Silicon Fusion >> Reviews >> Unreal Tournament 2004

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Review:

29th March 2004:
Unreal Tournament 2004
Five years in the making, one false start and now what might be the new Atari's finest hour is released. Has it crushed all opponents to be the best?
Posted by Chris Snook - PC - UK and Europe

"In the year 2291, in an attempt to control violence between deep-space miners, the New Earth Government legalized no-holds-barred fighting. Liandri Mining Corporation working with the NEG established a series of leagues and bloody public exhibitions. The fights popularity grew with every tourney. Soon Liandri found out that the public matches were their most profitable enterprise. The professional league was formed. A cabal of the most violent and skilled warriors in known space, selected to fight in a grand tournament. Now it is 2341, fifty years have passed since the founding of Deathmatch. Profits from the tournament number in the hundreds of billions. You have been selected to fight in the Professional League by the Liandri Rules Board. Your strength and brutality are legendary. The time has come to prove you are the best. To crush your enemies. To win the tournament".

Unreal Tournament, still one of the very few games still sitting on my hard drive format after reformat. Now the second sequel to that heritage has come fragging and screaming out into the light of the world.

And it is a corker.

Unreal Tournament 2004, feels and at times looks like the original UT and has managed to mix together elements from both previous games (UT and UT 2003) in such a way that all the nifty bits from them are there and most of the niggling, points from the latter have been ground away into a nice gleaming whole.

UT2K4 comes in two variants a nice shiny DVD version and a whopping six CD version and weighs in at a hefty five GB to install, all of which is put to good use with a fifth of that taken up by maps for the various modes, a hundred and eighteen in total. The manual is as expected crisp and clearly presented with maybe a tad less detail on the weaponry than before.

Oddly enough there are a fair few of these weapons to deliver your message of death and pain to anyone in the vicinity. Including old favourites like the Redeemer warhead and the returned sniper rifle to new kids on the block, the Ion Painter and Target Painter both of which have the capacity to deliver phenomenal amounts of damage to any thing that is unluckily enough to be hit. The latter calling in a bombing strike by the Phoenix bomber, one of the new vehicles in the game.

Which brings us to one of the major additions to this version. Vehicle to vehicle combat. Epic and Digital Extremes have managed to cram in nine different ways to hurt your enemies from the comfort of your own armoured vehicle, ranging from Hummers through to air superiority fighters and space-fighters, all of which are useable in the Onslaught mode of play. There are some seriously cute touches, including on some of the plates your character name, unique handling characteristics and new announcements - one of which Roadkill is fairly explanatory. There is nothing quite as satisfying as running over an enemy in your tank.

Onslaught is one of the new modes that have been introduced into the game and it is by far and away the most frenetic of all. A simple premise - build-up power nodes and free the way to attack your enemy's power core. All under fire whilst they are doing likewise, at times there are power nodes constantly changing sides as each side tries to destroy the others connections. Bombing run is another nice variant, play a game of basketball and blow away your mates as they try to get the 'ball'. Assault also makes a welcome return and like everything it now is very, slickly presented, with a briefing to you to explain where all the objectives are and in which order they should be completed. Also available are Mutant, Double Domination, Invasion, Last Man Standing, Capture the Flag, Team Deathmatch and the classic, Deathmatch.

Character wise there is a phenomenal choice to pick from, including mystery characters that appear as a big ? in the selection process, one gripe is that you cannot customise all of the model, I liked being able to alter the face of the model but that is a small gripe.

UT2K4 looks to have learned the lessons from UT2K3. Everything is polished, the graphics look damn fine, with shiny water effects, are the tip of the iceberg. Ice, snow, foliage is all rendered smoothly and accurately as is the physics. Vehicles have momentum and take a lot to steer accurately and you will be crashing them more often than not when playing. Keep an eye out under low grav for when you pull a headshot on someone.

Sound too is spot on, with spot effects working, the weapons making satisfying noises as you remove the health from your opponents. Nowt quite like a minigun to perk up your eardrums. The music is also suitably hardcore but appropriate ranging from the traditional theme to more eerie tunes to industrial strength, well industrial tunes. The end tune however is a wonderful piece that caps the lot. Majestic.

Gameplay is nigh on perfect , Unreal Tournament 2004 is so much like it's original predecessor that you wonder whether last years effort was a beta release for this one that somehow snuck out. You loose yourself to the game, and the adrenaline is real and not some kind of pick up on screen and the universe shrinks to 'just one more frag'. A wonderful feeling. Bot AI has also been up-ramped, they are faster, smarter and depending on setting use tactics. It is a little scary watching two bots perform a pincer movement. The controls are crisp and easy to use for newbies and familar to veterans, a nice balance here. All adds to the touch and feel of the game

A feeling bolstered by the inclusion of Online Voicechat, so you can in real-time communicate with team-mates as you continue to battle, a nice filtering of server types so that each game type has its own listing of servers, so no wading through pages of mixed types trying to find the one Bombing Run game you want to play. Always a bonus.

There are a few downsides, the huge size of the game, which honestly is starting to reflect the general trends of modern titles, at times the sheer choice can be a problem. With levels, bots, mutators, characters and modes, the new player may become overwhelmed by it all. There is one more minor point, one which I am sure may seem picky in these days of broadband internet and that is that UT2K4 is heavily aimed at the online gamer, it is the reson d'etre of the game and for those few unconnected souls the single player tournament mode may not be enough.

Over all this is a fine game, it does what it set out to do, which is stake its claim as the best FPS of the year and should stand up well to the onslaught (pun intended) of Half-Life two and Halo 2. As the Clint Eastwood alike announcer would say M-m-m-m-onster kill!

Chris Snook

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Review Summary:

The spiritual, if not actual successor to the original Unreal Tournament that manages to capture the feel and look of its predecessor, with everything sparkling and fitting together neatly into a solid, whole package. There is even an upgraded version of the original Facing Worlds map. What more could a sniper want? Could only be a let down to those without an internet connection.

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Unreal Tournament 2004
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