Unreal Tournament 2004 Review

For many years, since the release of the original Unreal, the series of games have been absolute smashing hits, combining great, stylish graphics with intense action and plenty of gore. And while Unreal Tournament 2004 follows the series completely, there have been numerous additions to the game.

First of all, the introduction of the best aspect into Unreal in a while - vehicles. Vehicles are often the way to make a great game even better, and this is the case. Developers definitely thought through the decision, as they were thinking of the idea when they made Unreal Tournament 2003/Unreal Championship. However, the decision was pushed back because they felt the vehicles just wouldn't work in a game like Unreal, where everything is quick and deadly. This year they introduced the vehicles as well as a new game mode - Onslaught, which finds a great balance between the insane lightning fast action of Deathmatch and a good speed at which to put the vehicles into the game. The result, Onslaught, turned out to be one of the most popular modes in Unreal, where players capture nodes to link to the other team's base, in order to destroy their Power Core and win the game.

Assault has also returned to the series and is better than ever. After a brief absence in UT2003, the popular game mode is back, with all new maps and ways to play. It's been enhanced in pretty much every way you can imagine, including the new vehicles, and turrets such as stationary Linkguns, to Ion turrets that emit a deadly blast of plasma that decimates everything in it's path.

The game doesn't suffer from many major issues. My experience with the game has personally been great, as Epic Games works to make sure their games are compatible with everyone's computer (making sure that they have the minimum requirements, of course). This game has some of the greatest advances in this direction - there are virtually no crashes, and everything runs smoothly and perfectly. The graphics are amazing, with no slowdown and beautiful animation. It's like a sci-fi wonder world.