When Unreal Tournament 2003 was released in the 4th quarter 2004, mixed feelings lingers in the u-community; Part of the community feels the game changed too much and losing the feel of the original UT. While it's still a good shooter, it includes many gimmicky deathmatch maps that contain good visual, but horrid gameplay. The introduction of bombing run has minimal effect on the community, despite being a good gamemode.
When Epic shown us the trailer for UT2k4, I was uncertain how the game will work as usually a class based system will work better to promote teamplay. The vehicles seems ordinary, we got something that looks like a buggy, several which will mislead any halo player to think it's ripping their game off. A few weeks later, a vehicle movie was released demonstrating it's potential at higher skill level play, it's then I know UT2004 will be something special.
The main highlight of UT2004 is definitely the new gamemode called onslaught. It's uses some idea from BF1942 conquest, but the main objectives is to destroy opposing teams generator back in their base, rather than the ticket system. The powernodes system is well done and serves as hotspots in the map, it'll force players concentrate their efforts on the objectives without restricting player's movement in a map, thus making it enjoyable for both pubs and yet allows strategic clan play. There's always something to complain about in unrealistic shooters when it comes to gameplay balance, since it's not just balancing hitscan weapons, it also needs to accommodate projectiles weapons, and ballistic. Now if you put in vehicles, the equation became more complicated, however, Epic and DE did a fantastic job of balancing the game. No vehicles are overpowered and have their pros and cons. A manta might be fast, but can be taken done by single avril rocket, and knockback by the shockcore. A Goliath tank might be powerful, but is venerable to raptor and without a second gunner, a single infantry armed with a flak can take it out at point blank range with skillful circle strafing because the turret turns so slowly. Many are concern about the supervehicle, the Leviathan being insanely overpowered. It's full potential requires 5 players skilled with projectiles tracking to occupy it, and it's slow, meaning you can outmaneuver and even outgun the mammoth with guerilla tactic.
Infantry combat in onslaught don't really plays the same as deathmatch and capture the flag, since almost all of the times you'll fight in open outdoors. The new weapons however, add some spices to the combat. I'm especially fond of the spider mines when playing the defensive role, since you can control the mines movement without moving away from the energy turrets, the mines are great for distracting opponents attention while you made quick work out of them. There're simplify tons of ways to accomplish your objectives; one of the wildest things I done is to attach grenades to the back of my manta then I land it on the node, jump off and detonate them taking a decent chunk off the node's health.
As fun as onslaught is, the fragger inside me constantly screams for fresh bloods to spill, and nothing beats traditional deathmatch. UT2k4 removes some of the crazier jumps from 2k3, so boost jumps don't take you all over the map anymore, hence requires players to think twice about their tactics. And fortunately, UT2k4 offers a great amount of 1on1 and deathmatch maps, and from new maps layouts, it's obvious epic now go for gameplay over eyecandy instead of vice versa as with 2k3. Oldskool layout, great flow, excellent item placements makes great fragging for the most hardcore Ut'er. I especially like dm-goliath, corrugation, the new deck and rankin from the demo.
With so many quality maps, gamemodes and seemly bug free, UT2k4 will probably be played for the next 2 to 3 years or so until another UT comes, that will be quite a accomplishment for the online scene is dominate by semi-realistic shooters.
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