Product Description

Unreal Tournament 2004 is the next evolution of the first-person action game. The addition of new modes, mods and maps as well as the controllable land, air and space-based vehicles, means Unreal fans are getting an entirely new experience featuring devastating vehicular combat and wide-scale warfare.

The much heralded single-player oriented game type returns with all-out battles with land, space and air-based vehicles on the home worlds of various Unreal Tournament 2004 combatants. In one scenario, players will experience the adrenaline rush of space-based battle while attacking or defending a Skaarj mother ship. Another scenario takes place on Xan Kriegor's mechanical home world where players attack or defend a robot construction factory. There are plans for six assault scenarios in the game.

Unreal Tournament 2004 has a new multi-player-oriented combat game on custom-built large-scale maps, featuring awesome new weapons and land and air based vehicles. From the lethal bomber to the nefarious spider mines--players will work as teams to control map points and win the conflict. There are plans for the game to include nine onslaught maps.

The game will include 20 never-before-seen maps for the existing game types, featuring tons of new textures, new static meshes and new music. It's a field day for mod makers! Also included are new maps from Digital Extremes designed specifically to appeal to "hardcore" UT players.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #7532 in Computer & Video Games
• Brand: Atari
• Released on: 2004-03-19
• Platforms: Windows NT, Windows 98, Windows 2000, Windows Me, Windows XP

Customer Reviews

What UT2003 should have been
Having played the original Unreal Tournament almost solidly for three years, all offline against the game's wonderfully adept and flexible AI opponents, the 2003 version disappointed me. The look of the game was stunning, but the gameplay felt heavy, the weapons unbalanced, and the single player game was highly stylised, but exceptionally un-fulfilling and tortuous to play, with clunking, mindless team-mates and sharp-shooting but slow-moving opponents. Epic seem to have received the criticism well though, and despite UT2004 seeming to be a remake of last year's offering, the actual gameplay has been refined so well that it feels like a different game. The 'bug' of so-called "boost-dodging" (which gives unrivalled height and distance to jumps) has been removed - this move that took advantage of a loop-hole in the game physics gave an unfair bonus to those who knew about it, and left all the other players wondering how they'd cleared that huge pit when they themselves kept falling in each time. As such, the combat feels more grounded and human, as well as more even.

There is no doubting the pace of this game is phenomenal; bewildering, in fact, to the beginner. But the multitude of game modes, map styles and scenery is unparalleled. It comes at a price - the amount of hard drive space required is huge, and the hardware required to turn over the graphics at a decent speed will make you and your wallet wince, but the visual experience you get out of it really does make the jaw drop. Gameplay has been fine-tuned to be more even, and makes shoot outs last a little longer now - enough to be interesting and skill-dependent, but not too long to be an endless exchange of gun fire. The one-player mode will hold your interest, and makes you play many different game modes to succeed and climb the ladder to ultimate victory and a few pleasant pictures (not really reward enough, but a good ending is something hard to find in games these days).

A special mention must go to the game's Onslaught mode. Bringing in vehicles, bases, huge power nodes and rolling terrain, it does turn heads in spectacular fashion, and takes the focus away from on-foot combat for something different. It's very well created, and with enough people or bots on your team, can expand into a 45 minute battle to grind your opponents back to their own base and conquer the whole map. Clever stuff.

Unreal Tournament is more than a game - it's a living, breathing community of flak-heads who want to play with and against others at all hours of day and night. The online experience (as long as you have at least a 150k broadband connection) can be excellent when you can find the servers and players to fill out a good game, but a word to the wise: Don't even THINK about trying to play online until you've successfully mastered the game mode you intend to play against the PC, first. There are way too many outstanding players out there, and they take sick pleasure in dispensing repeated thrashings to new players. Get a solid grounding beforehand, or else you'll be put off for life when you go online and play against the egotists that swamp the internet servers.

Back to basics with UT2K4
I have to say, I wasn't overly impressed with Unreal Tournament 2003. The game seemed to be leaning more towards the Quake series, both in look and feel.

I'm pleased to report that Unreal Tournament 2004 reverses this trend completely, bringing the game back to the look and feel of the original UT which we know and love.

All of the gameplay greats are there, including (team) Deathmatch, Assault, Bombing Run and Domination and Capture the Flag, along with a few new gameplay modes.

By far the most impressive of these new modes is Onslaught, a team based strategy / kill everything in sight game along the lines of Domination, but with the addition of various vehicles to help. From highly maneuverable flying Raptors to heavily armed tanks, speedy light hover Mantas to Humvee style APCs, everyone is catered for. The vehicles are not only great for additional firepower and mowing down the opposition (literally), but also for transport across the sometimes epic sized maps.

A full on Onslaught match can last anything from 5 minutes to half an hour, depending on the team skills and how well they are matched. But not a minute is dull, there is always some clear and near objective. Absolutely frenetic fun!

Graphics and sound are, as always, great. Playing this game on a computer with 5.1 sound is highly recommended to take advantage of the directional sound effects. The music is also surprisingly good for a shoot 'em up game - it definitely adds to the overall atmosphere.

To sum up, if you loved the original UT, you'll love this. If you're not sure, grab the demo and try out the onslaught map ONS-Torlan. I guarantee you'll buy it afterwards :)

Probably the best title for GNU/ Linux operating systems
Having switched recently to Linux, I bought this game because of all the hype surrounding it and even more because it is one of the rare mega-hit titles available for GNU/Linux.
Linux installation shell script is on every UT 2004 DVD even when the label says it is only for Win2000/XP and the script (courtesy of Sierra programmers who made it in their own spare time as I believe) will launch easy to follow graphical installer.
It appears only that no phone technical support is provided to Linux users and that's why its not being advertised as Linux game.

The game is terrific, it works smoothly on 32 and 64/bit Linux boxes, the look and feel no different from MS Win or Mac OS-X versions, Internet connectivity to most popular game servers is flawless and I look forward to the sequel if there is to be one.