UT brings forth another beautifully made masterpiece full of high style shooting and excellent enemy AI. Just Plain Fun.
And now here I am in the UT2004 world. This time experience is my friend. UT2004 offered a game play that I never seen in any of my online 'career'. It offered assistance for the weak. It's like a good friend who's happy to hold your hand in that time of need. It's not just another FPS, it's an experience you'll never forget.
So what made UT2004 different? It's all about the diverse game play options.
Let me start and say UT2004 has a whopping ten different styles of game play. Defensive, offensive, team based, objective based, fragging, driving, flying, drowning, getting burnt; it has it all. Game play like Death Match (and all its variants) and domination will test your fragging ability whilst Capture the Flag, Bombing Run and Assault will test whether your 'friends' will spill the beans about 'tactics and team play' and the grand daddy of them all Onslaught rolls all of the above into one sweet package.
It comes with a health warning that if you decide to jump into the online mode. It's highly suggested to try the single player mode first. The single player has definitely vamped up since previous UTs that now its sports a real tournament. There's an entrance fee, winnings and able to out buy players. Good stuff for that 'accountant' in you. Of course you need to win every style of game play to meet the ultimate champion Xan the Man. You can even opt to practice the maps using the 'instant action' mode. Anything goes here; bot levels, gaming styles, add/delete vehicles and anything else that you can imagine.
It's in this 'instant action' mode is where you take your first baby steps. The bots are so clever that you think they are human players. I actually tested this out with a couple of mates of mine to see if they can tell who the bots are. Some stated that my character was a bot (I'm not sure what exactly that means however we were playing on 'master' level therefore I take that as a compliment). Just on the offside, there was a survey made by the developers of Unreal to see how many players actually played online and offline. Amazingly it was 50/50. However it gets better that you can enter the game as a 'spectator'. This is vital for your success as you can see what the other players are doing. Another words, to those who constantly tell you that 'tactics' is all you need to hear, you can actually see these 'tactics' (or better still record them) in full motion. Know thy enemy!
However, going online is where the action is. Funny to mention that another person I know always brags on about online play and how it's superior to offline as you have the opportunity to 'broadcast your victory'. Well, it was because of my offline experience I can display my 'trophies' online. Did I see him recently...nope.
The Unreal Engine is a force to be recognised. Being around since the days of Quake (and actually toppled the Quake legacy) it had a chance to mature. Well known for its optimisation, you can play UT2004 with just about any decent PC and still looks mighty fine. Graphically you are not going to see better. Only Far Cry and Half Life 2 can topple this.