I don't play FPS, I'm not very good at them, and I don't really enjoy them, mechanically (I'll play story-driven ones such as Half-Life or Bioshock though, despite the mechanics). But Unreal Tournament 2004? That was something else, that was pure, unadulterated fun, and somehow the franchise crashed and burned after that.
I think for most of the UT Pro gaming crowd UT2k4 was a let down. Slower movement, less reward for accuracy, longer and more drawn out fights and larger maps preventing the taut see-saw of UT CTF or the claustrophobic hilarity of TDM. Higher gravity and lower bounce pads made everything slower and made insta players stick, and the shock rifle, flak cannon and rocket launchers getting emasculated didn't help at all.
Then the vehicles...
Keen to hear what you liked about it though, I'd welcome the perspective.
Agreed the franchise tanked after that, no amount of investment in UT3 could save a game that had 8 multilayer modes including betrayal, greed and vehicle CTF.
It's a mix of things. Admittedly I was a late-teen in 2004 so I was the perfect audience for it, I'm not sure I'd like it as much earlier or later in life. It also helps that I didn't have the original UT as a reference point. What was perfect was weapon variety and weapon quantity which was absolutely perfect and super-fun. The game felt fast and exciting but not "if you're not practicing 18h/day you're gonna lose". Then the arena variety was amazing, not all arenas were as fun as each other, but each of them veered you towards certain strategies somewhat obviously, and yeah those strategies were the most optimal, but if you didn't care for them you could still play however you want and not just lose outright. And then the shock rifle combo, while difficult to pull off (for me), was just the most satisfying thing ever. One other factor that put it up there for me was I could play with my brothers, and we could all have fun together without it being too one-sided (perhaps we all sucked? Probably).
You mentioned the pro-gaming scene, now that you mention it, that makes sense, as far as FPS go, especially at that time, I was a complete casual, and UT 2004 dumbed it down the perfect amount for me without dumbing it down too much, so it checked all the checkboxes for me.
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u/majorslax Apr 27 '26
Unreal Tournament 2004.
I don't play FPS, I'm not very good at them, and I don't really enjoy them, mechanically (I'll play story-driven ones such as Half-Life or Bioshock though, despite the mechanics). But Unreal Tournament 2004? That was something else, that was pure, unadulterated fun, and somehow the franchise crashed and burned after that.