Game Info:

Category : Action
Publisher : Atari
Developer : Epic Games/Digital Extremes
Release : 03/04/2004
MSRP (US): $39.99
ESRB: Mature

Official Site

Minimum Requirements:

System: 1 GHz or faster
OS: Windows 98/ME/2K/XP
RAM: 128 MB RAM
Video: 32 MB RAM DirectX®/Direct3D compatible video accelerator card
Hard Drive Space: 5500 MB
DirectX: DirectX 9.0

Background/Summary:

It's the year 2362. The most anticipated Tournament ever is about to take place, dwarfing the spectacle and drama of previous events. The finest competitors ever assembled prepare to lay waste to their opponents and claim the Tournament Trophy for themselves. The Tournament 2362 has a cast of characters unequaled in its 25 year history.

Following the Unreal Tournament 2003 teams and storyline Epic has expanded the team rosters with a few new bots, and the return of the former UT series champion Xan and his team of godlike robot bots. The single player mode draws heavily on these teams and the back story of each bot, but Tournament Championship competition is still the mainstay of single player mode.

Gameplay:

Unreal Tournament 2004 is still multiple styles of game mode wrapped up in a single/multiplayer game package. Here’s the break down straight from Epic’s mouth on game modes (with some comments from yours truly):

Deathmatch/Team Deathmatch
(The classics just never fail to entertain)
Players are pitted against each other in a balls-to-the-wall free-for-all. Anything goes. The one with the most kills wins. Or for Team, join your teammates in the quest for battlefield supremacy. The team that kills the most enemy players is judged the winner.

Capture The Flag
(Again too classic to miss out, with new optional teleport with Flag feature)
Each level has two team flags. In order to score, one team must penetrate the opposing team's defenses, 'Capture the Flag' and return it to their home team's flag. If the flag carrier is killed, the flag drops to the ground for anyone to pick up. If your team's flag is taken, it must be returned before your team can take the opposing team's flag.

Last Man Standing
(The classic IronMan competition)
This is similar to the Last Man Standing mode in the original Unreal Tournament. Players regenerate health when they frag an opponent. If a player stands in one place for too long, they will be revealed to other players as a camper and their location will appear on all opponent's displays.

Double Domination
(A new twist on classic Domination, this one is great for hearing the announcer, lots of last second saves and team domination quotes!)
Each level has 2 Domination Points. In order to score, you must 'capture' each Control Point (by running over it) and keep them in your team's possession for 10 seconds. After scoring, the Control Points reset to neutral and will become available to Dominate again after another 10 seconds.

Bombing Run
(My personal favorite to hate, ball carrier regens health but has no weapons, bot teams tend to be a serious challenge on this mode!)
Each level has one ball in the middle of the play field. The objective is to pick up the ball, deliver it to the enemy base and fire it through their goal. You must also defend your own goal to prevent the enemy from scoring. The ball is dropped when a player is killed and can then be picked up by anyone on either team.

Invasion
(Fun for team/solo warm-ups as each wave gets progressively harder)
In this game type, players band together to defend against waves of incoming monsters -- including many of the monsters from the original Unreal. Players cannot respawn if they die during a wave, but as long as one player makes it to the end of a wave alive, everyone respawns for the next wave.

Mutant
(Remember ‘smear-the-queer’ back in school? Now you can do it with weaponry! Fun mode for single and multi-play)
The player who makes the first frag becomes the mutant and is immediately equipped with all weapons, extra ammo, invisibility, agility and berserk. However, the mutant's health slowly decreases and can only be replenished by fragging other players. Once there is a "mutant," all other players are charged with hunting him down. Points are scored only by the mutant when they frag other players. As an optional twist, the player with the lowest score becomes the BottomFeeder -- he can frag other players who are not the mutant and receive points. As soon as his score isn't the lowest, a new player becomes the BottomFeeder.

Assault (Redesigned in UT2004)
(Another classic returns, map builders have done well in giving us new battlefields to rage across and the new scripting makes bots a lot tougher)
Assault mode returns! Redesigned for UT2004, this fan-favorite mode sees teams face-off to defend and attack fortified bases, from fast-moving trains, barreling across an arid alien desert to a Skaarj mother ship, poised to attack the human home world.

Onslaught (New in UT2004)
(One of my personal favorites…and by far the most popular new mode on the Multiplayer servers the vehicles add a new dimension to UT combat!!)
Onslaught mode takes team combat to the next level! Opposing teams are pitted against each other to capture and hold strategic points in order to attack and destroy the enemy power core. Taking place in massive outdoor environments, here is where vehicular combat comes into its own. Flying and driving machines take combatants to the frontline and gigantic mobile battle stations serve as a platform from which to launch devastating attacks.

Unreal Tournament definitely offers two different styles for playing, one is for those who enjoy a single player FPS and ‘finishing’ a game, for those folks UT2004 offers up…

Single Player Mode

The Unreal Tournament as of year 2362. To start you must qualify yourself to compete in the Tournament in a series of DeathMatch events. Always good to brush up on the basics, and it’s good to see some of the new maps and adjust to the new performance tweaks in the game engine. Following qualifying, just like 2003, you next have to build a team for Tournament play and then defeat them in a DeathMatch event to earn leadership rights.

Once your team is together and in, the Tournament continues in 4 different game mode events series. First is Double Domination, win 3 maps to unlock the next game mode. Second is Capture The Flag, win 2 maps to unlock the next game mode. Third is Bombing Run, win 2 maps to unlock the final game mode, Assault.

Each game mode consists of multiple maps and you will face off against the storyline bot teams as your competition. Added for 2004 are challenge matches where you may compete for another teams player (to be added to your own teams roster) or other teams can challenge you for rights to a player on your roster. Challenges can also be issued for MONEY!

Yes, in the updated Single Player mode UT2004 introduces a monetary system, you pay for entry into each competition, and earn credits for each win. Your team bots must be ‘paid’ and can suffer medical injuries requiring payment in combat. You can also modify challenge matches and change Tournament match maps buy paying extra credits. As well as make challenges of your own or up the money pool on a challenge match.

Now for the MultiPlayer break down. GET IN AND GET SOME FRAGS! The Unreal Master server list is full of both Atari backed ‘official’ servers as well a huge number of user created servers. Epic has upped the ante for multiplayer frag-festing fun action. With announcer vocals, new weapons (the return of the classic Sniper Rifle!) and the above mentioned new game modes UT2004 has already put itself ahead of it’s best competitor… UT2003! Now add in a tighter written network code allowing more players per map and playable conditions even on dial-up. A slew of new maps (thanks to both the UT community and even more work from those guys at Epic). Finally Atari has released a dedicated server installation package for FREE for the Wintel platform as well as a ‘demo’ server to the Linux community (demo = demo maps, not retail) making up of course 75% or more of the servers now available to both Demo and Retail UT2004 players.

Graphics/Sound:

Arguably the new graphics engine was the ‘why’ behind UT2004’s release so close on the heals of UT2003. Again the Epic team stepped up and tightened the code to really leverage DirectX, and most gamers can expect the UT2004 engine to noticeably out perform the UT2003 engine (I see it on my game PC). Couple all this with the fellows at Digital Extremes bringing new enhanced particle effects and teaming up on the ragdoll physics and you have a definite champion in the graphics arena. Map environments and object texturing are all excellent, and the weather to landscape shadowing is outstanding. Weapons are all crisp and the effects unique across the board great job DE guys. So to all the 9800/5900 owners out there, flip on all the options and this game will not fail to deliver on the eye-candy.

The sound engine is great quality, digital effects reproduce flawlessly not a hiss or pop to be found. The Epic team also brought back the original UT/UT:GOTY announcer (my personal favorite) gave players the option of original or 2003 announcers, added some great new announcer commentary as well as the usual slew of smack talking taunts from the player. Add in over 50 different music tracks and UT2004 will keep you thoroughly audibly entertained all in a great surround environment (excellent placement on my 5.1’s).

A new audio addition for UT2004 is the built in voice chat system. Epic listens to the gamers out there and brought in this often use clan tool to gamers everywhere. Enabled by default for push to talk setup you won’t hear every breathe on the servers, but for those with mic’s voice chat is built in game, team divided and ready to rock. Game sounds cut volume down during transmissions so you can hear the vocals more clearly and the compression engine is tight enough to keep ping times low while not losing too much sound quality.

Wrap-Up:

Available in DVD or 6 CD formats Unreal Tournament 2004 is a worthy addition to any FPS gamers library. The content included is excellent and the game has full backwards support for UT2003 mods and maps. The community and support behind the game line is truly gigantic. Shortly after release, dozens of quality user built maps and endless custom skins have hit the fan sites new for UT2004.

Epic has again shown their mastery of the FPS genre in consistently bringing a high energy, quality product to the market, with an obvious care and design based on feedback from and for the gaming community.

Sean"The Demon " Driskel - May 2004