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Written by [t0rc]
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Everyone's heard about the tournament or at least something like it.
The game concept has been around for a long time in the gaming industry
but only a select few have set new standards and expectations for
future generations. Even less have integrated completely new concepts
that have been fun and addictive. Can Unreal Tournament live up to all
the hype it's been given? You'd better believe it.
Let's start out with the requirements set forth by the Atari UT2K4 page and can also be found on the game box.
1 Player, Multiplayer via LAN and/or Internet connection
Operating System: Windows? 98/Me/2000/XP
Processor: Pentium? III or AMD Athlon 1.0 GHz processor or faster (1.5 GHz or faster processor recommended)
Memory: 128 MB RAM minimum (256 MB recommended)
Hard Disk Space: 3.5 GB free
Video: Any Windows-compatible video card(NVIDIA GeForce 2 or ATI Radeon with at least 64 megs of video memory recommended.)
Sound: Windows?-compatible sound card. NVIDIA? nForce(tm) or other
motherboards/soundcards containing the Dolby? Digital Interactive
Content Encoder required for Dolby Digital audio.
DirectX?: DirectX? version 8.1(included)or higher
Multiplayer: Internet (TCP/IP) and LAN (TCP/IP)play supported. 33.6K baud modem or broadband Internet connection recommended.
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After installing the 6-disc game (5 install, 1 play), which is rather
short, you finally get to test your skills. If you play the
single-player portion of the game, your in for a much lengthier and
better organized tournament. After you get past the first few
DeathMatch qualifying rounds, you'll get to a new feature that I wanted
to mention: Team Selection.
It now parallels managing your own sports team. You have a balance of
credits, which increases or decreases based on whether you win or
lose/refuse in both matches and the new challenges that are available.
Teams may challenge each other for a multitude of things, including
credits and team-members. You may change your team mates at anytime
(excluding during matches), assuming you have the credits to do so. It
takes credits to pay the mercs to fight every match. This new system
adds some welcomed customization, just like many of the new features in
the game.
The number of weapons you have at your disposal has increased and old
weapons have been redone to look and perform on a competitive scale
with the rest of your arsenal. Locking missile launcher, Ion Painters
(calls down Ion blast from a satellite-cannon), and the infamous
Redeemer are just a few devastating tools available.
With such powerful items to use, you are now capable of taking down
machines that are much larger and stronger than you...then again, you
could just go after them with your own vehicle/aircraft. The ones shown
below are by far not all the ones possible to get in the game. There
are many more interactive vehicles, including some spacecraft.
Theres also some new items, one of the most useful being Adrenaline.
You gain adrenaline either by picking up the pills (below) or killing
enemies. Once your adrenaline count reaches 100 you are able to execute
certain special moves by hitting the correct keys, which drain your
adrenaline back to zero. These special abilities include speed,
booster, invisibility, and a few more. They come in handy, especially
in multiplayer, and can change the odds in a battle instantly.
As you can see, the graphics are exceptional even on settings that
won't cause slowdowns. At 1024 x 768 ; 32-bit; with every setting at
highest, except for shadows, which is on blob, a nVidia GeForce3 plays
smooth and the graphics still look great. Please keep in mind that
screenshots cannot compare with the stellar ingame graphics as
substantial quality is lost during the conversion(s). The visual detail
of the game is stunning. I couldn't find any specific area that lacked
or had lower quality than the others. Player models look good and are
thoroughly detailed, even the new ways that you can die (dissolve,
electrocuted, turned into skeleton) are well done and look great. And
now we get to see some fine-tuned graphical Skaarj and now their also a
playable race!
What about architecture and level design you say? Well they've kept a
lot of old favorites, redone of course with better graphics, some
oldies have been modified, and there's a wide array of new levels, to
dominate. The one thing all the levels have in common is that they are
detailed beyond belief.
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Probably the best example of overall detail, in every aspect, of this sand level.
The lighting, falling sand particles, architectural detail, flame, and the list goes on...
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Here you can see the level of detail, again, in the level environment, but also in the weapon model.
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You've seen the outstanding detail of solids, but what about water?
What about reflections? I am impressed by them but, take a look at the
next few pictures and decide for yourself.
As I mentioned earlier, they gave some older levels makeovers,
modifying them, and then there were some completely new maps. Here's
two pics of level layouts. On the top we have the Face3 layout, a
heavily modified remnant of the popular Facing Worlds map and below
that you have the layout of the new map: Citadel.
Sound Effects
I have no complaints about the sound in the game whatsoever. The voices
are clear and easy to tell what is being said. Whenever someone yells
"wicked sick", "monster kill", or one of a few 'creative' things, it's
easy to understand. The taunts no longer appear as a message on your
screen, which is a good thing for those large battles, else the screen
would be filled all of the time. The music to accompany the levels is
intense. It really completes this great game by drawing you further
into the game and engulfing you in your current mission using any of
it's 63 music files, which add up to 3 : 13 : 27 (hours, mins, secs).
The music is very appropriate for each level and/or gametype. Weapon
sound effects are extensive and have great depth.
Gameplay
The game plays perfectly. I have rarely experienced a crash and 95% of
the very few crashes that occurred could easily be attributed to my
computer running a million (okay, only a thousand.. 
) programs at once, Windows becoming unstable, and just prolonged
computer uptime without restarting. I played for 15.25 hours straight
and didn't have a single glitch nor crash. The levels flow and the only
true gripe I have about this is that in some cases you cannot fly over
certain mountains, but I recognize this as a balancing approach. In
those cases, if you were able to fly over it, you would have such an
advantagous position, your enemy would stand little chance of winning.
Thus no points are deducted for this.
Gamemodes
| Deathmatch: |
Frag or be fragged. First one to the kill limit wins. Simple as that. |
| Team Deathmatch: |
You and your team go up against another group. Whichever team reaches the kill limit first wins. |
| Double Domination: |
Expanding
on the mode of Domination, this new and improved version requires you
to hold both of the domination points simultaneously for 10 seconds in
order to score. |
| Bombing Run: |
Theres
a ball in the middle of the arena, you have to take the ball and put it
in the portal inside your enemies base to score. You can pass the ball,
as when you have it, you have a gun that allows you to shoot the ball.
When you are in possession of the ball, you are not able to attack any
opponents, which makes this mode very challenging and you depend on
your teammates. |
| Last Man Standing: |
Players
start with all weapons and they are given a certain number of lives.
Once those lives are used, the player becomes a spectator. If you stay
in one location for too long, they call you for camping and your
position shows up on the HUD for everyone to see. |
| Invasion: |
You
and teammates defend yourselves against oncoming waves of monsters.
Each wave can be from 90 seconds to 4 minutes in length. If you die
during a wave, you will not respawn until the next wave, assuming at
least 1 teammate survives. In this one monster difficulty = bot
difficulty. |
| Mutant: |
Whoever
gets the first kill turns into the mutant. You get tons of ammo, but
the non-super weapons. Although, to your advantage you do get berserk,
agility, and invisibility. The Mutants position is visible to everyone
on their HUD and if they kill the Mutant, they become the new Mutant.
Scoring points is done when your the Mutant:
Normal Kill: 2 points
Double Kill: 3 points
Multi Kill (and above): 4 points
Bottom Feeder Kill: 5 points
There is also a Bottom Feeder mode for the player with the lowest
score, allowing them to kill to earn points. But once they are not the
lowest score, the new last ranked person becomes the bottom feeder.
Whoever gets to the pre-determined amount of points is the winner. |
| Assault: |
You
have to complete certain objectives as a team within the time limit.
Then, after completing the objectives, you must defend those same
places against the other team trying to do the same thing that you
were, and you must defend it for the amount of time it took you to
complete your objectives. So if you take 6 minutes 4 seconds to
complete the objectives, you must defend the base for 6 minutes 4
seconds against the opposing team. Assault has many usable vehicles and
turrets. |
| Onslaught: |
Perhaps
the most popular new mode of all, Onslaught is highly addictive. Your
team fights the other team for control of "Power Nodes" and once you
control a path of Power Nodes that connect to your opponents "Power
Core" you may then proceed to try and destroy the Core to win the
match. Catch is that your nodes can be destroyed and if they enemy
knocks out a Node that links you to their Power Core, you may no longer
attack their Power Core until once again, a path to it is established.
A very fun and challenging mode indeed. I honestly believe this mode
could have been a huge success even as a stand-alone game. This mode
incorporates the most vehicles and weapons. If an enemy gets out of
their vehicle to do something, like reload on ammo, you may 'carjack'
the vehicle and take their ride. |
Overall Verdict
My conclusion: If you don't have this game, buy it. NOW. It's that
simple. I haven't played a game this good since the revolutionary style
of Half-Life and Counter-Strike. Which neither one of those have the
visual appeal that Unreal Tournament 2004 possesses due to their
release dates of long ago. This product, recieves a 94% rating. It also
recieves The Moditory Mandatory Award as it is a definite must have.
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