n the future of Unreal Tournament 2004, gladiatorial combat has become the ultimate sport, pitting participants from around the galaxy in battles to the death. Like the original Unreal Tournament, the 2004 edition is a first-person shooter primarily oriented toward multiplayer online play. Players compete in one of 10 game modes, including the conventional player-vs.-player, free-for-all deathmatch and team deathmatch and team-oriented capture the flag.
Returning from the original game—and missing from the 2003 edition—is Assault mode, in which one team attempts to complete a certain number of objectives while the opposing team tries to stop them. Also back is 2003's Bombing Run mode, which is a team-oriented mode that draws its inspiration from football and other real-world sports.
Similar to Assault, the new Onslaught mode pits two teams against one another on massive outdoor maps. Each team controls a citadel, which is home to an energy reactor. The goal is to destroy the enemy's reactor, but in order to do so the teams must build nodes between their base and the enemy's. Once the nodes are completed, a direct attack on the reactor can begin.
Wholly new for Unreal Tournament 2004—and used extensively in Onslaught mode—are the game's vehicles. There are nine of them, and they offer players every kind of vehicle they could want. Ground vehicles include the Manta (a lightly armored hovercraft capable of "pancaking" enemy infantry), the Hellbender (a three-person heavy truck) and the Goliath (a huge five-person tank that bristles with firepower). Airpower is provided through the Raptor (a high-flying, missile-toting gunship), the Phoenix (an unmanned drone) and two space-capable fighter craft. All of the vehicles are controlled from a third-person, over-the-shoulder perspective (though that view can be switched to a traditional first-person perspective).
Like its predecessors, the game has a solo, offline campaign that places players in charge of a team of latter-day gladiators intent on winning the Unreal championship. The game also supports voice-over-IP for chatting with other players during the game, voice recognition capabilities, 95 different maps and even "UnrealTV," which allows players to view other matches live online.
Deathmatches to die for
After the twitchers' paradise of the Unreal Tournament, last year's Unreal Tournament 2003 was a disappointment. Unlike the original, the 2003 edition was marred by sluggish performance, and staples—like Assault mode and the sniper rifle—were removed. Unreal Tournament 2004 redeems the franchises, restoring the soul of the game lost in the 2003 edition while expanding the game in ways that are as challenging as they are visually stunning.
"Onslaught" mode is easily the best part of the new edition. Adding vehicular combat to a first-person shooter is difficult. If the vehicles are too powerful, infantry becomes useless. Make them too weak and no one will want to use them. Unreal strikes a perfect balance, with no one vehicle or weapon overpowering the others. The game's tanks are fear-inspiring behemoths, but an infantryman wielding a rocket launcher can take them down. The high-flying raptors can rain hellfire down on enemies—but are easy targets for sniper rifles, lightning guns and missiles.
The mode's environments are epic in scale and beautiful in design. They provide teams with plenty of space in which to drive their vehicles, while at the same time giving infantry plenty of cover to hide behind. The maps aren't so huge as to render infantry useless—while it's easier
to jump in a truck and drive to a target, walking is still an option. Overall, environments, weapons and vehicles combine to create a far-future battleground that looks like something out of Robert Heinlein's Starship Troopers or James Cameron's Terminator 2. The sight of rockets streaking across the ground while a hail of laser fire tears across the face of a hill is simply awesome.
"Assault" mode makes its return in 2004, and it too is a sight to behold. The original Unreal's assault maps were fairly basic, pitting players against fortresses and other ground-based targets. In the new version, scenarios are more imaginative, with players launching Mad Max-like attacks on huge ground transports, or flying space-based fighters against orbital space stations. As with Onslaught mode, the Assault maps look great, with detailed backgrounds and excellent textures.
Speed-wise, Unreal 2004 is much faster than its 2003 predecessor, which looked nice but hogged resources. On a dual 1.42 GHz G4 PowerMac with a gig of RAM and an ATI Radeon 9000 Pro video card, the game simply flew, slowing down only briefly during heavy battles observed through the lightning gun's telescopic view. The less-intensive deathmatch modes ran adequately on a Windows XP laptop with a 1.69 GHz Pentium 4 processor and 256 MB of RAM (the near-minimum for the game's system requirements) but the machine had trouble with the higher-end Onslaught mode.
Those looking for traditional player-vs.-player action will find it in the traditional deathmatch modes, which look just as good as their more objective-oriented counterparts. But Unreal's always been good at deathmatches; where this edition really shines is with the cooperative scenarios.
As a Mac fan, I've got to say that one of my favorite aspects of this game is that it's being released almost simultaneously on both the Windows and Macintosh platforms—that's a welcome change from the six-month waiting period that Mac addicts usually have to endure.
— Ken
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