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Unreal Tournament: Game of the Year Edition for Windows
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Unreal Tournament 2004: The Bloodiest Sport in the Universe!
Written: Mar 28 '04 (Updated Apr 26 '04)
Product Rating:
Pros: Challenging fun, great variety of arenas and vehicles, simplified controls, not streamlined, multiplayerCons: Merciless violent (at full gore), not exactly educationalThe Bottom Line: Its morals are questionable but beyond that it's pure fun!
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theuerkorn's Full Review: Unreal Tournament: Game of the Year Edition for Wi...
Have you ever heard of a game before (or any product for that matter) with a 2004 in its name that actually released in 2004 too? Fans of UT2003 (which was released end of 2002) had to wait a long 18 months for this one. However, it was worth the wait and here is why ...
Quick Orientation:
Objective of the Game
Key Features
How does it play?
System Requirements
Summary
THE OBJECTIVE(s)
Speedball Brutal Deluxe 2 in order to find a comparable game. However, Unreal Tournament is everything the name implies, a tournament taken to the extreme. Here the main idea is to kill or double kill or be on a killing spree, either way it's fairly single minded in a sports-like arrangement gone berserk. The main objective is the same for all 10 game modes: Stay alive, kill and score. The only difference is how.
- Assault: Teams face-off to defend and attack fortified bases.
- Onslaught: Opposing teams are pitted against each other to capture and hold strategic points in order to attack and destroy the enemy power core. (Flying and driving machines take combatants to the frontline and gigantic mobile battle stations serve as a platform.
- Deathmatch: Players are pitted against each other in a balls-to-the-wall free-for-all. Anything goes. The one with the most kills wins. (Also available as Team Deathmatch)
- Capture The Flag: 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.
- Double Domination: 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.
- Bombing Run: The objective is to pick up the ball, deliver it to the enemy base and fire it through their goal.
- Mutant: The player who makes the first kill becomes the 'mutant' and is immediately fully equipped (incl. invisibility and berserk). The mutant's health can only be replenished by killing other players and is continuously decreasing. All other players are charged with hunting him down.
- Last Man Standing: Similar to the original Unreal Tournament. Players regenerate health when they kill 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.
- Invasion: Players band together to defend against waves of incoming monsters -- including many of the monsters from the original Unreal. Players cannot respawn and at least one player has makes it to the end of a wave alive.
KEY FEATURES
Novice Mode: makes the computer controlled bots in the game move slower and inflict less damage with their attacks. (Great for newbies!)
Hardcore Mode: Obviously the opposite from Novice, this mode is only for the pros -- all of the bots move like lightning -- dodging, jumping and inflicting A LOT more damage.
Radio Chatter: Commands can be given as a text message on screen and an pre-recorded audio sequences communicating your needs. You can hear your opponents' messages too (even if you're playing against bots 'cause bots are people, too).
Improved User Interface: By using a unique heads up display (HUD) for each game type (Deathmatch, Capture the Flag, Domination, and Assault), the game provides ALL the info needed to play effectively WITHOUT bombarding the player with excessive info.
UBrowser: Find a game on the Internet and jump into battle. The Ubrowser eliminates the need to download third-party server querying applications.
Spectator Cams: Gamers can enter a game and hop around to designated spectator cams to view the action on the level. The camera can be "attached" to one of the players in the level to view the action from their perspective.
HOW DOES IT PLAY?:
Manual: The manual looks good and provides lots of information about the setup, game modes and weapons as well as vehicles. There is not much that could be better.
Graphics: Since some maps have been carried over from UT2003, UT2004 looks familiar but with lots of tweaks and improved textures. It's mostly noticeable in very detailed models and textures as well as lots of objects when greater maps with vehicles etc. are loaded. It took me a little bit to notice the added reflection and overall render quality of the closest object - the partially displayed weapons. (It now includes reflections.) On my system, it plays very well with all options turned to maximum.
http://www.unrealtournament.com/ut2004/screenshots.php
Violence: This game is not M-rated for no reason. At Full Gore setting it's certainly nothing kids should play (that includes mentally unstable adults as well). In it's highest setting Gore is extreme. From enemies shouting "Die B**ch!" to disintegrated players with lots of blood and body parts. Sure, it can be turned off, but the objective of the game remains the same Kill and Survive (and kill some more).
Controls: Unreal Tournament 2004 is mostly a first person shooter with optional third person view in most vehicle modes. The keyboad/mouse controls are simple enough to get a quick start and advanced enough to do all kinds of little tricks (later). It follows standard PC conventions in first person view. Vehicle controls are new and easy to learn. Most of them allow first and third person view. Basically excellent, but it also feels a little inconsistent since some vehicles are steered where you look and others follow the keyboard (to allow to look around).
Vehicles: As one of the most significant improvements, vehicles come in great variety. Most of them accomodate only one and you are responsible for steering and firing. Two vehicles actually allow to pick up other team members (bots or human players) and divide tasks. For instance, in the Hellbender one only drives while the other takes care of the attack. Steering and controls vary between the vehicles. One is actually even unmanned and more or less a remote controlled weapon.
http://www.unrealtournament.com/ut2004/vehicles.php
Sound: Amazing! Great score, not as epic as Call of Duty, but still! I did notice little difference to UT2003 with exception that it indeed feels more refined. Nevertheless, background music is quite fitting and somewhat motivational. The intercom chatter quite believable and realistic. The quality of all effect sounds makes it easy to 'forget' that this is a virtual world. For some, the bone-crushing noise of being killed may be a little too much realism though.
Animation: Great, despite character animation feeling a little stiff, but at the pace of the game that's barely noticeable. Vehicles are incredibly detailed and quite nicely animated. However, the gras is beautiful but unlike in 'Chrome' still rigid and doesn't move. Same is true for the trees.
Weapons: Everything one needs to do the job. In most maps one starts of with 2 basic weapons (rifle) and picks up more powerful ones in the game. That can be a little tricky to find the right one before engaging in enemy fire. Variety ranges from sniper rifles to ion painter and rocket launchers. This 'standard' arsenal is greatly extended by turrets, on-vehicle weapons and a few more additions like mines and grenades. There is also a new selective anti-vehicle weapon AVRiL. Optional auto-aim and a new HUD make handling weapons a little bit easier.
http://www.unrealtournament.com/ut2004/weapons.php
Progress: Since this a collection of relatively short tournaments, an intermediate game safe is not provided and realistically not missed either. However, player statistics and won tournaments are saved automatically. But careful, once started the admission money is already deducted from your account and cannot be redeemed even if canceling the game.
Enemy AI: Virtual enemies have one goal and pursue that one with a vengeance. At no point did I have the feeling of a lame AI as in Halo, where one could take out an enemy and the one right next to 'him' would not even notice. UT2004 can be hyper sensitive.
Difficulty: This game is quick and, the Novice mode aside, somewhat hard to master if you never played UT before. Make sure to set the difficulty accordingly, a too high level may turn out to be frustrating hard.
Longevity: Since there is no particular streamlined story, UT2004 has tremendous replay value (similar to other sports games). The developer EPIC also is known to release additional maps at no charge and one new Onslaught map is already available for download. Add the multiplayer and you're set for long-lasting fun.
Locations: UT2004 contains all maps from UT2003 (incl. bonus maps) and then some which brings it to a total of 106 arenas (DeathMatch: 44, Assault: 6, BombingRun: 12, CaptureTheFlag: 23, DoubleDomination: 12, Onslaught: 9). The design of each venue is well laid out and refreshingly different between the arenas. There is barely anything repetitive and each world is very detailed with excellent vibrant textures. Most arenas contain of several levels and provide plenty opportunity for different style attacks (i.e. sniping or brute force charging)
http://www.unrealtournament.com/ut2004/maps.php
MultiPlayer: It allows playing with or against friends (or strangers) if you like. Both LAN and internet are supported. Best feature? You can communicate with your team mates via intercom. (The DVD version has a headset included.) I will update as I continue to explore this mode ...
SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS
UT2004 now requires DX9 and T&L hardware to handle the more detailed models and improved effects. In other words, same restrictions to compatible hardware as in Enter The Matrix , Tron2.0 , Midnight Club 2 , Need for Speed: Underground and Halo apply. If that's too steep for your system, take a look at XIII .
Minimum Requirements: Atari calls out a Intel Pentium 200MHz or AMD K6 200MHz as the minimum. I am sure that does not apply to the software T&L mode. The minimum memory requirements are 32MB RAM (64MB recommended), but again this is to run the game. Nobody said it will be pretty or quick. After installation of the 5.2GByte one still needs to have 300MB (605 recommended) of HD space available. A CD-ROM Drive or DVD-ROM Drive is required (copy protection needs the disc to be present to play). Beyond that there is nothing much the game needs: a DirectX 7.0 compatible sound card and of course one will need access to a network or the internet via TCP/IP (28.8K minimum speed) for multiplayer games.
OS is limited to Windows 98/Me/2000 and XP . Hardware requirements for XP and 2000 are slightly higher than their 'older' companions. However Windows95 users are not left out in the rain either and a software T&L/DX9 'emulation' is available. Not sure what kind of processor that requires and what the graphics looks like.
My system (2.4GHz P4, 1GB RAM, Radeon 9700 Pro, ATA133, WinXP) runs the game quite smoothly with video options set to 1280x960, 32bit, 4xAA, and all of the game's options put to maximum. This already amazed me about UT2003 and UT2004 does not feel any slower despite the increased requirements.
CD-ROM version which is identical to the DVD-ROM version from game perspective. The latter adds convenience of having one DVD instead of 6 CDs and it includes a headset for online play as well as tutorial DVD. However, since it's priced similar to the CD version it's kind of hard to come by right now.
ARE YOU READY?
Activision's Call Of Duty , another excellent shooter with a slightly different scope.
Halo was praised for and all that with an amazing performance on regular systems.
GAME HOMEPAGE
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