"A return to form for the Unreal Tournament series."

To start this review, I'll tell you two things:

1. I loved Unreal Tournament 99.

2. I hated Unreal Tournament 2003.

With that said, I can honestly say that Unreal Tournament 2004 is truly the sequel worthy of the former.

Let's cut to the chase, shall we?
[this review ended up being kinda long, so if you're looking for a summary, scroll down to the bottom]

Features
Unreal Tournament 2004 has an okay attempt at a single-player campaign (a first for the Tournament series) as well as 9 built-in modes of multiplayer gaming (Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, Last Man Standing, Onslaught, Capture the Flag, Invasion, Mutant, Bombing Run, and Assault). The game features over 95 maps, 17 weapons, and eight vehicles (although two of them get used in like one map). Oh, and it's got the standard "sequel" stuff, like better graphics and A.I.

Maps
Of course, the question is: are those features good? Hell yeah. Many of the maps are truly excellent, accomodating everybody's tastes, from the 1on1DMer to the 10on10CTFer. A cool thing for fans of UT99 is the fact that many of the more famous maps (like Phobos, Morpheous, Deck16, Facing Worlds, November, Orbital) have been ported or remade for this game. I should mention that of the 95 maps, only 45 are new, with the rest simply being lifted from UT2k3 with little or no change. Some of these 2k3 ports are good, while others suck. Personally, I'd rather have the extra 50 maps than not, since any crappy ones can be deleted.

Weapons
The weapons are suprisingly balanced. There's no true "I win lol" weapon (one could make a case for the Flak Cannon being broken in some maps, though), and the weapons are all very cool. The weapons all serve a purpose, and they do it well. A lot of the weapons have tiny features(such as the Spiral Rockets and the Transloc weapon switch) that can be very useful and very nice. In summary, the weapons are good. Oh, before I forget... the Sniper Rifle is back. Yeah.

Vehicles
Now, on to one of the biggie upgrades: vehicles. They're cool. You've got your standard one-man jeep-ish vehicle (the Scorpion), your hovercraft (the Manta), your flying vehicle (the Raptor), your personnel transport/run-over-people-machine (the Hellbender), your badass tank (the Goliath), and your badass... monster (the Leviathan). The vehicles' power remains in check with the inclusion of the Anti-Vehicle Rocket Launcher. The AVRL can home in on vehicles, and takes them out in a few shots, for the most part. So, the vehicles are good too. Oh, there's also two spacefighters, but since there's like one map that uses them, I don't really care for/about them.

Game modes
So... the game modes. I'll just go over the more unique ones: Onslaught, Assault, and Bombing Run. So, first, Onslaught. Is. God. It involves teams making and connecting "power nodes" to the point where they can attack the other team's main node. It's kinda hard to explain, but trust me... it works really, really well. Most Onslaught maps are sprawling behemoths of mapmaking, and involve lots of strategy. Assault is a gametype in which one team tries to accomplish objectives and another team tries to stop them. After time ends or all objectives are completed, the teams switch roles and the new attackers try to beat the old attackers' time. Bombing Run is almost a sport, with teams attempting to throw the ball (bomb) into the other team's goal... without getting killed first. All three are pretty nice, but Bombing Run is definitely the weakest.

Singleplayer
The single player probably Epic's best attempt at singleplayer in UT yet. It takes the basic concept of the last ones (win this match, win this match, win this match...) and adds a sports-games style twist. You now have to manage team members and a payroll. You also have to deal with challenges from other teams, in which you can bet money on yourself. It's pretty good, but it pales in comparison to the multiplayer.

Multiplayer
Yes, the multiplayer. Online play is essentially lag-free (assuming you get a server in your hemisphere), and other players are plentiful. As of this review (written mid-November 2005, almost two years after UT2k4's release), there are still tons of people online. In fact, there are still quite a few people online in UT99, but that's beside the point. Anyway, this is where the stuff that you should actually care about is.

Downloadable content (first party)
There's a patch available that eliminates the need for the CD to play, a new map or two, and the Editor's Choice Edition upgrade, which adds a few vehicles and tweaks the game a little. I didn't really like the new vehicles, but that's just my opinion.

Community
As is standard for an Unreal Tournament game, the community does a whole lot of good stuff. There have been a few packs that have been simply stellar, like the Community Bonus Pack and the Unreal Community Map Pack. Quality mods include Red Orchestra (which I sadly have not been able to play), Chaos UT2: Evolution, and Jailbreak 2004. Users like AngelH@rt, UTLoveFest, and Zio are still pumping out beautiful and enjoyable maps. Also, for the nostalgic gamer, there are many remakes of classic UT99 maps, like Arcane Temple, Tempest, Turbine, and Zietkind.

Graphics and sound
The graphics are gorgeous. The weapon effects are great, and there are some quality weather effects, like coronas and rain. The sounds are pretty good too, although the announcers can all be a little annoying.

...and now for the complaints.
Mac version complaints
Okay, I'll make a list, how 'bout that?
Note: all these are merely as far as I know.
1. No level editor. Sure, it's always been like this, but for a creative soul like me, this really sucks.
2. No anti-aliasing. I'm told the Windows version requires you to enable it in your video card settings, but my iMac G5 has no such thing, so I guess no AA for me.
3. No functioning in-game MP3 player. Sure, this isn't a big deal to most, but for me it is.
4. No UT4Mod support. That is REALLY annoying.
5. General sluggish performance. I'm on a 1.8Ghz iMac G5 with 2GB of RAM and 128MB of video memory, and my performance on Normal is merely good. Considering that my computer is relatively high-end and about three months old, and this game is almost two years old, something isn't right.

SUMMARY
+Lots of good maps
+Good, balanced weapons
+Vehicles are sweet
+Plenty of cool game modes
+Onslaught is so awesome it deserves its own "+"
-Single player is nothing more than filler, but it isn't too bad
+MULTIPLAYER MULTIPLAYER MULTIPLAYER
+The community has made a ton of cool stuff
+Graphics and sound are both good
-The Mac version leaves something to be desired in terms of system stuff.

Overall, I'd say that if you're a PC game fan looking for a good multiplayer FPS, you should be ashamed for not having this already. If you're a Mac fan, this is practically your only choice for a good multiplayer FPS. Either way, Unreal Tournament 2004 gets a 9 out of 10 from me, although the PC version gets a slightly higher 9.

Rent or buy? Considering how UT2k4's multiplayer never gets old, I'd say buy, buy, buy.

FINAL SCORE: 9

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 12/05/05, Updated 04/10/06