2K4 was better, but can it be considered retro? I mean 2k3 can because it was replaced with 2K4, which was better in every way. Vehicles made the game a lot more fun. Even still, essentially exactly the same game but less retro.

I can't think post-2002 as retro. UT2003 had felt the Aquanox influence with all that eurostile dork age'ing and stock sound effects. UT2004 only alleviated some of it, but was still dorky even with those new Thundercrash characters and Hellions. The fauxorchestra soundtrack doesn't help either, puts it into post-Halo cheese territory. The new much demanded menu system had a bad presentation too.

Oh and that sports announcer............
"BLUE TEAM ON OFFENSE BLUE FUMBULLED!!! RED TEAM O RED FUMBULLED!!!!!!! BLBLUE FUMBULLLED!!"

I agree - the big change in visual style with UT2003 was unfortunate. So was the Monday Night Football feel to the audio. The gameplay is good enough though.

How about Quake 4? Eeek. Quake mod for Elite Force.

Thats UT for me, for several reasons but the variety and diversity of the weapons alone make me go UT all the way. UT2K4 was awesome too but much more technical. I think the Original UT is more accessible for casual playing.
It remains one of the game i played the most in my entire life.

@Swaaye: Nice 4000th post 😁

swaaye wrote:

How about Quake 4? Eeek.

Raven Software... Id came with rescue patches too late.

You seem to be quite harsh on Raven and on Quake 4. It was one of the best single player FPS releases of 2005. Those most dissapointed would have been the people hoping (praying) that Quake III could be surpassed in Multiplayer, but has not be done STILL by 2012. But as a single player game it did the job IMO. Can you name me a better FPS released that year? The only other FPS games worth mentioning would be F.E.A.R. or Battlefield 2, which was multiplayer only so that won't count.

PS. Remember Raven released RTCW, one of the best FPS games ever and a fine use of iD's engine. Quake 4 was as good looking as Doom also. And proved the critics wrong with the " Doom III engine can't do outdoor areas " bullshit.

RTCW was made by Grey Matter Interactive. I tried to play through that again recently but I gave up because of the intense insta-aim the AI has.

Quake4 is undeniably a polished, competent by-the-numbers corridor shooter with a Quake motif, but man I was expecting more. You know, Half Life 2 had recently dramatically shown how to do that kind of game better. Far Cry had its huge open sandbox gameplay. I think even Unreal 2 is perhaps more interesting. Quake4 didn't even keep the edgy feel because of the loss of the usual intense id Software soundtrack aspect.

I was only considering multi player. Raven did fine single (as usual) but neglected multi player and that was not supposed to happen.

I played Unreal 2 recently and man was I bored. It starts alright but goes nowhere and I already forgot how it ended. First Unreal keeps you hooked up, I think it has to do with the oppressed natives and contrasts of ancient and futuristic.

I bet many of us feel like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1ZtBCpo0eU

Yeah I agree Unreal 2 is pretty weak across the board. I've done some reading about the development and it seems Legend had some really interesting ideas but a combination of lack of time and over-the-top ideas created the final mess. I beat that again about a year ago.

Unreal 1 is one of the most original shooters ever in my book. It has mystery, intense action and nails the out of this world feel. Love that game. It reminds me of Another World / Out of this World.

Unreal II was a massive let down. The trailers sold it as a gorgeous (which it was, I suppose....) FPS blaster but it was slow as hell. More in line with Halo but with less originality.

Quake 4 gameplay IS intense! What level of difficulty are you playing it on? Cos on the hardest setting it's a damn intense shooter, with very twitchy battles at close quarters and some awesome long range firefights too! Not to mention the darkness being used (never overly) for great effect.

The movement let the Multiplayer down - they should have replicated as best they could the perfect Quake III movement, but I guess the engine differences were not up to it, and they wanted to add something 'new' (crouch jumps were never gonna work though, really!).

I'm surprised you didn't like RTCW. Again you're supposed to play it on hard settings, and the game WILL be hard with the enemy AI hitting you because back then, well, games were hard. None of todays immortality bullshit. U needed to conserve that energy and travel back to find the health kits you had left behind. The difficulty is what makes a game interesting and challenging. Rather than just an 8 hour sit through.

Iris030380 wrote:

Can you name me a better FPS released that year?.

Serious Sam 2
Republic Commando
Battlefield 2

By the way, I never liked RTCW.

Iris030380 wrote:

I'm surprised you didn't like RTCW. Again you're supposed to play it on hard settings, and the game WILL be hard with the enemy AI hitting you because back then, well, games were hard. None of todays immortality bullshit.

It's that old school hard where they hit you as soon as your first pixel is exposed around the corner. Amazing inhuman computer reflexes. I really don't think it qualifies as fun but knock yourself out. Other games you may enjoy include Alpha Prime, Exodus from the Earth, Far Cry, Chaser and Chrome. 😉

Far Cry was an amazing tech demo. A great Tropical Island Walking Simulator. A pretty screensaver and a good benchmarking tool. As an FPS game it never impressed me one bit. Chrome is also a very bad game. Chaser was enjoyable, if only because it was very oldschool and again a nice, difficult challenging game. But I guess it's a matter of preference. Do you like to be able to stop and breathe, and feel safe. Or do you like the intense, nowhere to run stand and fight or die kind of games.

leileilol wrote:

Serious Sam 2 Republic Commando Battlefield 2 […]
Show full quote

Serious Sam 2
Republic Commando
Battlefield 2

By the way, I never liked RTCW.

Please .... Serious Sam 2 not even close to the same league! 🤣! It's an arcade FPS game. And Battlefield II, as I said, is Multiplayer only.

I just rattled off that list of games because I know offhand that those all have insta-aim AI like RTCW.

My favorite shooters of the past 10 years have probably been the STALKER series and Dark Messiah. STALKER has the amazing atmosphere, the quasi-realism and variety in its weapons/ballistics, and the sandbox aspects. It's hard, especially with some of the realism mods like Oblivion Lost. Dark Messiah has the best first person melee I've ever played.

Let me say that I'm not a multiplayer shooter player at all anymore so I have no idea what's good there since post-UT99/Q3.

UT2K4 is a decent FPS, but it isn't as fun as the original game in my opinion. For whatever reason the gameplay and controls don't feel as tight, and it's practically impossible for me to find any good servers on it.

My problem with UT2k4 was that Onslaught mode. While it is a good time, it seemed like nobody wanted to play CTF or DM anymore!

Even worse? No one plays maps other than ONS-Torlan. For deathmatch no one plays other than DM-Rankin. All the assault servers? It's not even ASSAULT anymore, it's "hellbender race trials"! Lame.

Invasion servers have turned into some weird RPG stuff where you're forced to use a crappy MP5 weapon.

So far my fun with the game is best with bots, weapon replacements and addon monsters

The ultimate battle huh?
Well, I gotta say, I love both games equally. Quake 3 offers a much more fast paced experience. Free for all deathmatch FTW!
Unreal Tournament is much more varied, it is fun in its own right.
I think UT2k4 is arguably the best game, although UT99 is the most nostalgic for me, I personally like it more 😀

Unreal 2 was interesting. I started playing it and it was exactly what I needed at the time. At first I was mocking it and laughing at it, but it kinda grew on me. Yeah, the story is pretty typical and even the locales don't differentiate a lot from your typical sci-fi game, but I enjoyed it for what it was. Stereotypical, but also weird in its own way. I gotta say, the ending left quite an impact on me. I didn't expect it and found it pretty well done.

I've taken quite a liking to similarly stereotypical, yet weird games. Silver from Infogrames is one my favorites on that category (nothing to do with FPS games though!).

To be honest, my favorite thing of all in Unreal II was the Hydra Grenade Launcher.

The U2 weapons have been ported to UT2004 before also 😀