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Unreal Tournament 2004 (PC) Review

 Basically the game that got me into playing computer games (and into the Unreal series). It's huge, pretty, and has tons of cool mods and custom content available, and some really fun weapons too. ^^"

- my original steam review from 2012


Unreal Tournament 2004 was a gateway game for me in a  couple of special ways - it was one of the assigned games for me to work with in my college game design courses (Along with Warcraft 3) so it was one of the games where I first got to try my hand at mapping and modding, and it is also what got me into computer games as well. Previously, I'd mostly just stuck with my Genesis and PlayStation, using computers as more of a fun toy and thing to access the internet with.

Krissie's life story aside, what's the game about? Well, the Unreal Tournament series is a spin off from the main story-based Unreal series in which the Liandri Corporation has established a blood-sport competition to entertain their workers (from what I recall, don't have a cow if I got it a little off, sheesh - it's been years). This simple backstory lays the basis for this franchise of  arena first person shooter games, sporting your typical modes like death-match and capture the flag, along with lots of new and unique game modes exclusive to this title such as Onslaught. It's a genre I've grown away from, especially since it attracts some of the most vile of the already pretty  repugnant gamer "community", but thankfully this is one of those multiplayer games with full bot support, so you can have hours of fun playing without having to lower yourself to being the babysitter of a bunch of edgy teenage boys on the internet. Admittedly, though, it's not just toxic gamers that made me grow away from the genre - I also just nowadays prefer some feeling of "progression" in my video games, which is why in terms of arena-like games, I now prefer stuff like Killing Floor where you can level up, unlock things, and fight your way up to a boss encounter.


This might all sound like I'm not too fond of the game, but I do still have a lot of praise for it. The game comes PACKED with content, and it's thankfully also old enough that rather than having some shittty online DRM thing, all the physical copy comes with a cd key you have to enter in while installing it (and can then just run it off of your hard drive). If you get the physical copy of the Editors Choice Edition like I did, it's an even more impressive package - the games comes bundle with extra map packs, and a bunch of fan-made modes built right in! Pretty awesome. You can have a good deal of fun just trying out the many different game modes and over 100 different maps! There's plenty of mutators, and character models to choose from. Lots and lots of customizable options, and a great badass soundtrack, as well. The Onslaught game mode takes you out of the typical corridor death-matches and onto huge outdoor battlefields where you can use turrets and vehicles to battle your way across capture points until you destroy the core of your enemies base. Assault mode lets you play through little story-like battle campaigns with objectives. Then there's monster invasion, which is kind of like a precursor to the aforementioned Killing Floor, pitting you against waves of classic Unreal monsters that you have to survive against. As if all of this content wasn't enough, there is a massive amount of fan-made content for the game, custom maps, mods, mutators and more! I was playing this game when it was still pretty new, and all these years later, I still have mods for it  I haven't gotten try out yet because there were just so many to play. The game comes with the Unreal Level Editor program built right in, too, so you can even hop right in and start making your own maps for the game!



My complaints about the game are few, but should still be addressed. There is the unfortunate presence of some sexism, like in a few of the other Unreal games. One of the announcer voices is called "sexy" which is designed to sound like a woman moaning while having sex. Anyone who would use this option...well, I hope no woman ever lowers herself to sleeping with you, because that should be a red flag for you being a gross creeper. The female character outfits aren't as bad in this as some of the other games, but still sometimes seem to fall under the "sexy for no reason" trope. I suppose in terms of being equally weird about sexualised character designs, to the games credit(...?), there is entire team in the game that consists of freaky undead people dressed up in strange and gorey BDSM outfits, looking like something out of a Hell-raiser film. One of them even has his own special announcement voice. "Mr. Crow!".


a few bits of embarrassingly sexist gamer-bro crap aside, the overall game is still one I recommend giving a shot. There's such a huge modding community that even if you don't like the base game, there's a decent chance you'll enjoy one of the many total conversion mods for it! I recommend trying out the eerie "Hollow Moon" or the good old classic mod version of "Killing Floor".

Enjoy some screenshots!









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