Reviews - sindroms

SOSE brings a lot of new features to the RTS table by allowing the player to chose what kind of victory they wish to obtain. Be it cultural, military, diplomatic or economic, the player is free to choose how they want to play.

In theory, that is.

In reality, however, once you join a game, you better use those scouting ships wise to adapt the strategy your closest neighbor uses, because if the npc or player has decided to rush you with 6 battleships, your smart talking diplomacy ships will be nothing more than cannon fodder.

Another thing that this game lacks is the balance between the units themselves. While the balance is seen between the three races, you can still win the game by spamming scout fregates, which do only slightly less damage than a attack fregate, they cost half as much resources, move faster, build faster and take up half the fleet upkeep. And, obviously, en mass they are as unstoppable as a cap fleet, because the time you need to down one, is not sufficient to save you from the other 6000 which are prodding at your shields.

Even the slow and easy to squish sege units can win you a game easy, if they are produced en mass and simply sent to steamroll the enemies planets one after another. As long as they loose their last planet, no matter what fleet they have, they will loose.

As many mentioned, this is the fine example of a game which sold out it's potential as a shameless FPS with no storyline. In all honesty, the Unreal series were standing strong without such things as Plot or Storyline supporting them, and it would seem the implementation of such terms as Respawner and the like in a game called Unreal for a reason seems redundant.

The single player consists of pre rendered cynematics followed by simple bot matches on various normally playable single player maps and it would seem that it almost gives the impression that Epic Games were desperatly trying to make Unreal3 into a game it should not be.

Unreal has never been in the need of a storyline or plot and many will agree that it's earlier titles like UT2004 or UT99 are better games in it's series. However the game graphics are wonderful and the sloppy single player mode does not stand near the multiplayer experience as it should be expected.

However the graphics are also the game's downfall: the game effects and the weapons themselves seem to give this ominous glow, which makes every pvp encounter into a rave party with neon lights and disco balls. Also, for newer players, the over-done weapons can prove a challenge to memorize and recognize during the fast gameplay, unlike Unreal 2004, which simple and easy to distinguish weapon models had no such issues.

While not standing near current generation games like Unreal3 in terms of graphics, UT2k4 is one of the most versatile games and has a very strong moding community.

While even a newbie could kill experienced players in it's older brother: Unreal3, in UT2k4 due to the rather complex movement, it is much harder to truly master the game.

Even with newer and more graphically beautiful games out on the market, the Unreal 2004 servers still stay strong and full due to the lasting experience and fun this game provides.

It is genuinely astounding to see how much community effort can prolong a game's lifespan.