Okay, so the Unreal series is one of the most revered names in PC gaming, right up there with Quake. And so, UT 2003 was pretty lame and unoriginal.
With UT 2004, all that changes. First off, let me say that UT 2004 is a beautiful game. Even on my fairly terrible PC, it looks as good as anything on XBOX, if not better. Second, the game's audio is great as well, with a large variety of bot voices, some great weapon sounds and really excellent music. Thirdly, although it is primarily, and is best as a multiplayer game, you can also enjoy it even without being online.
You'd think that'd be enough for the most demanding gamers, right? Wrong, and Epic and Co. knew this. They threw in just about every twist you can imagine, and that's even before user-made mods. With all this variety, it's easy to be hooked.
Then there's the new Onslaught mode. I have to say, this made me stop being unhappy about not being able to run Halo. It's really a Halo-killer, although some of the vehicles correspond and are slightly similar. Furthermore, they can be occaisionally difficult to control without a good degree of finesse. Still, Onslaught is just about revolutionary enough to warrant buying the game all on it's own.
Then there's the other major "new" game-mode, actually a resurrection from the original UT. Assault returns with some truly amazing, complicated maps. You'll be astounded by the level of detail on these, particularly on maps like Lost City or Junkyard Escape. They're so complex it feels worth it to learn their ins and outs. Although these maps can feel unbalanced, they're still a joy to play.
And to back it all up, there are a ridiculous number of Deathmatch, Double Domination and CTF maps present, making it more impossible yet to put the game down.
I should, however, mention the game's ridiculous install amount. The game requires 5.5 GB's of hard drive space! Once I installed, I pretty much had to clean every other game out of my system. But it's worth it. UT 2004 is practically three great games in one, and it comes at a price to die for: 39.99, ten bucks less than most premier PC games out there. Even better, if you have UT 2003 you can shave another ten dollars off the price tag.
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