Unreal Tournament 2004 (Unreal Tournament 2004 (PC))

Member Name: meggyloo

Product:	Unreal Tournament 2004 (PC)
Date:	10/02/05 (75 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: New Onslaught playing mode, The return of Assault mode, load of fresh maps

Disadvantages: Hogs a hefty 5.5G of disk space

UT04 is one of those rare pieces of software where absolutely no shortcuts have been taken indeed the game is so feature rich that its almost hard to know where to start. For fans of the series the new Onslaught mode and the return of Assault mode will be of great interest but the game also has a stack of fresh maps (about 100 in total) new vehicles and a host of other tweaks and additions.

In Onslaught mode, teams of players attempt to take out the oppositions power core. Before the enemy power core can be directly attacked, a group of linked power nodes must first be captured. This creates an epic seesawing battle,made even more interesting by the inclusion of vehicles. The latter include Goliath tanks, Manta hovercraft flying Raptors and Scorpion combat jeeps. Onslaught is damned fun to play and probably constitutes the most compelling reason to buy UT04.

If youve played the original Unreal Tournament then you’ll no doubt remember its innovative Assault mode. For some mysterious reason Assault was omitted from subsequent instalments, but it has made a triumphant return in UT04. For the uninitiated Assault is a team based game where you strive to fulfil a number of set objectives (such as reaching a key location destroying a designated object or demolishing an enemy building). Opposing teams always consist of attackers and defenders. Like Onslaught Assault mode features many usable turrets and vehicles.

Other playing modes include Deathmatch Team Deathmatch Capture the Flag, Double Domination (where you capture and hold specified Domination Points to score) Bombing Run (kind of like a lethal form of soccer) Last Man Standing (you have a limited amount of lives and compete to survive the longest)Invasion (defend your position against waves of attackers) and Mutant (starts out as a normal free for all then the first player to make a kill turns into a mutant with special abilitiesnonly mutants and bottom feeders (lowest-ranked players) can kill other players to score points). And if you do tire of the standard playing modes you can always apply one of the games many preset mutators BigHead (head size changes according to ranking) LowGrav (low gravity) InstaGib (one shot kills) to mix things up a little.

Weapons on offer include everything from old favourites like the Sniper Rifle and Biorifle to more exotic fare like the AVRiL guided missile launcher (used exclusively for taking out enemy vehicles) and Target Painter (for calling in a conventional bombing strike).

The interface of UT04 is intuitive and incredibly thorough making it easy for you to perform all manner of tasks whether it be customising a game managing a team tweaking hardware settings or administrating a server.

I find it ironic that while the original Unreal Tournament featured a visual style quite different from its (then) direct competitor Quake III: Arena with subsequent instalments it has become more and more similar to its old foe. To this end the 3D visuals of UT04 are crisp, detailed and fluid with a distinctly visceral edge. As you would expect level design is uniformly excellent.

If you enjoy multiplayer 3D action then UT04 is as good as it gets. Even if you don’t want to play online, the excellent single-player and instant action bot modes make Unreal Tournament 2004 a very alluring prospect.

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