Gameplay differs somewhat between the two (movement, weapon balancing...)

There's a UT2003 Style Mutator Pack for UT2004.

I'm pretty sure Unreal Tournament 2004 added more maps, gore and vehicles.

It's missing a couple of UT2003 bonus maps, namely the Lava giant.remake. It's missing the Bulldog vehicle which wasn't used in UT2003 anyway and was an experiment (not the same kind of vehicle system UT2004 had). It's missing the ability to benchmark (important for vogoners but also important because UT2004 has heavier cpu usage for no good reason). It's also missing UT2003's (horrible) single player campaign. 😀

You could find the feature list of UT2004 anywhere, but the main gamut is Thundercrash, Skaarj, Skaarj, Skaarj, Vehicles, Onslaught (UT2003 meets BF1942), Invasion (in other words: skaarj), Assault (though unfortunately it's just used as 'trial race' instead), and Vehicles and Skaarj and Vehicles also I think Skaarj but i'm not sure. but i do know there's vehicles.

A lot of the graphical improvements just mostly involve slapping a modulated environment map on things to make them appear shinier, something they could've done for UT2003 just as easily.

The gore is unchanged, but there's been some reductions - there is no longer any blood splatter on certain static meshes such as weapons.

The ECE Bonus Pack adds more vehicles and some more maps. Though personally I find all the bonus onlsaught maps and vehicles very boring. Streamline Studios were responsible for those additions and it looks like they just mangled metal parts and used a rust brush, and there's hardly any hard sharp edges...

leileilol wrote:

It's missing a couple of UT2003 bonus maps, namely the Lava giant.remake. It's missing the Bulldog vehicle which wasn't used in […]
Show full quote

It's missing a couple of UT2003 bonus maps, namely the Lava giant.remake. It's missing the Bulldog vehicle which wasn't used in UT2003 anyway and was an experiment (not the same kind of vehicle system UT2004 had). It's missing the ability to benchmark (important for vogoners but also important because UT2004 has heavier cpu usage for no good reason). It's also missing UT2003's (horrible) single player campaign. 😀

You could find the feature list of UT2004 anywhere, but the main gamut is Thundercrash, Skaarj, Skaarj, Skaarj, Vehicles, Onslaught (UT2003 meets BF1942), Invasion (in other words: skaarj), Assault (though unfortunately it's just used as 'trial race' instead), and Vehicles and Skaarj and Vehicles also I think Skaarj but i'm not sure. but i do know there's vehicles.

A lot of the graphical improvements just mostly involve slapping a modulated environment map on things to make them appear shinier, something they could've done for UT2003 just as easily.

The gore is unchanged, but there's been some reductions - there is no longer any blood splatter on certain static meshes such as weapons.

The ECE Bonus Pack adds more vehicles and some more maps. Though personally I find all the bonus onlsaught maps and vehicles very boring. Streamline Studios were responsible for those additions and it looks like they just mangled metal parts and used a rust brush, and there's hardly any hard sharp edges...

I think you forgot the Skaarj.... 🤣

Also I remember UT2004 having a "single player campaign" of sorts where you could "play the tournament" against bots; it isn't up to the highly cerebral standards of something like Doom 3, but it's there. 🙄

UT2004's is different because it allows management of team members and having to use your earnings to treat their injuries. It's much less 'straight' than UT and UT2003, even Counter-Strike Condition Zero had to copy this formula in their Turtle Rock incarnation

There are *slight* engine differences between UT2003 and UT2004 these differences were enough to break EVERY SINGLE ESTABLISHED MOD much like how that kind of thing happened during Unreal 1's beta patches.

leilei sorta struck it on a high note though, but the most important changes is, almost every class in UT2004 was changed in some odd number of ways. And newer native classes and functionality was added like the vehicles for instance.

also announcer changing and sniper rifles. The loud 'sports' announcer in UT2003 was one of the series's biggest scrappies

I played a lot of UT back then. I do not remember the differences in such details as leileilol though.
What I can tell you is when UT2004 was released i never looked back to 2003. I liked the new onslaught game mode, it also seemed less buggy. I read it is supposed to be more CPU heavy but I seem to remember thinking it ran smoother. Less stuttering maybe? Cannot say for sure, too long ago.

For all practical purposes I would recommend skipping 2003.

the sludge gun is also different in ut 2003

leileilol wrote:

It's missing a couple of UT2003 bonus maps, namely the Lava giant.remake. It's missing the Bulldog vehicle which wasn't used in […]
Show full quote

It's missing a couple of UT2003 bonus maps, namely the Lava giant.remake. It's missing the Bulldog vehicle which wasn't used in UT2003 anyway and was an experiment (not the same kind of vehicle system UT2004 had). It's missing the ability to benchmark (important for vogoners but also important because UT2004 has heavier cpu usage for no good reason). It's also missing UT2003's (horrible) single player campaign. 😀

You could find the feature list of UT2004 anywhere, but the main gamut is Thundercrash, Skaarj, Skaarj, Skaarj, Vehicles, Onslaught (UT2003 meets BF1942), Invasion (in other words: skaarj), Assault (though unfortunately it's just used as 'trial race' instead), and Vehicles and Skaarj and Vehicles also I think Skaarj but i'm not sure. but i do know there's vehicles.

A lot of the graphical improvements just mostly involve slapping a modulated environment map on things to make them appear shinier, something they could've done for UT2003 just as easily.

The gore is unchanged, but there's been some reductions - there is no longer any blood splatter on certain static meshes such as weapons.

The ECE Bonus Pack adds more vehicles and some more maps. Though personally I find all the bonus onlsaught maps and vehicles very boring. Streamline Studios were responsible for those additions and it looks like they just mangled metal parts and used a rust brush, and there's hardly any hard sharp edges...

Interesting. I've actually been playing UT2k4 a lot lately (well, the single player anyway, I can't find any good servers unlike UT99 🤣), and as I have the Steam version, I believe I have the ECE content as well. It sucks that they took out the Lava Giant remake, as that was one of my favorite maps on UT99. 🙁

Also, am I the only person who thinks the lightning gun is lame compared to the sniper rifle? UT99's sniper rifle was GODLY, and the one you get on UT2K4 is pretty awesome as well, when you get to actually use it.

I really like the lightning gun :p

The lightning gun would be a much much better weapon if it had a shorter recharge time, or at least did more damage per shot. I know it's supposed to be used for headshots and not body shots, but headshots are so hard to get when you consider just how fast everyone moves. At least the sniper rifle has a decent rate of fire to make up for its lack of damage, so I can still quickly pop off a headshot even if my mess up my initial shot, rather than having to track my target while I wait for my lightning gun to recharge.

mr_bigmouth_502 wrote:

The lightning gun would be a much much better weapon if it had a shorter recharge time, or at least did more damage per shot. I know it's supposed to be used for headshots and not body shots, but headshots are so hard to get when you consider just how fast everyone moves. At least the sniper rifle has a decent rate of fire to make up for its lack of damage, so I can still quickly pop off a headshot even if my mess up my initial shot, rather than having to track my target while I wait for my lightning gun to recharge.

I played against high level players who used the LG a lot and believe me, it was plenty deadly. Also, you could switch weapon right after firing the LG. Shoot once with say the shock rifle then switch back again to LG and fire againg. All this in the same time it would take to fire the LG twice so you get a free shot basically.

A pretty crazy keyboard dance you say? Now imagine switching weapons thrice while doing head shots on a moving target while double wall jumping to avoid an enemy missile and you begin to get an idea what UT2004 was at pro level.

Holy shit! 😳 I guess that goes to show I'm a n00b. 🤣

I'll try to remember to switch to my shock rifle whenever my LG is recharging. 😉