Online games seemed to have suffered a little lately both from originallity and quantity. Games such as Counterstrike, Quake 3, and the original Unreal Tournament started a real buzz for online gaming. Over the last few years this buzz has been shushed slightly in favour of single player action adventure games such as Splinter Cell. Unreal Tournament 2004 sets to bring back the fun to online gaming and be what Unreal Tournament 2003 should have been.

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The original Unreal Tournament game was superb. It was quick, playable, had some great modes of play and fantastic level design. It looked great too! Throughout the years a few versions have been released in an attempt to keep the fans happy with new features and better graphics. However the main fun element of the game seemed to have been lost for all out mayhem and sluggish graghics. Unreal Tournament 2004 has great expectations to become the greatest of all first person shooters.

Game Play

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.

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Overall the gameplay and features of Unreal Tournament feel and play similar to past versions of Unreal Tournament. The 2004 edition includes updated versions of past maps as well as a whole heap of new ones. New gameplay modes have been added and the graghics engine improved. The game now takes a whopping 5.2Gb of hard drive space. As such it comes as either a 6 CD edition or on DVD. Its nice to see the company choosing to release a DVD edition because DVD is so underused for games considering a lot of people now have DVD drives or writers.

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The Assault Mode has made a welcome return for the 2004 edition. In this mode 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. In addition to the usual CTF and deathmatch modes the 2004 edition introduces Onslaught. In Onslaught 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 you get to drive and fly a range of land-, air-, and space-based vehicles that add a new element to combat. Vehicles strangely resemble some of the vehicles used in Halo.

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The games features are pretty stunning. There are 95 maps to play on split over the 10 modes of play. Theres an impressive 45 new maps included for this 2004 edition ranging from Vast outdoor environments to deep space combat areas and tightly packed indoor techno-arenas. Unreal Tournament 2004 also introduces a surprising 32 new characters on four new teams. There are 17 weapons in total including Shield Gun,Assault Rifle,Minigun,Shock Rifle,Link Gun,Flak Cannon,Biorifle,Rocket Launcher,Lightning Gun,Ion Painter,Translocator,Redeemer,Ball Launcher along with the newly added Sniper Rifle,AVRiL,Grenade Launcher and Mine Layer.

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UT2004 is also possibly (correct me if it’s wrong) the first game to make use of a 64 bit processor. This is probably only of use to linux users at present as the 64 bit version of Windows is still in beta. The 64 bit version is includes in the box as is the Linux version. Also for those that purchased UT2003 there is a small rebate. This makes it worth buying UT2004 even if you have the previous edition.

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As in the 2003 edition Adrenaline pills can be collected which increases an adrenaline gauge. When the gauge reaches 100, you have the option to activate one of several special moves by tapping either the forward, back, strafe left or right keys four times in a specific order. The moves are very useful and include increasing your movement speed, rate of fire, regenerating your health and invisibility.

Brand New for UT2004 is the aptly named UnrealTV. UnrealTV is a proxy broadcast system allowing a huge numbers of spectators to watch a match live over the Internet. You may wonder why? Well how many times have you been playing an online FPS with spectators. Its supprising people do sometimes want to watch. Sometimes great tips and techniques can be picked up on by watching the very best of players.

Graphics

Although Unreal Tournament 2004 is visually stunning they are only marginally better than the 2003 edition. Although difficult to compare unless running side by side, the graphics do appear quicker and the game slightly smoother. The level of detail in the textures is amazing while still keeping inline with the fairly cartoon like style unreal fans should be familiar with.

The levels are very well designed and offer a huge range of styles ranging from huge expanses of beautiful landscapes to close confined corridors and rooms. Its nice to see the best maps from previous editions being included. Fans of the game will be able to join right into the action with a map they are already familiar with.

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While the minimum spec of a 1 GHz PC with 128 mb of ram can play UT2004 there’s not really much point. To really get the most out of the game and play it the way the developers made the game to be played you really need a fast 2Ghz or above with ideally 512mb Ram and one of the latest offerings from ATI or Nvidia. Interestingly the UT2004 includes a Pixomatic software renderer which can allow people with fairly high spec machines which don't have a 3D card to play at reasonably fast speeds.

Sound

Its doubtful that the sound for UT2004 has been improved upon a lot, however there is now a voice recognition system built in which allows you to give commands and talk to your team with the need to type. It also allows giving commands to bots. This is a great feature for those professional players and serious gamers as it means you won’t get killed anymore fumbling with the keyboard talking to your team mates.

Overall

Unreal Tournament 2004 is the ultimate in online gaming and offers single and multiplayers so much in terms of game play, modes and graphics. The new edition is the best version yet, but with all the new features added for this version what else is there? While UT2004 is superb fun the fast and franticness can be a little too much at times. Visually Unreal Tournament 2004 is unrivalled with its huge yet beautiful maps. The addition of OnSlaught is genius and makes it worth buying the game for that mode alone. With the addition of new weapons and a shed load of new maps this is a game everyone should own.