Unreal Tournament 2004 Demo Released

JSDopefish writes "The demo for the PC game Unreal Tournament has been released, and Blue's News has a full list of mirrors [including BitTorrent links from GameTab and AIXGaming] for downloading the 209mb Win32 client. If you like classic Deathmatch, it's a great game - I still love one on one deathmatch. The site explains: 'The Unreal Tournament 2004 official demo includes five playable game modes, and offers fans their first taste of Unreal Tournament 2004's two new game modes: the introduction of the hyper-charged Onslaught mode and the return of the fan-favorite Assault mode, which last appeared in the original Unreal Tournament. The demo also features established gametypes like Deathmatch, Capture the Flag and Bombing Run'."

Comments

Another Mirror

[ASayre8]

Another mirror at runuo.com (Plug: Check out the site while you're there! ;-) )

Re:Another Mirror

[Dracoirs]

Speaking of which, there is also a mirror at http://www.publicshards.com/

Re:Another Mirror

[mrbass]

I have a mirror here...heck it's only 209MB ..no biggie. download

There is only one thing to say...

[gooberguy]

I love UT2004. I downloaded and installed it a couple hours ago, and I'm amazed. Finally, there is more focus on the gameplay and less on the graphics. This equals the win for all of us with Radeon 7500 PCI graphics cards.

Re:There is only one thing to say...

[Anonymous Coward]

UT seems to be moving more and more towards tribes, and this is from a guy working on Tribes 3, which also uses the unreal engine, albeit heavily modified... ;)

Glenn Fiedler,
Irrational Games.

UT 2004 Linux Server bit torrent

[AIX-Hood]

And who could forget the UT 2004 Linux server: http://www.filerush.com/torrents/ut2004-lnxded-dem o-3120.tar.bz2.torrent

Re:UT 2004 Linux Server bit torrent

[SmittyTheBold]

No, you're looking at the wrogn target market - they're not after those who run Linux servers and might be willing to add game serving to the mix.

They're going for those people who want to set up a cheap, effective dedicated server. Many gaming clans will run a server with two or three games running servers in the background, but since it's a dedicated server there is no need for a GUI - and no need for Windows. If the game has a Linux version of the server, it's much easier on the clans than shelling out a few hundred dollars for a Windows license. These groups like to build a cheapie rack-mount box and lease space at a colo at the end of a fat pipe. For gaming. Gaming is the primary requirement, Linux just makes it cheaper for them.

It also helps that Linux has a reputation for being a "good server" that's stable, and has good remote-admin capabilities.

Re:UT 2004 Linux Server bit torrent

[augustz]

Give folks who actually admin linux boxes some credit.

Some of us like the ability to easily setup a dedicated server using a server at a colo or other high bandwidth facility...

Thanks epic for providing one rather than requiring us to purchase windows machines.

Fun with Torrents

[The Human Cow]

Here is a torrent, if you need it.

Re:Fun with Torrents

[OverlordQ]

Personally I dont see why 1million+1 people make torrents of the files, all you need is 1. The main problem with large releases like this is keep the tracker up under the strain.

Re:Fun with Torrents

[wheany]

There are clients that support multiple trackers.
I use Azureus.

Gotta frag in linux

[notanatheist]

If the linux install is on the CD I'll be buying another game at near full price. :)

Re:Gotta frag in linux

[dominator2010]

Not full price if you already own UT2K3. Epic is giving a rebate to those who buy UT2004 and already own UT2K3. That means the game will actually be $20

So far so damn good

[PHlLlPY]

I was thinking of posting this myself but I haven't gotten around to stop playing the thing to do so. the emphasis seems to be more on teamwork than solo rambo stuff as before. it runs about as good as UT2003, which isn't saying much as my GF3 is really showing its age. I will definitely be buying this when I see it at Bestbuy, unless of course Doom3 or Halflife 2 suddenly decide to appear on the shelf.... go download it

Here is the Mac Demo

[ruiner13]

Ask and ye shall receive: http://www.macgamefiles.com/detail.php?item=18034. Enjoy. Quit your bitching about no OS X and just look around a bit. There are other mirrors, this is just the first I found.

Re:Hmmm, Windows only.

[ruiner13]

No, the mac post is out too. Not sure about Linux. See my other post for the link if you are too lazy to look for yourself.

hmmm

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone got an ETA on the linux version?

Once Nvidia becomes a bit more solid on 2.6, I imagine a AMD64 compiled unreal 2004 with 2.6 would be quite a nice experience. Although there are still some K8T800 chipset support problems for linux with the popular boards like MSI K8T neo and others. The Nvidia chipsets don't seem to cut it in the benchmarks at the moment, so unless they drop their price point the VIA is the way to go.

For those of you looking for other games on linux. Savage the battle for Newerth has just released a huge update for their retail version which speeds things up nicely. THE game of late 03 early 04 is Savage. Definitely worth a look-see if you haven't tried it yet.

Thinks are looking up for a linux desktop:

2.6 kernel
open office 1.1 is nice
new KDE and Gnome releases
mozilla 1.6 and firebird steadily approaching a 1 release
GIMP 2 comming up real soon, and that SVG one (name?) too.
Jahshaka and Gstreamer are promising for video editing, as is the commercial Mainactor from Mainconcept.
Enemy Territory native, Savage Native, Quakes, Tons of stuff under WINE.
Seeing some rad stuff from GPL Blender 3D, commercial Maya and Apple Shake working in industry.
Good ol' apache tanking along.
some of the GPL databases slowing moving from mid-commercial to big iron.
Innovation in python and php.

This damned well rocks. I don't code, so thank you to all the coders who have made this the year of the FULL desktop switch.

PC market is underpowered

[Peter Cooper]

There must be about as many PC's that can actually handle this game as there are macs. It's not like my dad's P-II 400 with a matrox G200 is going to be able to handle this.

That's actually an interesting point. The specs on games these days are pretty insane compared to the average PC in the family home. Even if a family has a, say, 1.4GHz machine in the home (and I'd guess way less than half of homes is at that level), it probably has a really crappy video card in it.. or even on-board video. This means that 90%+ of machines out there can barely play these games at 20fps in 640x480.

Given this, it really seems like the PC games industry is propped up by gaming die-hards.. whereas the console gaming market is propped up by everyone who owns one. Perhaps we should all remember this when we start bitching about the gaming freaks who mod their cases crazy all the time.. it's these guys who keep the PC industry in games ;-)

Re:PC market is underpowered

[caitsith01]

I must disagree, in the friendliest possible way. See reply to parent, above.

PC sales in 2003 were 168.9 MILLION units: http://australianit.news.com.au/articles/0,7204,84 05079%5e15306%5e%5enbv%5e,00.html . Even back at the start of last year reasonably muscular processors were standard, and by the middle of the year the ATi/nVidia war had sent the price of decent-ish video cards crashing. Right now you would probably struggle to find a mainstream PC with less than 256 megs of ram and a 2GHz processor. My folks got a new PC last year with the lowest end GeForce FX - and it runs most games like a dream.

IMHO there are oodles of PCs that can run newer games around. Let's not forget, too, that most of these monster rigs are used to play stuff at max detail, max textures, 1600x1200 hyper resolution (I know, I have one). For the average home user a game running at 800x600 is still walloping anything on a TV screen for detail and clarity.

Apple may finally have released something with a bit of oomph, but they are hardly gonna dominate the games industry.

I agree to a certain extend with your main thesis, though: that high-end gamers drive the market along. Unfortunately this means games like Deus Ex 2 and Doom III will run like a slideshow on any normal machine. Personally I wish each level of technology was given more time to mature, so that we could see the modern equivalent of running Wolfenstein on a 286...

Re:PC market is underpowered

[BerntB]

Addendum:

It might have been my attitude that made UT2K3 boring.

Instead of having fun I was looking over the differences compared with UT and writing a list of what kind of moves I needed to learn.

Maybe it was too close to the attitude I use for work. 1/2 :-)

But, then, lots of other people seem to have had my reaction.

Re:PC market is underpowered

[back_pages]

I worked at an independent custom PC shop for almost a year and can add two things.

In November/December-ish, we stopped selling 1.8GHz P4s and offered the 2.0 as our bottom of the line P4. We still carried some boards with CPUs already attached, including a 1.(2 or 3)GHz Cyrix, a Celeron, and an AMD2000 Pro. So the assertion that computers bought last year have beefy processors is correct.

The second thing, though, is that for every tricked out gaming rig we sold, we must have sold 15-20 computers so Mom & Dad could check email or the college freshman could surf the internet and write papers. That's the bread and butter of a small custom PC business, not the high end gaming rigs. There's more profit in those, of course, but they sell such in such relatively low numbers that one can hardly say that it drives the business.

As far as new products are concerned, there are a couple areas that are clearly pushed by gamers. To the computer industry as a whole, I think they represent a pretty nominal demographic.

Mac too

[Skrectumis]

Yup, it's out for the Mac as well. Macgamefiles.com has a couple of mirrors for it...painfully slow mirrors, but mirrors none the less.

Re:Beta?

[Vaevictis666]

It's a beta demo because it's demoing pre-release. Theory goes once the full game hits retail shelves they'll update the "demo" to non-beta status, with any last minute bug fixes and balance tweaks.

Though from what I've seen of the stability, they might as well call it a Gamma demo :P

Re:PC Demo?

[caitsith01]

"There must be about as many PC's that can actually handle this game as there are macs."

Uh...huh.

Maybe you should take a look at the high end PC market some time? An insane number of top of the line video cards, memory modules, processors and motherboards are available and they sell like hotcakes. Because PCs are far less generational than Macs there is a tendency for a lot of people to gradually upgrade and thus keep relatively up to date in terms of hardware.

Sorry to ruin the illusion but at a totally uneducated guess I would put money on the number of PCs worldwide that can run this game being in a ratio of at least 50:1 to the number of Macs.

Unreal 2003 was a disappointment

[superpulpsicle]

When I bought Unreal 2003 my expectation was thru the roof. Two months later I find myself only using the game to test video cards.

I am sorry but this company milked the unreal series to the degree of no return. Not sure I can spend any more $$$ on another potential disappointing sequel.

Doom III and half life 2 demo... those should be ready by the year 3004. But that's still before the next Duke 3D which will be here in 4004.

Re:Unreal 2003 was a disappointment

[DAldredge]

Download the damn demo and try it before you bitch.

Re:Unreal 2003 was a disappointment

[Pxtl]

I agree - UT had some serious issues, and of course was popular with players who liked to abuse those issues. Many of the CTF maps were unplayable due to the sniper action, and obsurd due to the teleporting action. I think the UT2k3 fixed that. IMHO, the weapon and gametype changes in UT2k3 were excellent.

IMHO, the problem with 2k3 was that they decided to get the Quake players - they made it faster, louder, more "hardcore" - and lost all those nice gamer girls who liked the easy, fuzzy FPS. I used to be able to use UT to convert women into gamers.

Plus, I just find the whole "adrenaline" thing just silly. It adds an unnecessary and uncomfortable complication to the game.

I was reading about the mapping problems - apparently the devs decided to complete the maps before testing them, producing maps that were not much fun but so much work put in already they couldn't tweak them very much.

Still, I wasn't disappointed with 2k3. I thought UT had a better style to it (sleek and fun) but it was still a worthy successory. Its not like the real tragic sequels (AvsP 2, Tribes 2, Total Annihilation Kingdoms, Star Control 3) that completely destroyed a good game.

Sound

[jrockway]

How's the sound support this time around? Still OpenAL?

Hopefully the Linux version will have ALSA support this time; I had to add it myself. If you'd like ALSA support (surround sound, good shit!), visit my website and download the new OpenAL driver. Thank you, Open Source :)

It will be there

[ReKleSS]

Yes, icculus (Ryan Gordon) has said that the linux version will be on the install CD - http://icculus.org/cgi-bin/finger/finger.pl?user=i cculus There will also be a penguin on the box.
-ReK

Try voice chat

[jmv]

For those interested, UT2004 is using an open-source codec for voice communication between players. It's also probably the first game to support wideband (16 kHz) communication.

Soon

[ReKleSS]

PlanetUnreal has a message from icculus saying that the linux version will be out soon, but 'not tonight' because he's short on sleep and can't concentrate.
-ReK

Mac BitTorrent link

[Anonymous Coward]

Download the zipped file then open the .torrent with your favorite BT client.

http://www.elroyonline.net/misc/ut2004torrent.zi p

Re:Hmmm, Windows only.

[Anonymous Coward]

They are going to support Linux, in fact, according to some sources, they are actually going to put a penquin on the box this time, unlike UT2K3, which they forgot to mention had a linux port. (The Linux binaries are included and installed with a shell script on the 3rd CD)

Aparently a Linux client witll be released shortly

[Nailer]

According to LinuxGames.

Icculus Rocks

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd hereby like to thank Ryan 'icculus' Gordon for his hard work on the Linux and Macintosh clients. (linux one is forthcoming tomorrow, Ryan needs to sleep before he can coherently fix a bug that's still in the linux client)

Andrew 'ashridah' Pilley

VERY impressive..

[CashCarSTAR]

I'm not a big fan of the Quake-style deathmatch type games, I much prefer smaller locations, CS/DoD style..

However, the Demo is a LOT of fun. Assault mode is very good, at least it shows off a good map. There's 6 seperate objectives for the attackers to do, and it's fast paced enough to keep it interesting.

Onslaught mode is really good too. I'm not a big fan of the map, but the mode itself has promise. It's basically a sci-fi BF1942, just a lot faster.

And it runs just as well as UT2003. Good programming.

Re:VERY impressive..

[RzUpAnmsCwrds]

Buy an ATI graphics card. Or a SiS graphics card. Or an XGI graphics card. Or a Matrox graphics card.

Just because it's a "Way It's Meant To Be Played" game doesn't mean it doesn't run on every other Direct3D (and OpenGL, if you use the OpenGL mode) GPU.

In fact, UT2003 runs *better* on an ATI GPU when you turn on FSAA/AF. Better AA quality and better framerate too.

If you don't have a GPU at all, it still has a software renderer that does pretty well.

And what do you have against NVDIA? Did they kill your son or something?

Re:PC Demo?

[runderwo]

No kidding. I don't understand who could possibly play games on a 9" black and white screen with a one-button mouse anyway. Maybe some Mac people here can provide us with more information.

Trollin' for love

[mrshowtime]

Well, the basic game has been improved and the weapons seem to basically do the same amount of damage now. The vehicles are horrific though. I was hoping that the vehicles would at least be on par with HALO, but they are far from it. I was wondering why nobody was using the "humvee" aka "warthog," that was until I tried it... It's like the designers said "Hey! lets make a vehicle that nobody can actually drive!" In Halo, the warthog takes a few seconds to get used to, but then it just feels right. I could not get the damn humvee in UT2004 to even turn at all. The flyers in UT2004 are fast, but are generally ineffective. Then there's the tank... Once again the designers seemed like they tried to make the tank as boring as possible. The new maps are pretty well designed and like I said before, the standard (non vehicle) gameplay has been sanitized to the point of being very blaise. Every time I play UT2004 it reminds me of how fantastic just plain old Half-Life's multiplayer weapons were. Ultimately, "Atari," has dropped the ball on this one. It does not hold up against Halo, let alone any of the next-gen titles like HL2.

Re:Trollin' for love

[bogie]

Play more. The vechiles turn fine, you just need more practice. The tank and the big truck both drive and turn slow but rest assured they do turn. IMO the tank drives like it should. It has a very powerful gun and if they made it any faster you'd just kick everyone's ass with no skill. Also once you get used to the hoover thing and the small baja car you'll be flying around. There are limits as to what you can do on a keyboard though. The vehicles are not ineffective, like I said you just need more practice.

This game also runs well and looks great, it performs better than Halo ever did on the PC. UT2K3 did get old and boring because well that's what happens after a while when you have a FPS with not much depth. With the vehicles they've added they have made playing UT fun again. I can't wait to see what the mod community comes up with. Think Wild West with a Horse Drawn Stage coach and a gatlin gun hanging out the back, etc.

To each his own, but I suggest others play for themselves and form their own opinions.

Re:Trollin' for love

[McCarrum]

> It does not hold up against Halo, let
> alone any of the next-gen titles like HL2.

I, for one, welcome our new time travelling overlords ...

Re:Trollin' for love

[MMaestro]

IMO, the vehicles are "fine" but they aren't balanced out too well. The AVRiL (an anti-vehicle missle launcher for foot soldiers) is SUPPOSED to stay locked onto an enemy if you keep your crosshairs on it, but we all know within a few weeks every flyer is gonna be a Red Baron and using it on ground vehicles is useless since the rocket has a tendancy to skim too low (read : hit the ground).

There are anti-vehicle turrets that shoot dual lasers, cool. But they don't do any splash damage, have a relatively long fire delay (for gameplay this fast), and is impossible to use against foot soldiers. Not only that, the Tank (I can't remember the name) can destroy a laser turret in just ONE shot, so if the enemy team manages to get tanks on both flanks of your base, you might as well forfeit because enemy vehicles are gonna be running you over in your own base.

This may be a unique problem for me, but like you said, people should play it for themselves and form their own opinions. Just don't expect a Tribes, Battlefield 1942, or Halo type gameplay.

ah crap

[filtur]

209mb Win32

Damn my Dial-up Modem to Hell!!

Looking to the past indeed

[KFK - Wildcat]

From the "storyline":

Looking to the past, the nefarious powers hidden in the shadows knew that when threatened by an enemy, the masses would give up their freedoms in the name of patriotism. And so it was that in all but name, the human race was once again ruled by Imperial forces.

Hmm... Reminds me of something...

The official Linux response:

[MachDelta]

Ryan Gordan, Epic Games:

UT2004 Linux Demo client is not ready yet. There's a showstopper in it, but I've been awake for days, and can't gather the concentration to fix it.

This will be available soon, but probably not tonight. Sorry to disappoint.

The good news is that getting these embarrassing moments out of the way during the demo means the final retail version will be ready to go on time.

So there ya go. Hopefully all you 'Nixies will have your demo goodness by tomorrow :)

See also this link...

[antdude]

Post #31 in Link: "Icculus (Ryan Gordon, the guy doing the ports) said Linux and OSX demos should become available within a few hours of the Win32 release."

AIXGaming?

[dghcasp]

AIXGaming?

You mean it runs on the RS/6000's PowerPC processor?

Yay! I've gotten so sick of rogue in an xterm.

Re:BitTorrent links for the Mac version?

[Anonymous Coward]

Here ya go ...

http://www.harmless.de/ut2004-mac-demo.dmg.bz2.t or rent

DVD special edition!

[LarsWestergren]

Appearently, the game comes on SIX cds! Holy hi-res textures, batman! However, they are going to release a DVD edition, I urge you all to buy it! (You are going to buy the game if you like it...right?)

I am so fed up with having games that come on DVDs for consoles being converted to lots of easy scratchable CDs for the PC release. At least if you are a RPG fan it is beginning to feel like we are back to the good old floppy times. "Please insert next media..."

When it comes to the game itself, I have read that the music and atmosphere resembles the first game, which I think is great news. I loved the original UT for daring to do something different in design and gameplay from just a Q3 clone. When UT2003 came I was disappointed to see they had taken a step closer to Q3 with lots of colored lights and space dungeons all over again. But in UT2004 levels such as the two trains are back (this time called Convoy appearently).

The "real" mirror list

[zeekiorage]

The site linked in the article (bluesnews) dosen't list all the mirrors, here is the real mirror list from Atari's web site...

• UT2004 Demo Mirrors

Re:What about Vorbis?

[jmv]

AFAIK, UT2004 still uses Vorbis for music. Speex is only for low bit-rate (4.8 kbps narrowband, 9.6 kbps wideband) voice communication.

totally awesome game, been playing it for hours

[CAIMLAS]

Totally awesome. I beat Halo two nights ago (or so - took roughly 14 hours to beat. now I just want to beat the level designer), and I can tell you: there are some definite vehicular comparisions.

The "scorpion" in UT2k4 is a lot like the warthog, only better: it only takes a single person to drive it and shoot, and you can shoot/aim with your mouse while you steer/drive with the keyboard. maneuverability is a little bit less, but that's not much of a complaint - it feels nearly identical, seriously. Oh, and one more thing: the scorpion definately trumps the warthog, if for no other reason: the retractable 'blades' that pop out with alternate fire. we're talking about a 30+' driving blade. Makes vehicular homicide fairly easy. :P

The fliers are also quite fun. IMO, the vehicles in general are better than Tribes and Tribes 2... I kept expecting my character to jump higher, and tried to use the jetpack, however - it feels that similar at times. :) I can't wait for Tribes Vengeance. That will rock the house!

I've not yet gotten to play the game online - it appears that by the time I was comfortable enough with the 'single player' mode of the demo, you folks slashdotted the servers. :P My brother played it yesterday for a couple hours, however, and said that the network code sucked, even with a low latency: he'd get lag and disconnects, particularly when he was driving a vehicle. Anyone else experience that?

Re:BitTorrent links for the Mac version?

[h0tblack]

OS X UT2004 torrent

If you already have the file, please join the swarm anyway, the more seeders we have, the better this will work. To join as a seed, just download the .torrent file and open it in your client of choice as normal, but point the location to save the demo, to the location of your already downloaded demo.

Will people please leave their torrent windows open once they've downloaded the demo. Suggested clients: Official BitTorrent client Azureus Java client

Try Unreal 2: XMP, too! (Released December 2003)

[CritterNYC]

If you like the multiplayer team aspects of UT2k4, be sure and check out Unreal 2 eXpanded MultiPlayer. It's also based on the Unreal engine, but is completely team oriented. 3 classes of players, multiple weapons, multiple vehicles, power generators, auto-turrets, manned turrets and artifacts (think capture the flag with 4 flags). Best Unreal-based game yet, IMO.

Official Unofficial Site

Some Decent Player Guides

The demo is free (just patch your server list). The full version requires Unreal 2, which can be found for as little as $8 (Target Clearance)