Unreal Tournament 2004 review

[Realm]

Well, no one has put up a formal review of Unreal Tournament 2004 so I thought I might do it.

Unreal Tournament 2004 is a great game. It improves nicely upon UT2003, which many viewed as a slight letdown. The graphics are excellent. This is a game centered around multiplayer, so to keep one’s ping low one will normally not be able to enjoy the full juicy-ness of the graphics but trust me, they are there. There is nothing really extravagant or groundbreaking about them, but they hold up their end of things.

Sound is very nice. From the booming voices of announcers, to the unmistakable sounds of each weapon and vehicle, to the kick-ass music playing in each level, the sound is very well done. The level sound is mostly fast-paced, exciting, guitar-heavy stuff that will have you fired up to get fragging!

The gameplay is everything you would expect from Epic. Fast, frenzied, over-the-top, Unreal Tournament keeps its original flavor while adding awesome new modes and a whole slew of vehicles. All the old favorite modes are back, including the much-missed Assault (which is polished to perfection), but the big news that makes UT2004 special is the new Onslaught mode. Onslaught is a mode set in huge outdoor arenas with “power nodes” connected to each other and eventually to each team’s “power core.” The two teams battle it out over the power nodes to try to “connect the dots” so to speak to the other team’s power core, which only then can be attacked. What makes Onslaught so special is the inclusion of some very well made vehicles. Some are pretty basic, such as the Goliath tank, while others are totally badass like the Scorpion buggy equipped with a “plasma ribbon gun” and huge shears which snap out from the sides on command to mow down any unfortunate pedestrians. All the vehicles’ physics feel very nice, save for the spacefighters which have absolutely horrid controls. (the spacefighters are only used in one Assault map though that I know of, which is a good thing) The vehicles look great, feel great, and fit in with the UT universe perfectly; it is nice to see studios improving on the concepts set forth in Tribes 2 and Halo.

Epic’s famous bots are back, and though they cannot match the fun level of real human competition, they are still some of the best bots in the business. The single-player campaign, while juiced up a little with team organization and negotiations, is still just a series of matches in each respective category. Not that that’s bad, it’s still fun in fact, but if you are looking for great characters or storyline you had better look somewhere else. This is purely about run-n-gun; he with the best aim wins, and I could not be happier. Epic, you guys have done it again, thanks!

Overall score = A+ (Masterful, an FPS must-have and a new LAN-party standard)