Its time get your Killer instinct going again because Unreal Tournament 2004 has invaded our PCs once more, to deliver non-stop, fast-faced, FPS goodness. Last years installment of the unreal Tournament franchise was considered by many to on a sub-par level compared to the original Unreal Tournament, Does UT2k4 bring us back to the roots of the frag fest that is Unreal Tournament? Of Course It does, scroll down to see why.

 

To get things started, let me say that this game is pretty; Im talking porn star pretty, UT2k4 shines. 2k4 uses the stunning Unreal engine which is pretty much the best looking engine out there save for the source engine, it also runs on direct x 9.0, so you can expect to see smooth animations and high frame rates. Best of all, you dont need a good computer at all to run this game, it ran flawlessly on my Nvidia Geforce MX 420, which basically is a REALLY crappy video card, but for the best possible gaming experience youll want to have a good card, like my new Nvidia Geforce 6800 ULTRA, oh yeah baby, ultra!

 

Theres not much to offer in the ways of story, the game takes place in the unreal universe, the tournament is basically like a futuristic gladiator tournament. In the single player mode, you start a rag tag team, and play through the tournament ladder, advancing until you reach the championship. Along the way you can trade players to other teams, and winning a match earns you money so that you challenge other teams for their players. 2k4 includes all of the classic game modes with the inclusion of some new ones too. Youve got Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, Capture the flag, Bombing Run, and Double Domination, the new game modes are: Invasion, Last man standing, mutant, Assault, and Onslaught. Those will keep you coming back to your PC for a long time.

 

Unreal Tournament offers some very fast paced shooting, if you have slow reflexes this is not for you. But UT2k4 isnt just mindless killing; there is a lot of strategy too. You have to include some careful planning if you want to be successful in completing an objective, especially when you are playing assault. Its just so fun to blow the crap out of someone; you wont want to ever stop playing. Also you really get into the matches, imagine this: Youre in a Team Deathmatch your team is behind by five kills, if you win this match, you move on to the championship. Your adrenaline starts flowing, your heart beats faster, you are an unstoppable killing machine, with ease and skill you come back from behind with all out brute force to crush the enemy, and take the match!

 

The multiplayer is where this game truly shines. You could easily play just onslaught mode for hours on end. Basically, Onslaught is where there are two teams, they each try to capture points on the map, when they capture two points, a line is drawn connecting them together, kind of like connect the dots. Anyway, you have to create a line of captured points that leads to the enemys base, where their power core is located, when you establish a line to the enemys power core, you can attack it and destroy it, winning the match. Most of that just went over most of your heads, but once you start playing, youll easily get it. Ive found myself playing that particular game mode for almost 8 hours straight, with bathroom breaks of course.

Here let me break it down for you below:

Not much of a story here

Flawless animations and stunning effects make for some good eye candy!

The guns sound very nice in UT2k4, but one of my favorite parts in the game is the ability to taunt people with some built in recordings, and most of them are too dirty to repeat to you right now!

The action is very fast, it will keep you enthralled for hours on end. The perfect twitch gamers game

The multiplayer is where its at. Its hard to explain how good it is to someone who hasnt played it before.

OVERALL: 9.5
I have to warn you that you have to have a very fast internet connection to play this game online. If you dont play it online, its still very fun, but not nearly as awesome as online play.

-Jake Vekers (xpertgamer12)