If you like fast-paced shooters in tons of different arenas under insane conditions, this is for you.
Coming back from its absence from UT2003, the Assault gametype has returned. For the new guys, Assault matches are played as a pair of rounds with two teams. Each team will take turns attacking and defending certain objectives. The team who scores more rounds or scores faster wins. For those attacking, the attackers must complete the objectives before time runs out, or the defending team gets a point. For the defenders, they must prevent the attackers from achieving their goal until time runs out, or the attackers get a point. After one round, the teams swap roles.
A whole new gametype, called Onslaught, is a large-scale match. The idea behind Onslaught is that there are two PowerCores, one for each team, and a network of PowerNodes connecting them. Each team must build a line of PowerNodes in a connect-the-dot fashion to the enemy PowerCore, and destroy it. Most Onslaught maps are large, so vehicles have been introduced as both a means of getting around, and a whole new form of combat. The Link Gun is an invaluable weapon in Onslaught, not only serving as a means of killing others, but you can use the alternate fire to repair or charge PowerNodes, as well as vehicles. You can even fire your Link Gun beam at a team mate to give his or her Link Gun a power boost. There are a plethora of vehicles to traverse the battlefront on, ranging from a one-man hover bike, called the Manta, to an enormous five-man rolling fortress, called the Leviathan, capable of deploying a giant cannon which will strike fear into even the most hardened Tournament players.
You will still be able to play the classic gametypes such as DeathMatch, Team DeathMatch, Double Domination, and Capture the Flag. As in the Unreal Tournament style, you can expect to see remakes of some classic maps, such as the island-asteroid “Face-Classic” used for Capture the Flag games. Also see the same good old shooting irons that you used to best your opponents before, like the Shock Rifle, Redeemer, and Bio Rifle. Same old characters as well, so you’ll be able to maintain your glory.
There is a single player game as well, where you must recruit a team and fight your way to the top of four tournament ladders: Team DeathMatch, Capture the Flag, Double Domination, and Assault.
Go online with Unreal Tournament 2004, along with an online stat-tracking system so people can see how well you play, and you’ll still be able to play all of the gametypes you see in the Instant Action.
When UT2004 came out, there were a small number of special edition copies which offered a second DVD with Unreal Ed tutorials on it as well as Maya 6 tutorials, so people could learn to create their own maps, weapons, player skins and other mods to the game. Since then, there has been an enormous amount of new player-made content for UT2004, most of which are new maps. Recently, a new pack for UT2004 was released; featuring some new maps and player skins, and is free to download.
Unreal Tournament 2004 has been a lot of fun since spring of 2004, and still is. Most of the raves are driven by fan-created content, and they will most likely continue to churn out great additions to the game for a while to come.