unreal-tournament-2004 posts

It's the old cliche of showing barrels in first person shooters. Sometimes the barrels have no real world reason to be there in a level. They are just around for you to take a gun and shoot it, causing a big explosion that you hope will take out some enemies.

So how about an environment that is filled with barrels? Lots of barrels? Barrels that are just waiting for, say, a Redeemer fired by a player in Unreal Tournament 2004 to start the biggest chain reaction of explosions we can remember seeing in a YouTube video? There's no need to wonder about those questions. Just check out the video above for the answer. Oh, and check this post on the BeyondUnreal message boards for some info on how the video was made (here's a hint: the video isn't rendered in real time).

In celebration of Killing Floor's announcement (and soon-to-be release), we decided it's about time to crack open our copy of Unreal Tournament 2004 and play the most recently released version of the survival-horror co-op mod. It may be about a year old, but it's still chock full of excellent monster-killing action. Unlike Left 4 Dead, however, Killing Floor has neither zombies nor traditional "go here and do this" maps. It plays more like Left 4 Dead's Survival mode, albeit with plenty of twists.

It was a bit of a surprise to learn last month that yet another Unreal Tournament 2004 mod would be turned into a commerical stand alone product. Following in the footsteps of Red Orchestra and Damnation, the co-op shooter Killing Floor will soon be released via developer Tripwire Interactive via Steam.

The game's offiicial web site still doesn't have a lot about the title but it does have some new screenshots showing us something of what the final version will look like. The game itself has you and a bunch of friends (up two six players in full co-op mode) going up against zombies . . . er, creatures that have both melee and weapons attacks. There's still no word on a specific release date.

We've always laughed when certain lawyers or politcians have tried to push the theory that first person shooter games are "murder simulators" simply because playing a game with a mouse-keyboard combo or a gamepad can't possibly be the same as shooting an actual firearm. However a newly revealed study now claims playing such games can improve a person's vision.

Reuters reports that the study by the University of Rochester in New York showed that after playing games like Call of Duty 2 and Unreal Tournament 2004 gamers "saw significant improvements in their ability to notice subtle differences in shades of gray." That could help them when they drive at night. So perhaps getting a "nut shot" in Combat Arms can actually help your vision in real life, if not your aim.

The DRM-lacking folks at GoG.com have sent over word of three additional games that have been added to their catalogue of titles that have no need of copy protection. As previously promised, Epic Games has released two titles from their Unreal series for GoG.com to sell; Unreal Tournament 2004 and Unreal 2: The Awakening. Both games can be downloaded for $9.99 each with a few extra wallpapers and avatars to boot.

Also added to the list today is FlatOut, the first game in the long running arcade racing series from developer Bugbear. You can download the full version right now from GoG.com for just $5.99.

CD Projekt's DRM-free game download service GOG.com has gotten a lot of attention lately and today the company announced perhaps its biggest addition yet to its line-up of games. Epic Games has signed a deal that will allow a number of its older Unreal games to be made available for purchase and download from GOG.com.

The games include Unreal Gold and Unreal Tournament: Game of the Year Edition both of which are available for download and purchase now for $9.99. In the coming weeks, Unreal II: The Awakening Special Edition and Unreal Tournament 2004: Editor's Choice Edition will also be added to the GoG.com mix

Breaking into the video game industry isn't easy, but one great way to make an impression to create mods for existing games. Indeed there have been one or two occasions where a mod of a game has become more popular than the game it's based on. Valve has been a champion of these kinds of mods and games and has even bought a number of them into their fold to be released as commercial titles.

While technically their next game Left 4 Dead is an all original property the zombie co-op shooter has the spirit of a mod that was later made into a full game. In this feature we look back at both mods and mod teams that have move on to make some terrific first person shooter style titles including, yes, a number of Valve games.

Click on the image above to continue reading the feature article

You would think it wouldn't matter what color your team is in multiplayer shooter matches. Red team . . . Blue team . . . it's all a matter of the players and how they play, right? Well, maybe not. According to a new Associated Press story (via Google) a new study suggests playing on the red team gives players an edge.

The study, conducted at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark, checked out the results of 1,347 matches in Epic Games' Unreal Tournament 2004. The result of their study showed that 55 percent of the time the red team in the matches won against the blue team. One of the scientists claims that the color red " . . . may act as a psychological distractor for men, possibly because men flush and turn red when they're angry." The article also quotes Epic Games's VP Mark Rein who states that while they find the results of the study interesting the fact is that playing red teams against blue teams " . . has been ingrained in the Unreal Tournament series for years." In other words, don't expect to see pink vs. gray matches anytime soon.