Sit down, son. You just stumbled upon the page of the best shooter ever made. Pay some respect.

Before the days of shooters that holds your hand and aim for you, that regenerate your health and show you what to do like a baby, there was this. Unreal Tournament 2004 - the most brutal, adrenalin-fueled shooter since Quake 3 Arena, a game so fast-paced its guaranteed you'll burn your eyes from not blinking for so long. They say we only use 20% of our brains - well, if you play this game on the hardest difficulty, you'll be using 100% i assure you. Holy hell son, this game uses so much of your brain it pretty much even cures autism. This game is filled with so much testosterone you have to shave your beard every forty minutes of gametime.

Gameplay wise, this game is delicious. With an amazing arsenal of creative, varied and badass weapons, its certified there is a gun for everyone and every situation - sniper rifles that shoot lightning bolts, a triple rocket launcher, jesus christ did i mention a shotgun that shoots grenades too? (The Flak Cannon, considered the number 1 best gun of all times by PC Gamer). Also, with the ability of limitless dodging, walljumping and even double-jumping, the potential for amazing acrobatic moves to evade your enemy's attacks are so great not even Dante from Devil May Cry can keep up. Yep: he cries every night because he cant be as badass as you, when you're playing this game. But this is the bare basic - to survive in the Online arenas, you better be backflipping over your enemies and giving them an instagib headshot while upside down. That's how you play this. However, to be good you have to have absolute keyboard coordination and aiming abilities - it aint easy to do those moves while scoring headshots airborne. Its so hardcore, they say ninjas have to play this game to graduate in Ninja School as their last test. I'm not even kidding.

The maps are varied, from skyscrapers reaching space and low-grav to gothic dungeons, futuristic egyptian pyramids to spaceships blasting in hyperspace - there are over 140 maps in this game (thats almost 5 times more than any CoD), ranging from Deathmatch maps to Capture the Flag, Double Domination, Onslaught (Battlefield-esque map node domination), Assault (from the original UT) and even Bombing Run (Its soccer. WITH GUNS). And kid, that's not even taking into account the thousands of maps released by fans - that's right, the modding community is huge for this game. (No DLC crap, no. You get all those maps and access to mod maps for free. Welcome to oldschool shooters)

The soundtrack and graphics certainly do not falter. We get badass tracks like the one in DM-Asbestos, and others have more epic orchestral music (for actual epic scenes: assaulting an alien mothership to save Earth) and the graphics, for their time, were considered to be amazing (Even modern games, like Killing Floor, use this game engine as base). The visual and audio presentation certainly do not lack, but to this day this game isnt known for having pretty trees, its known for being the best shooter of all times and ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ does it right.

Together with the classic Unreal Tournament and Quake 3 Arena, Unreal Tournament 2004 is known by shooter veterans worldwide to be the best competitive shooter experience that ever existed. Think you're ready for that? Take off the Angry Birds shirt, the Casual of Duty cap and get ready for a terrific head-hunting experience with the game that INVENTED Double-Kills, Headshots and Killing-Sprees (that all games rip-off nowadays).

Final Score: 10/10

In my opinion, this is the single greatest arena first person shooter of all time. When it comes to competitive play, absolutely nothing beats this game. This game itches absolutely every desire I have for an arena shooter perfectly.

From the fast paced movement to the weapons sandbox, it plays like a dream. No other game thus far has impressed me as much as Epic has with this game. The dodging system adds skill that compliments other skills such as tactical skill and aiming skill.

One of the biggest complaints I have with modern games on PC is a lack of features. This game features a full editing kit, great community driven content, a hub to display that content and a plethora of other features that hardly any other games have in comparison. Yes, that does include a FoV slider. The thing that all FPS games should have no matter what.

If this game were to only be available by going to E-Bay and paying $200 for it, I would in a heartbeat. If you're a fan of arena shooter games like Quake, you're really missing out if you haven't played this. If you want to try out arena shooters for the first time, this is your best choice. I have personally bought this game for a good few people simply because of how much I believe in it. Get it now.

Ten years later, and still on top.

Happy Birthday Unreal Tournament 2004.

This is one of the greatest games of all time

Why did we have to stop making FPS games where you could play bots in a fake multiplayer-like fashion?

This is so much fun and just like I remember.

Thumbs up to get a badge

When Epic Games was Epic Games.

Ok. Not working on Windows 10? No problem! At least until the next Win update breaks it.
Go to C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Unreal Tournament 2004\System
and look for and open UT2004.ini

Find the section with the below entries:

[Engine.Engine]
RenderDevice=D3D9Drv.D3D9RenderDevice
;RenderDevice=D3D9Drv.D3D9RenderDevice
;RenderDevice=Engine.NullRenderDevice
;RenderDevice=OpenGLDrv.OpenGLRenderDevice
;RenderDevice=PixoDrv.PixoRenderDevice

Replace the "D3D9Drv.D3D9RenderDevice" on the first line with "OpenGLDrv.OpenGLRenderDevice" (without quotes).
It'll look like this:
[Engine.Engine]
RenderDevice=OpenGLDrv.OpenGLRenderDevice
;RenderDevice=D3D9Drv.D3D9RenderDevice
;RenderDevice=Engine.NullRenderDevice
;RenderDevice=OpenGLDrv.OpenGLRenderDevice
;RenderDevice=PixoDrv.PixoRenderDevice

I've tried the NullRenderDevice and Pixo and the only one that worked every time on my new machine is the OpenGL though pixo works sometimes. Once it runs you can play around with the settings as you see fit.

You're welcome!

My favorite Arena FPS, always and forever. This game is just about perfect. Lots and lots of maps, gamemodes, mods, weapons, vehicles, and content. Still has an active community to this day, too!

I've spent a lot of time in this game before I even had it on Steam. It was quite a fun game to play with a lot of user created maps and mods (a lot of them were very well made).

I have had so many fond memories of very good matches that I wish I've made video recordings of but I didn't know much about making videos back then :(

Even though it's quite dated, it is still an awesome game after all these years.