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10 Years Ago This Week: Unreal Tournament 2004 launched.

I loved the Assault maps, and Onslaught was also very fun. Great game. I would reinstall it and give it a go, but I have the cd version, what a bother to install the game now and finding the last update...
 
One of the last FPS games I enjoyed. Crysis came around and had great single player, but there's been a real draught of good games in the genre.

Oh well. I moved on and have great memories.
 
Like I said in another thread, if you weren't around for the golden age of PC FPS' you will probably never realize the extent to which gamers are being utterly shafted when everyone decided that the consoles were the place to be for FPS.

Here's the "DLC" that UT2K4 was later released with:

  • Two entirely new gamemodes
  • New weapons
  • New vehicles
  • New character models
  • New maps - it was something ridiculous, at least in the 30's

That was for one major update and it was free. It also came out at a time when companies regularly released mod tools with their games. This is one of the reasons why games like Starcraft, Counter-Strike, Quake, Unreal were popular on the multiplayer stats for YEARS. User generated content ensured that even if the game was abandoned by developers, it would be continued to be supported by the community. This also applied to singleplayer games by the way - Deus Ex is a prime example.

Very few people on NeoGaf have heard of Tron 2.0. It was a licensed game that until the last Tron movie came out, was considered the sequel to the original Tron. Game was pretty good, did alright on the sales charts but the developer abandoned it shortly after release. There is still a small community of people out there making patches and content for this obscure 10+ year old licensed game.

Compare that to today's modern FPS. Modern Warfare 2 gets released in 2009. No dedicated servers and no mod support. PC fans create a stir. The Giant Bomb guys go on their podcast and defend the decision because most mods suck and dedicated servers often make people download mods.

I see people post in threads about how playing FPS with a controller is better than M+KB and I always think to myself that they're only saying that because they don't realize that most modern FPS are designed with more or less, the same game mechanics that make it possible to play with a controller. This was not true back in the early 2000's. FPS used to be a lot more diverse in terms of game mechanics and genre tropes back then.

I really hate what the modern gaming industry has done to the FPS genre.
 
Remember using mods/skins someone created.. Homer, Optimus Prime, Bender etc and they all had fantastic audio lines taken from the tv show. Game was fantastic, shame about the latest UT3, didn't grab me at all which seemed odd considering the first 3 were great.
 
UT99 is and will always be my Favorite FPS. The OG. I picked up UT03 and 04 on release and loved bombing run and Onslaught. Its so crazy to think that 04 was released with 100+ maps. Imagine if it was released today. 20 Maps MAYBE at launch and then 5 maps every few weeks for 10 bucks.

Ugh.

Also, will there ever be a weapon that works like the shock rifle in another FPS? Shock combos separated the men from the boys.

My only hope is that Harmonix (of all people) can bring back the Arena FPS.
 
Aww yea, UT2004 brings back a lot of good memories! Onslaught was the best online mode that hasn't been duplicated. I must have put a few hundred hours into UT2004. Really miss the modes UT had too. I remember a map where you stormed a beachhead and made your way into a building. Each area was a checkpoint for attackers and defenders. Same with Counterstrike, all these cool game modes that just don't exist in the TDM, dom, & CTF world of today.
 
1up said:
UT99 is and will always be my Favorite FPS. The OG. I picked up UT03 and 04 on release and loved bombing run and Onslaught. Its so crazy to think that 04 was released with 100+ maps. Imagine if it was released today. 20 Maps MAYBE at launch and then 5 maps every few weeks for 10 bucks.

Ugh.

Also, will there ever be a weapon that works like the shock rifle in another FPS? Shock combos separated the men from the boys.

My only hope is that Harmonix (of all people) can bring back the Arena FPS.
Click to expand...

UT99 was godlike. Released when I was still in high school and I actually had time to play and get good. In fact I think that and Q3 were the last games I could genuinely say I was really good at.
 
UT2k4 was great. I'm not a big shooter fan anymore, but this game was one of my favorites back in the day. It's hard to believe it came out 10 years ago...
 
EatChildren said:
Original UT is still my favourite in the series, but UT'04 was dope. Played the shit out of it. Remember it being one of the first things I'd install with hardware upgrades and reformats, and always had a presence when I lanned with mates.
Click to expand...

I vastly prefer the original, but I never refuse to play '04 when one of my friends wants to fire it up.

UT99 is my favourite FPS of all time, distantly followed by BF2142 and Q2 RA2.
 
One of my favorite games of all time. A game that people actually played as a team.
I had also just built my first custom PC for gaming about 6 months prior to it being released, and I purposely spec'd that computer out for UT2K4. Purchased a Nvidia 6900 Ultra almost primarily because of this game. For an entire summer it was pretty much all I played. Onslaught and Assault were both great modes.

A game like Titanfall owes everything to UT2K4.
 
"My only hope is that Harmonix (of all people) can bring back the Arena FPS."

"Band together – Your team is your band: Join up with your friends and battle for glory. Master multiple classes, each with their own unique musical gameplay mechanics and perks, and lead your team to victory." -- from the Harmonix website...

I wouldn't get your hopes up for that game to bring back the Arena FPS. Sounds more like TF2.
 
Millsington said:
I was angry that 2004 came out and pretty much killed off 2003 only a year after I bought it, so I refused to buy 2004. I also felt like vehicles did not feel very like UT to me. Also, WoW beta...

I really miss playing bombing run though, it was such a fantastic mode. There was nothing like dodging rockets from all directions and shooting the ball into the hoop from far away.
Click to expand...

Same here, although I did buy UT2004. I liked UT2003 more, eventhough it lacked an official Assault mode. The weapon balance was better, whereas in UT2004 the Flak Cannon was nerfed, Minigun was too powerful, and I disliked the comeback of the regular sniper rifle, which encouraged camping. UT2004's maps were also too big, which resulted in running around and trying to keep up with the group on larger Assault maps (which was impossible when playing with bots), and I didn't like the inclusion of vehicles either.

My favorite mode, along with Assault, was Double Domination. Particularly the SunTemple map.
HvQjqkv.gif

I still remember keeping my ground solo against two other players for about half an hour. Eventually they chose to use the Redeemer on me, which was my undoing.
 
Although I prefer Q3A by far, those were the days... such great games.
No other Arena based FPS has managed to grab my attention since then.
 
One of the best shooters ever made. Incredible amounts of content and variety. Exquisitely smooth in its movement, with an arsenal to match. I'd pay good money for a UT2K4 re-release with Steamworks support.
 
PastorOfMuppets said:
Like I said in another thread, if you weren't around for the golden age of PC FPS' you will probably never realize the extent to which gamers are being utterly shafted when everyone decided that the consoles were the place to be for FPS.

Here's the "DLC" that UT2K4 was later released with:

  • Two entirely new gamemodes
  • New weapons
  • New vehicles
  • New character models
  • New maps - it was something ridiculous, at least in the 30's

That was for one major update and it was free. It also came out at a time when companies regularly released mod tools with their games. This is one of the reasons why games like Starcraft, Counter-Strike, Quake, Unreal were popular on the multiplayer stats for YEARS. User generated content ensured that even if the game was abandoned by developers, it would be continued to be supported by the community. This also applied to singleplayer games by the way - Deus Ex is a prime example.

Very few people on NeoGaf have heard of Tron 2.0. It was a licensed game that until the last Tron movie came out, was considered the sequel to the original Tron. Game was pretty good, did alright on the sales charts but the developer abandoned it shortly after release. There is still a small community of people out there making patches and content for this obscure 10+ year old licensed game.

Compare that to today's modern FPS. Modern Warfare 2 gets released in 2009. No dedicated servers and no mod support. PC fans create a stir. The Giant Bomb guys go on their podcast and defend the decision because most mods suck and dedicated servers often make people download mods.

I see people post in threads about how playing FPS with a controller is better than M+KB and I always think to myself that they're only saying that because they don't realize that most modern FPS are designed with more or less, the same game mechanics that make it possible to play with a controller. This was not true back in the early 2000's. FPS used to be a lot more diverse in terms of game mechanics and genre tropes back then.

I really hate what the modern gaming industry has done to the FPS genre.
Click to expand...


Hear hear!
 
UT2k4 was really amazing, but 99 was my favourite too. I remember playing it online with my 56k modem, on my shitty Athlon with my more than shitty TNT2 Pro card. But it was still amazing.

Man those were the days lol
 
>:) said:
Damn...I remember my high end X800XT struggling to make it to 60fps on some of the bigger ONS maps...amazing to see how good the game still looks 10 years later.
Click to expand...

I still have an X800XT platinum edition. Don't think I have the box but the card is in an old machine.
 
Vilam said:
Was this the one with Convoy? Loved that map and assault mode so damn much... Great demo.
Click to expand...

Yep. AS_Convoy was also one of the demo levels and I played the shit of out it. Such a fantastic map. I also really loved the map that had everyone start in a ship around a space station and you had to make your way into the space station and destroy the core. Such inspiring level design that really hasn't been topped.
 
Best college breaks ever. Our tutor would arrange it all in our Graphics room. So much fun. Hah we even played on Macs.

I got hooked so much. I started playing alot at home so when we played at break I would slaughter the others lol.
 
>:) said:
Damn...I remember my high end X800XT struggling to make it to 60fps on some of the bigger ONS maps...amazing to see how good the game still looks 10 years later.
Click to expand...

Heh, my Radeon 9700 Pro had problems with running some of the bigger UT2003 maps even at 30fps. I remember Face3 map being particularly taxing.
 
Talyn said:
Clone Bandits. <sigh> Nevar forget. (It was one of those Make Something Unreal projects.)
Click to expand...

Holy fuck, you played that too? That game was epic. I believe the makers of that mod ended up doing stuff for Mass Effect and Borderlands, among other stuff.
 
This was the game that convinced me to upgrade my computer - my entire computer - to run at a better framerate. (Well, this and Half-Life 2. I could barely acceptably run UT2K4 on my old rig; not so much HL2.)

I liked that you could turn the gore off if you really wanted to. I was still pretty squeamish in 2004, so being able to partake in all the fragging without the gibbing was a selling point for me. I'd largely avoided FPSes at the time because of things like that. (Obviously, I play with all the gibs now; just relating how I felt then.)

Oh man, and all the downloadable maps, character models, custom modes (4-way CTF was surprisingly fun, as I recall), mutators, custom voice packs (if your character isn't rocking the Strong Bad voice pack I don't know what to tell you). Such great memories.

That said, I've noticed the Space Egypt theme wasn't too popular. I mean, I didn't mind it, but admittedly I played the '99 remake of Facing Worlds more than the 2K3/4 Space Egypt variant of it.
 
2k4 wasn't quite as important to me as UT99, but it's still an amazing game. I hope it's still possible for someone to make a game like this; one purchase with mod support, map tools and all that stuff included. That'd probably have to happen via Kickstarter and/or early access.

Oh and yes, I remember playing this in amazing 800x600 resolution because that was the only way the game was playable.
 
We should get a bunch of people together and set some games up. (I'm on mac though....)
Super fun game though, I miss arena shooters.
 
PastorOfMuppets said:
Like I said in another thread, if you weren't around for the golden age of PC FPS' you will probably never realize the extent to which gamers are being utterly shafted when everyone decided that the consoles were the place to be for FPS.

Here's the "DLC" that UT2K4 was later released with:

  • Two entirely new gamemodes
  • New weapons
  • New vehicles
  • New character models
  • New maps - it was something ridiculous, at least in the 30's

That was for one major update and it was free. It also came out at a time when companies regularly released mod tools with their games. This is one of the reasons why games like Starcraft, Counter-Strike, Quake, Unreal were popular on the multiplayer stats for YEARS. User generated content ensured that even if the game was abandoned by developers, it would be continued to be supported by the community. This also applied to singleplayer games by the way - Deus Ex is a prime example.

Very few people on NeoGaf have heard of Tron 2.0. It was a licensed game that until the last Tron movie came out, was considered the sequel to the original Tron. Game was pretty good, did alright on the sales charts but the developer abandoned it shortly after release. There is still a small community of people out there making patches and content for this obscure 10+ year old licensed game.

Compare that to today's modern FPS. Modern Warfare 2 gets released in 2009. No dedicated servers and no mod support. PC fans create a stir. The Giant Bomb guys go on their podcast and defend the decision because most mods suck and dedicated servers often make people download mods.

I see people post in threads about how playing FPS with a controller is better than M+KB and I always think to myself that they're only saying that because they don't realize that most modern FPS are designed with more or less, the same game mechanics that make it possible to play with a controller. This was not true back in the early 2000's. FPS used to be a lot more diverse in terms of game mechanics and genre tropes back then.

I really hate what the modern gaming industry has done to the FPS genre.
Click to expand...


Amen. Games like this and Q3A were the pinnacle of shooters designed for the PC and mouse and keyboard. This is why when I see stories about how the Monaco dev is trying to make RTS work on a gamepad I hope they fail. Because I don't want to see another PC genre completely gutted and sterilized like what happened to FPS games. All in the pursuit of the mighty console userbase.
 
I liked this game but not as much as UT99. I remember the shock rifle ball looking amazing at the time. Still play it with the steam group from sp,some of yall might be here.
 
I was never more hyped for a game after playing the assault demo (with the 2 transport trucks). I can't believe that was 10 years ago...
 
the last great fast paced shooter ever made.

after this, companies started focusing on tailoring everything to xbox. shooters still havent recovered :-(
 
I have put more time into Unreal Tournament 2004 than any other game in existence.

Who do I have to kill to get us Assault Mode-style games back?

Teknopathetic said:
"My only hope is that Harmonix (of all people) can bring back the Arena FPS."

"Band together &#8211; Your team is your band: Join up with your friends and battle for glory. Master multiple classes, each with their own unique musical gameplay mechanics and perks, and lead your team to victory." -- from the Harmonix website...

I wouldn't get your hopes up for that game to bring back the Arena FPS. Sounds more like TF2.
Click to expand...

Classes are the antithesis of good arena shooter design. Personally, I don't like class-based games all that much (obviously, there are exceptions).

I'm sure Chroma will be fantastic, but I doubt it'll be a fantastic arena shooter.
 
Syphon Filter said:
Its already on steam,no need for a rerelease.
Click to expand...

Oh, I'm well aware. I think a soft relaunch of it with Steamworks would be great. Although the in-game server browser works just fine, it's a bit archaic in 2014, and being able to join games from my friend list would be awesome. And for what it's worth, Epic kind of did this once already with UT3 becoming pseudo-Steamworks (it registered on Steam, but still used Gamespy). I think it gave UT3 a small shot in the arm, but not much more.
 
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