, I'm a big critic. Unreal Tournament 2004 has received a lot of hype in the PC community. If only I could have been the person to see the game for what it really is, and announce to the world that it is over-hyped and poorly done. Fortunately, it doesn't even deserve a nod in that direction. Unreal Tournament is a great monument in the FPS (First Person Shooter) Realm. I've never had so much fun playing a game online (except for maybe Battlefield 1942, which I played obsessively at one time). Everything about it reeks of polish, thought and understanding of what we Sci-Fi FPS players want. Big guns, loads of maps and game types, good kick-in-the-teeth weapon power, a huge collection of skins to play with, and much more are abound in this superbly crafted game.

Unreal Tournament has two options for play, single and multiplayer. As opposed to some games where multiplayer or single player is the main focus, UT2K4 does a good job of making both a viable option.

First let's examine single player. I have seen few bots as smart and good yet balanced as the UT ones. The novice bots can be a challenge to first time FPS players, but are headshot pickings for veterans. As you move up the scale the bots get progressively more difficult and aren't too big of a jump for even noobs to tackle. The harder jumps occur between skilled to adept, and inhuman to godlike. The levels also don't go by the simple novice-medium-hard scale with a possible impossible difficulty. No, UT has a whopping 8 bot levels. And the easy ones are easy, the medium ones are good for warm-ups, and the hard ones are Whoa-Nelly hard for big time FPS veterans.

UT contains several modes, most of them are very, fun but maybe one is just plain annoying. First the fun ones. UT contains the simple Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, and Capture the flag. You know, the usual. But in addition there are an additional 5 modes. The best of these are Last Man Standing, Assault, and Onslaught.

Last Man Standing is my personal favorite; where players start off with 100 health and all the weapons with a set number of lives. There are no health or ammo pickups, so the game is completely fair and eliminates players counting down until the time when the Super Shield or Double Damage appears, and gives everyone an equal chance.

Assault is a game where there is an attacking team and a defending team. The attackers are trying to complete a series of objectives (open the door, plant the explosives) while the defenders try to stop them. It's that simple. Or is it? Assault encourages teamwork and working together to complete a goal, regardless of points. A well organized team will always run over a team of heroes, regardless of how heroic the heroes are. Though I was surprised that very few servers run this mode, because it is easily one of the best for noobs to hang around. (By the way, the best server for this is "Dallas is a dry Lobster").

The last of the great modes is onslaught, where two teams get vehicles and try to establish links to another team's base. You kind of have to see it, then you get it because it's hard to explain, but surprisingly simple. Basically it's a combination of Team Deathmatch and Assault with vehicles, while both teams attack and defend. This mode easily has the most servers running it.

The only mode I don't like particularly is Bombing Run, simply because I only play it on single player and the bots are very incompetent. But if you join a high profile clan, expect to be playing this, as it is even more team oriented than Capture the Flag and Assault combined.

Now on to multiplayer. UT multiplayer is definitely good and recommended to everyone. But there is one command you simply MUST learn. It is the "block chat from certain person" button. UT supports microphones over their servers, so you can talk to and co-ordinate teammates. Unfortunately, unless you're in a clan, no one uses it for that. Most people are happy to pump gangsta rap, lame jokes, and other such rubbish into them instead, and blocking them is a MUST as the mic dulls all other sounds.

Other than the mic problem UT has very competent multiplay. The balancing is good, and I've never had any problem with finding a good server. I must advise though that you practice in single player first. Even as a veteran I get my butt handed to me on Deathmatch and Last Man Standing servers. These places are where the hardcore hang out and deal death left and right. Other modes though are more noob friendly.

The best things I've saved for last... The weapons. The weapons are by no means modern, and they are very futuristic, but they have a certain feel that makes then feel real. Not only that, but no one weapon is in all cases another. The sniper rifle limits your sight and you can pop them with a flak cannon (shotgun) from behind. Then the flack cannon gets taken out by a constantly moving minigun, which gets blown up by shock combos and rocket launchers from medium range. Each gun also has a good feedback feel. Every explosion seems powerful, each beam and flying bullet seems fit to be in a contest of death.

Unreal Tournament is a great game and is recommended to everyone.

Buy Unreal Tournament 2004 if you have a computer that can run it...

I have being playing Unreal Tournament 2004 online for about 3 weeks now and it is mint!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Unreal Tournament 2004 is an absolutely brilliant game, the best I've played in years.

I always play 'onslaught' mode online now which is brilliant as you can scream around dozens of maps (official and unofficial) in tanks, manta hover crafts, raptor jet fighters, scorpion attack jeeps, goliath tanks and the mighty leviathan battle tank. You can engage in close range combat or pick off your opponents from half a mile away with the lightening gun (guess what THAT does!).

Absolutely brilliant game and I just can't stop playing it and new maps are being made every week.

Not only is Unreal Tournament 2004 one of the best FPS games on the market, but it has the best value. For less that 40 pounds you get a plethora of new maps including maps from the previous installment, plus new races and characters but perhaps the most intrigueing is the addition of awesome vehicles for one of the many new game modes. If you wanna play online multiplayer games with great graphics, weapons and the ability to build your own maps, then you gotta get UT2004.