Unreal Tournament 2004: Editor's Choice Edition (PC Games, 2004)

An excellent FPS that will hold your interest and still has a decent online community today! Good graphics, sound,

Several editions of "Unreal Tournament 2004" have been released, but this is the most complete one, with the most addons, patches, and editing extras included in one package. As a result, you'll pay a little more for it, but it's worth it to save on the hassle of having to track down all the content yourself.

This edition of the game comes in an oversized amray case with only one DVD disc inside (the manual is included on the disc in PDF format).

UT2k4 itself seems like a game that needs no introduction but I will review it here for the sake of any who are yet unfamiliar with it:

Unreal Tournament was released in 1999, about the same time as its chief competitor, Quake III Arena. Unlike the previous "Unreal" which wowed players and critics alike with its immersive single player adventure and ground-breaking graphics, this game focused entirely on the multiplayer aspect (the area in which "Unreal" was the weakest, and failed to live up to the standards yet by other contemporary games). Unreal Tournament focused on a fictional tournament of future gladiators who battled it out in various environments (including industrial settings, temples, and in low gravity space type environments). While QuakeIII was more popular with many players for having slightly better graphics, and an enthusiastic installed based from the previous Quake games, UT provided a lot more variety in multiplayer. "Mutators" allowed slight changes to the game and were easy to create (such as "fatboy" in which players increased or decreased in size based on how many kills or deaths they had, and "instagib" in which everyone's gun was an instant kill weapon for sudden death matches). There were also modes like "Assault" which were team, objective based modes. Overall, the team based modes were what set UT apart from other shooters, including QuakeIII (even after the release of "Team Arena" expansion, UT had still gathered most of the team playing population).

Fast forward a few years, and the successor to UT was created... UT 2003. Sadly, this version felt for many like a downgrade, rather than a true successor. It left out many of the game modes that people liked that had made UT unique, like Assault. Some of the favorite weapons like the Sniper rifle were missing (replaced by the less fun-to-use "lightning gun").

People did enjoy some of the new features like "adrenaline" that let you do some special things when you gathered enough adrenaline pills, via a secret button combination (like turning invisible or being able to shoot super fast for a limited period of time). The graphics were also more detailed, and you could do things like double jumps, and there were "Ragdoll physics" for added realism.

Enter UT2004. This version sought to fix many of the complaints and oversights in UT2k3. It gave us the AWESOMELY FUN vehicle based "Onslaught" game mode (an evolution of the old "Domination" game mode where players tried to capture and hold various "bases" to accumulate points for victory). This gave the gameplay a whole new dimension and appealed to fans of other vehicle based shooters like Halo. The Sniper Rifle made a return, and many other improvements were made.

UT2k4 was the game that UT2k3 was supposed to be.

However the style and flow of gameplay feels slightly different to UT, lost is the "sudden death" feel of the "hardcore" mode.

This is an awesome game and the editor's choice gives you so many top picks of gamers like me.

I highly recomend it to anyone that likes first person shooters... even my wife likes playing against me :D

I originally ran across this game in my sophomore year of high school. During almost every computer class we would play it. It was so much fun, and the game play is top notch. The graphics are really good, and run really well on even low quality GPUs. I have played on a 64mb Geforce, and a 128mb Geforce, both have different chipsets, and both are really really good. The real bonus about this game is the online game play. It works very fast, with no noticeable latency on a broadband connection. One of the truly great things about this game is the huge amount of user created content, You can find tons of maps and new weapons and vehicles online, or even create some of them yourself. On of the best games out right now, and the newest version looks even more amazing, using the new Directx 10 format for computer games. Everyone who loves a good first person shooter should definitely pick up a copy of this game.

I had to buy this game for my game designer class, I thought that being 3 years old that it was going to suck. Boy was I wrong, The first time I installed it and started playing , I did not stop for like 5 hours. The graphics are not the best but the fun lies in the multi player online there is such a huge fan base that you will never have a problem finding someone to frag. The other reason that I bought this game was because of the unreal editor, with this program you can turn your game into whatever you want, you can change the characters, levels, weapons, anything which keeps the longevity of this game almost limitless. The seller had it at a very reasonable price also so anyone who can get a copy of this game for under 30 bucks should definitely pick it up and start playing.

Great game! Even better when you have a good graphics card! I bought this game because of the level editor software it came with, Unreal Editor. I like to create maps for games when I have the time. It is pretty involved and knowledge of 3D software is essential. However this edition of the game comes with hours of video tutorials! Check out my artwork! www.nicholasmcgowan.com

Thanks for the great game. I am sorry I didn't get this done sooner. It plays great I bought the game because I like playing at a friends house and I am also going to purchase Unreal 3 for the XBOX 306

It's full of action, easy to understand what to do and how to do it,love the different maps and players,really enjoy the online play, even after all these years people are still playing this game all the time, that tells you how good of a game it is,one of the best ever probably!!

I bought this pc game about a month ago, at a good price. It shipped fast, and everything went smoothly and easily. the only problem I have is that the seller doesnt leave feedback in return.