User Rating: 9.6 | Unreal Tournament 2004 (DVD Version) PC
Unreal Tournament is the third installment in what has become the benchmark for the online FPS genre. This latest chapter brings more innovations to the table than ever before, making this installment the deepest in the series. UT2K4 is a gameplay monster. It caries over half a dozen modes of play, all of which are excellent modes in their own right. The single player ladder campaign involves most of them, and the rest are available in online play modes. Choose from classics such as Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, and Capture the Flag, or turn it up a notch with the intense Bombing Run, Double Domination, Last Man Standing, Mutant, Invasion, Assault, or Onslaught. All of the modes are fast paced, well balanced, and a lot of fun. The final two modes, Onslaught and Assault, showcase vehicles, a newcomer to the Unreal Tournament series. They have been implemented seamlessly into the game, and afford a new element of play without taking infantry out of the game. The vehicles include flyers, tanks and buggies, as well as the multi-turreted Leviathan. A couple of the vehicles can be manned by multiple players, so your buddy can drive while you blast the competition. One of the best features of Unreal Tournament is the unique weapon design, and UT2K4 continues the tradition with even more innovative weapons. In addition to the current load out, players are now also equipped with the deadly Anvil anti-armor missile launcher, and the Spider Mines; anti-personnel mines that home in on their target! The Bot AI in UT2K4 is second to none. Both enemies and teammates present a constant challenge, and will actively employ different tactics and challenge you. I have frequently mistaken bots for real players online, and you can actually mix the two for a very enjoyable experience. Unreal's Graphics continue to lead the pack, and UT2K4 is beautiful. The level design is amazing, featuring a huge diversity of maps from forests, cities, space stations, castles and industrial plants. The new vehicles all look amazing, as pilots can be seen through canopies, and players names are actually stenciled onto the license plates! Even the game menu is polished, with big fonts, colorful graphics, and an ease of navigation which is heavily missed in other games. Sound is a perfect 10. UT2K4 has some of the best player sounds, weapon effects, and musical soundtracks out today. Combined with in game voice support with positional audio is a text-to-speech mode which officially makes this a next generation game. When your teammate behind you and to the left says something, you hear it behind you and to the left... wow. This level of immersion only adds to the amazing explosions, rumbling tank treads, and com-chatter insults that mark this game as exceptional. My only minor gripe with this game is slight, but important enough to lower the score in my book. The single player is just not what it could be, and hasn't evolved since the first game in the series. The team management feature is something I was looking forward to, and it feels hopelessly tacked on. I kept on hoping for some kind of stat increase or special mission that my team would be sent on, but to no avail. You basically meat grind through to the end, although Unreal's amazing diversity of gameplay still makes this a good time. I took the value down a notch for this, since even the most die hard player will eventually only look at UT2K4 as a multi-player game. All in all, UT2K4 is the best shooter you can currently own on your PC. Any fan of the series or genre must own this game.
