Building on the foundations of its forerunners, Unreal Tournament 2004 expells and defines intense action in every way.
But following its sucess, Epic took the series into the 21st century with a sequel resembeling more of a sports game. Unreal Tournament 2003 was undeniably an awesome game, sporting some great new features and it also ran on some seriously powerful tech. But it feelt somewhat underwhelming when compared to its brilliant predecessor.
But it´s flaws would quickly be adressed, because only two years later, Epic brought to life, what many consider to be a homerun.
Unreal Tournament 2004 is not only on par with similiar games for its time, but mixes old and new, along with the best features of the original games while ejecting a wide array of new features that has since taken the series to unexepected levels.
In Unreal Tournament 2004, players can now duke it out old school and new with a wide variety of different game modes, across over 100 maps. And its in this area where the third installment in the UT franchise really sticks out.
Mixing familiar variants of Deathmatch in tight close quarters areas, along with large scale battles that puts a huge emphesis on cooperation than ever before.
Toss in vehicles, a handful of new additions to the already extensive arsenal, and sprawling wide open areas where it all takes place. Onslaught may very well be the new bad boy, as it blends focused and intense action, along with enourmous conflicts with a taste of Battlefield.
Here, two opposing teams vie for control over strategically distributed power nodes on the map. Assuming dominance over these in a specific order, will only reveal your next goal. Which is to eliminate the enemies powercore that keeps their homebase operational. As long as a pivotal node is under their control, a force field will shield their powercore and absorb any damage caused.
The only way to swing the battle to your favour, is to work together and utilize any counter measures at your disposal. Troops on foot arent without their own offensive capabillites. Any vehicle can easly fall to prey to one of the few new additions to the game´s arsenal.
But the joy of vehicles isnt to vaporize them of course. Anything from Goliath tanks, to Raptor fighters, Scorpion buggy´s (that carries rear, retracable blades) to even Humvee´s can be operated, and all of them are extremely satisfying to use (thanks to impressive vehicle physics) but none of them unbalance the game.
Apart from the guns that can sabotage them, all of the vehicles posess different lethal plus sides aswell as drawbacks to prevent them from overwhelming confrontations. The Goliath tank for example, may lack in agillity but carries powerful firepower and alot of armor. However its speed limitations makes it easy for a quick dodging enemy armed with a rocket launcher to shorten the tanks lifespan. Also, the mobile Manta land vehicle can zip around the map fast and can also splatter enemies. It comes at a cost though, as its primary attack is rather weak along with the fact that things that can move fast, cant withstand alot of damage.
Onslaught offers matches for up 32 players, but as remarkable as this gametype is alone, there is one other worthy of a mention that are sure to please every single Unreal Tournament fan.
The infamous Assault mode from the first Unreal Tournament makes an epic return. And while there are only six maps to acompany the mode, these are by far the most impressive maps in the entire package. Each "Attack or Defend" scenario echoes with backstory and carefully scripted events, along with extensive key objectives that pushes the frontline forward.
In one scenario for example. The attacking team must conduct a raid on an entire convoy, and extend bridges to repel boarders on the next train, open sereveral hatches and finally infiltrate the final train and extract a huge warhead missile onto an escape truck.
Another example in the Junkyard escape. Where the attackers must get an humvee operational and escort it to an extraction point. Or my personal favorite, the organic and gigantic Mothership assault. Where both teams gets to man a space fighter and the attackers must infilitrate the mothership and make their way to its core and destroy the ship all together. Mixing aerial and on foot combat.
An interesting thing to point out is, like before this mode has a "Stopwatch" counter to it. In every assault map, the attackers have a time limit to accomplish their objectives (usually around 20 minutes) and if they manage to do so quickly, the amount of time it took them will then be the time neccessary to defend, which as a result will put a huge pressure on the now attacking team as the two sides switches role after a round is over.
The defenders can of course man stationary turrets to fend off the reckless attacks of the attacker, and must act accordingly and desperatly hold them off till the timer runs out.
Both of these modes have a lasting effect on the gameplay, mainly because now everything is now more open but still intense and fast paced. Mix these two modes along with Deathmatch (along with its team counterpart), Capture The Flag, Double Domination, Bombing Run, Last Man Standing and a Co-operative stand off mode titled Invasion, then there is something here for absolutely everyone.
But the initial pillar of the gameplay lies with in the combat. Players still move superfast, can pull off huge jumps and quick dodge but it is the weapons that really brings things to life. There is around 13 weapons each with alternate firing methods. The basic assault rifle can be dual wielded and even fires grenades. The Shock Rifle also returns and can shoot straight lines of pure plasma lasers, and can also send out a huge plasma projectile that can be detonated by shooting it. The Link gun can melt enemies to bones and can even repair vehicles and heal nodes. The infamous rocket launcher also makes a comeback and can load up to three rockets and then spread them out to dish out damage against multiple enemies or launch them in a tight concentrated spiral thats especially effective against vehicles with weaker armor.
There are tons of more weapons, with different adaptive strategies and when you combine the slick fast paced action, pulling of those split second reaction kills and pumping lead into enemies while bouncing of walls of leaping left and right to avoid incoming fire, the action just gets alot more satisfying and intense.
Another returning gameplay element is the adrenaline mechanic. Killing enemies or finding adrenaline orbs will juice up a meter and once your adrenaline is full, pulling off a hidden button input will grant you crazy abillites, such as health regeneration or increased speed.
Adapting and knowing when to use weapons is key, and you can quickly fiffle through your inventory to give you the most appropriate weapon to use during the current on going confrontation.
All of these maps and modes can be played both online or with brilliant bots that still remains as the best in the buisness. These artificial adversaries or teammates arent bland cannon fodder, these guys really fight effiecently and work together and can use any vehicle smartly. You can customize the bots with different difficulty settings, and on the easier levels they are a little more dumbed down than usual but if you wrap them up to Godlike, they quickly become just as formiddable and challenging as any real human opponent, making the offline portion of Unreal Tournament 2004 an absolute blast.
The multiplayer also features friendslist, clansupport and matchmaking and matches can be mixed with bots. So if you and a couple of friends want to work together to take down elite oriented virtual players, feel free.
The game changing mutators also returns, and there is an incredibly
extensive list of modifications and map packs. And if youre getting bored of community content, simply create your own using the complex Unreal editor.
There is simply just a ton of high quality content loaded into the game.
While the Instant Action option allows you to pick any desired mode and map and then tweak the game settings to your liking. There is a Singleplayer mode, but it feels like a missed oppritounity. Here you basically proceed through ladders of matches, and earn credits to hire teammates and bet on matches. Its not terrible at all, but a story to connect it and some exclusive maps would have definatly helped. I mean, why bother playing through a series of matches when you can setup your own maplists with different options?
From a presentation standpoint, UTK4 looks outstanding. It features rock solid frame rate, convincning physics along with impressive enviorments and locals. Voice acting is also sharp, with great and memorable announcer voices and fitting, pulsing soundtrack that sets the tone very well, no complaints there.
So what can be said? Unreal Tournament 2004 builds on the foundation of its forerunners, while it expells and defines intense action in every possible way.