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 Unreal Tournament 2004 If you buy only one Unreal Tournament in 2004, you should make it this one UT 2004 is one helluva big game. I mean that both figuratively and literally: the regular edition ships on six CD-ROMs and will eat up an enormous 5.5GB of hard-drive space. (Fortunately, DVD-ROM owners can purchase a “Special Edition” two-DVD set that holds the game on one DVD, and instructional videos for the UT Editor on the other.) Your reward for swapping all those install CDs is a Las Vegas–sized buffet of first-person-shooter gameplay. UT 2004 includes every map and feature that UT 2003 had, and then piles on more, more, and more, making it (at its suggested price of $39.99) one of the best values of the year. LAN In A Box Epic’s plan to turn the Unreal Tournament series into an annually updated sports franchise is more fully realized this year than it was in 2003. Even for those without an internet connection, owning UT2K4’s single-player campaign is like getting an entire e-sports championship packed inside a retail box. The single-player campaign follows your entry in The Tournament. You’ll first battle solo in qualifying rounds to prove your mettle and gain acceptance as a team captain, whereupon you assemble a crack squad of bots-for-hire with your winnings. Whip the team-qualification matches, and you’re on to the main event: a four-pronged tournament ladder consisting of team matches in Double Domination (goal capturing), Capture the Flag, Bombing Run (UT’s version of football), and Assault (attackers vs. defenders). Finally, after you successfully win all eight levels of each mode, the tournament winds up with a grueling one-on-one deathmatch between you and an über-bot before you can be declared the ultimate winner. Sure, UT 2003 followed almost exactly the same format. (In fact, many of the maps are recycled.) But where UT 2004 goes above and beyond is in upping the sports-management aspect of the gameplay. Between ladder matches, competing teams may challenge you to one-on-one or team-deathmatch bouts for cash, or for the right to steal away one of your teammates. Refusing a challenge means forfeiting some of your hard-earned cash. Or worse yet, you can accept and potentially lose a valuable player. (Of course, the opposite is also true: You can dump a poor performer and challenge other teams for their best players.) The bots are free agents, so you can hire and fire them at will. Each is graded by his skill percentages in accuracy, aggressiveness, agility, and tactics; putting together a group in which individual abilities complement one another is all part of the game’s strategy. In-game injuries are also possible — and a player who is forever in need of costly medical attention may eventually eat into your profits. What’s so satisfying about all this expanded team management is that you become more invested in your team’s performance. I yelled at my bots, scolded them for missing shots, got sad at the loss of a star player, and finally concluded that I should no longer be allowed to interact with flesh-and-blood humans. Multi-Ploy But eventually I had to venture online, and the first sounds I heard (no lie) were “Oh yeah, you f******, I am the mother-f*****’ s***!” It turns out UT 2004 has built-in voice-support, and as easy as it is to set up, it’s mercifully easy to turn off. Or you can set the channels to communicate only with players in close proximity or only with your teammates. Either way, the voice quality is pretty good and you can ban annoying individuals from your personal chat channel — an absolute must. The main course of online play consists of the game’s 10 combat modes. These include all the ones you played in the single-player campaign, the modes introduced in UT 2003’s free bonus pack (Mutant, Last Man Standing, and Invasion), and two newcomers: the amazing Onslaught mode and a re-envisioning of Unreal Tournament’s Assault mode. Onslaught is the glowing star of UT 2004’s lineup. It introduces vehicular combat to the franchise, allowing teams to commandeer a wide assortment of cool battlecraft and turrets while attacking or defending strategic bases. You’ll pilot two-man tanks, lightweight hovercraft, a plasma gun–equipped buggy, flying bombers, and more. Onslaught is, unapologetically, UT 2004’s answer to Halo and Battlefield 1942, and it works beautifully. Assault mode is an elaborate attackers-vs.-defenders battle wherein the attackers must accomplish a series of objectives within a set time limit. One mission is a re-creation of a Human-vs.-Skaarj space battle (from Unreal continuity): Human attackers first raid the Skaarj mothership in nimble spacecraft, dogfighting with Skaarj defenders, to destroy the base’s shields. Once the shields are down, the mission switches from a space assault to an infantry invasion, where there are more tactical targets to eliminate. It’s important to mention that all 10 combat modes can be played with and against bots in the single-player Instant Action setting. If I have any complaint about the game — and I’m not sure that it is one — it’s that the bots may be too smart for their own good. Even on the default difficulty, some of their targeting skills border on supernatural. Good Buy Have I left anything out? Most definitely — there’s enough game here to keep you playing well into 2005. I look forward to seeing how Epic can possibly top itself with next year’s update. - Chuck Osborn |
FINAL VERDICT
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100% - 90% |
