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UT2004 GOES GOLD - Power and Glory - 03-04-2004
This news is from PlanetUnreal:
UNREAL TOURNAMENT 2004 GOES GOLD
Epic Games Completes Development on Highly Anticipated Multiplayer Opus; Game Will Be Available Worldwide March 15
LOS ANGELES - March 4, 2004 - Atari and Epic Games are pleased to announce that development is complete on Unreal® Tournament 2004, the highly anticipated follow-up to last year's smash Unreal Tournament 2003 and the third installment in the mega-selling Unreal Tournament franchise. The game is expected to be available at retail stores worldwide on March 15.
"Get ready, PC gamers, because the biggest thing to ever hit multiplayer gaming is about to land on your hard drives!," said Peter Wyse, executive producer at Atari. "The granddaddy of all multiplayer competition is back and better than ever! The extra time was worth the wait - Epic has produced the biggest, baddest, and most exciting multiplayer title ever to grace the PC."
Unreal Tournament 2004 was developed by Epic Games in conjunction with Digital Extremes. The game builds on the success of past installments, taking the franchise to the next level with the introduction of the hyper-charged Onslaught mode, the return of the fan-favorite Assault mode, which last appeared in the original Unreal Tournament, and the introduction of land-, air- and space-based vehicles.
Gamers worldwide have already made the free, downloadable official demo of Unreal Tournament 2004 one of the most popular game demo downloads of all time, with more than 1.5 million downloads in the first week of availability. The demo first hit the Internet on Wednesday, February 11, and was distributed on a worldwide scale and is already one of the most played online PC games on the Internet.
In the game, players suit up as the ultimate techno-gladiator of the future, taking their fates into their own hands as they battle up to 32 other players in action-packed, frag-filled arenas. Unreal Tournament 2004 contains new maps for all established game modes, including Capture the Flag, Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, Bombing Run and Double Domination, as well as all new arenas for the new styles of play. In addition, Unreal Tournament 2004 contains all of the maps, mutators and game types -- such as Mutant, Last Man Standing and Invasion -- from Unreal Tournament 2003 and the free downloadable bonus packs for that game.
Features in Unreal Tournament 2004 include:
- Onslaught Mode: Onslaught is an epic-in-scope team-based challenge that pits two teams in bitter warfare across massive terrain maps in a frag-filled battle to destroy, capture and hold key power nodes. Vehicles play a major role as war-hardened flying and driving machines transport combatants to the "front" and serve as mobile platforms to launch devastating attacks on the enemy.
- Assault Mode: In the completely redesigned Assault mode, gamers are challenged to complete a variety of mission objectives to attack or defend bases in a bigger and badder version of the Unreal Tournament classic; many Assault maps require the use of vehicles as a critical gameplay element.
- Vehicles: Unreal Tournament 2004 features a variety of land-, space- and air-based vehicles, including buggies, tanks, hovercraft, aircraft and more
- Voice Technology: Integrated voice communications, including voice-over-IP technology to allow real-time chat with teammates and opponents during gameplay; voice recognition, allowing players to issue orders to computer controlled bots; and, text-to-voice conversion of typed chat. Voice chat includes 3D audio on supported sound cards, so players can sense where voices emanate from.
- New and Revised Weapons: The devastating arsenal of bone-crunching weaponry that Unreal has become famous for returns, with several enhancements. Many existing weapons have received model and texture updates as well as sound improvements. The game also includes all new weaponry for the massive Onslaught and Assault battles, including the massive AVRiL (Anti-Vehicle Rocket Launcher) to take down incoming vehicles, the Grenade Launcher, which discharges sticky explosives on enemy emplacements, vehicles and personnel, the Spider Mines, the vile and brutal arachnid bombs that scuttle the landscape searching for unsuspecting adversaries, and a completely redesigned and reintroduced Sniper Rifle, not seen since the original Unreal Tournament.
- Characters: New and classic fan-favorite Unreal characters join The Tournament to challenge players, including the vicious Skaarj and the infamous Xan Kriegor.
- New Maps: More than 100 levels are included in the game for all new and existing gametypes, featuring tons of new textures, static meshes and music. In total, Unreal Tournament 2004 ships with more never-before-seen maps than the entire number of maps that shipped with Unreal Tournament 2003!
- UnrealTV: A match broadcast system that allows for hundreds of people to view an Unreal Tournament 2004 match with minimal performance impact on a game server, creating a television sports like viewing environment for fans to watch professional and other matches.
- Voting: Complete end-user voting system allows users to choose game type, maps, mutators, rules and settings and enables players to remove troublesome competitors from the game. Custom clan-match voting system allows clans to negotiate acceptable game settings prior to a competitive match.
- New User Interface: A completely redesigned user interface (UI) is easier to navigate and supports context-sensitive menus, an in-game login menu (to improve team balancing) and an improved server browser with enhanced server filtering options. The underlying user interface system has been reengineered to be easier for Mod authors to build menus and implement their own UI designs.
- Other Improvements: Tons of cool gameplay tweaks and refinements including unique crosshairs for each weapon, the ability to carry dual Assault Rifles, improved computer-controlled "Bot" team coordination and movement, network bandwidth usage optimizations and more!
- Unreal Editor: Unreal Tournament 2004 will ship with the most powerful game creation toolsets ever released to the public - the same software the developers used to make the game. Amateur level designers and mod makers can use the Unreal Editor, including the Unreal Editor's "Matinee" tool, to make their own maps, new game modes and animated movies using the Unreal Technology.
Unreal Tournament 2004 is expected to be available worldwide on March 15, in both a standard and a "Special Edition" format. Unreal Tournament 2004 DVD Special Edition will ship as a double-DVD set - disk one will include all of the game content while disk two will include hours of Video Training Modules (VTMs) from 3D Buzz that teach fans and amateur mod makers how to use the Unreal Editor to create custom game content. Unreal Tournament 2004 DVD Special Edition will come in a limited edition metal box and will contain a Logitech Internet Chat Headset for use with the game's exclusive voice-over-IP (voice chat) technology, as well as an Unreal window sticker.
For more information on Unreal Tournament 2004 or to download the free demo, please visit the game's official Web site at www.unrealtournament.com.
WOOOOOOOOOO!
UPDATE: Oh yeah, we should probably include this Mark Rein post:
Hi folks, UT2004 went gold at appproximately 10AM eastern time this morning! Atari tells me that they're going to extraordinary lengths to manufacture and ship the game to have it in on store shelves on March 15th. You can expect to see an official announcement from Atari go out on the wire shortly.
I think UT2004 is the best Unreal game yet and I hope you guys love playing it as much as we do. If you've been playing the demo I can tell you that you ain't seen nothing yet!
Also gone gold is Prima's UT2004 Strategy Guide weighing in at 380 pages! Yes, you read that correctly, 380 pages. It is an awesome strategy guide, certainly the best ever done for an Unreal game. The walk through for Glacier (one of the assault levels) is an amazing 22 pages! This guide is packed with tips and tricks that you're definitely going to want to read.
Thanks to everyone for their feedback on the demo. It really helped make the game better. At some point after the game ships we'll update the demo to be the same codebase as the retail game. As you might be aware the demo didn't have any cheat protection in it, to avoid giving the hackers a head-start, so it is unlikely we'll release the updated demo before the full game is on store shelves for the same reason.
UT2004 GOES GOLD - [CAKE]anonymity - 03-04-2004
Well i didnt read the entire article, but I'm glad the release date is so soon.