Written by Jeff Buckland, 7/19/2004
Played on:
Windows
The Unreal series has enjoyed plenty of success over the last six or so years, and the "Tournament" games have been very popular for online play. Unreal Tournament 2003 was released in late 2003, and while it was somewhat successful, people felt it was missing something to really make it a classic. The core gameplay was adjusted a little too much for the dedicated UT fans' tastes, and the new game mode called Bombing Run never really took off.
Despite the relatively short development time of about a year and half, Epic and publisher Atari have really done a great job making a truly "epic" experience (pun intended) with Unreal Tournament 2004. It contains all of the game content from UT2003 and then kicks in plenty of new maps, models, and game modes. On top of all this, the game has some of the best mod support I've ever seen, both inside the box and from Epic themselves.
The Unreal engine has been presented in many iterations over the years, and it has certainly had its ups and downs. For example, the engine suffered from poor OpenGL performance (and no real working Direct3D support) for a while, meaning that owners of both nVidia and ATI video cards had to deal with some really iffy frame rates. The best example of this would be Deus Ex - which still doesn't run that well, even on today's fastest video cards. UT2003 first debuted a much-improved engine, and while the engine hasn't really changed much on the surface for UT2004, the frame rates do seem to be a bit more consistent.
The UT2004 engine does actually include many changes that have been implemented over the last year and a half, but those who aren't busy making mods will likely have trouble noticing. That's ok, though, as the engine works beautifully nevertheless. While we don't get any of the really fancy pixel shader effects seen in Far Cry or Prince of Persia: Sands of Time, the game still includes some great art and basic special effects - and it does an excellent job at maintaining consistent frame rates and supplying loads of tweakable options.
The inclusion of a well-supported Linux client and server shows that Epic still cares about this underdog operating system, and MacOS executables are also available. This is the kind of support many developers dream of supplying; the one major patch we've seen so far for the game did make several changes, but UT2004 still shipped with very few major bugs. It's a shining example of how to deliver a complex, multiplatform game with almost no real issues.
Epic has packed an absolute ton of options into UT2004, and it's all contained in a series of tabbed interface panels. Epic also supplied a console for the serious tweakers. Put it all together, and this is an absolute paradise for those who love fine-tuning their game.
The game's basic controls are pretty simple to learn, and only a few more keys are really needed for the more complex game modes. Vehicles in the new Onslaught mode also handle in an intuitive fashion - these weren't afterthoughts that were thrown in at the last minute.
Some of the game modes have slightly different interfaces based on the rules of what you're playing, and the internet-favorite Onslaught is probably the most complicated of them all. Still, the on-screen minimap works perfectly, and it only takes a little while to get the hang of how Onslaught works.
I also have to give credit to Epic for their new map and scripting editor. It's easier than ever to use, and I was able to screw around for an hour and actually build stuff that didn't look that bad. And since Epic has been running a million dollar contest (also sponsored by nVidia), there are plenty of mods that are being released as well. More on that later.
The Unreal Tournament games have always been a bit of a mishmash of styles. Some maps take place inside futuristic spaceships, some are large Egyptian-themed teamplay maps, while others are huge, open areas with rolling terrain and lots of vegetation. Still others are tight, well-balanced deathmatch maps reminiscent of classic Quake levels - no matter what it is, these maps almost always look great. Just about every map has a completely unique look, and the textures are unique from one to the next. You'll know it too once you complete the game's massive 6GB install - all those graphics have to go somewhere.
The game's character models vary greatly. You'll see Egyptian princes, robots, mercenaries, and even the classic Unreal villains the Skaarj. You'll notice that the overall theme of the weapons and characters is very sci-fi, but sometimes the maps will clash a bit. Still, the textures, characters, weapons, and special effects are excellent. The best part is that the frame rates are surprisingly good for all that detail.
Unreal Tournament 2004 is the most content-loaded first person shooter you'll find. Not only is there a pretty decent single player mode where you recruit a team, win money, and heal your injured teammates, but the bots work in every game mode (and fairly well too, I might add). Then there's the actual multiplayer - the bots make it interesting, but other players really make this game fun. The game ships with dozens upon dozens of maps, and then you can go download the Community Bonus Packs for dozens more of them. These maps aren't half-assed either, as they're all fully fleshed out and fairly well balanced.
