Hot Mods 13/02: Unreal Tournament 2004
Unreal Tournament 2004 has been so heavily modified in the five short years since its release that the mod community has almost come to think of the game itself as an engine, rather than the awesome FPS it actually was. Or is. Lots of people still play it, of course.
Any road up, UT2K4, as we’ll call it to save on keyboard miles, is one of those gifts to the modders that we love so much, as it’s received extensive official support throughout its extended shelf life. Such was Epic’s (unusual) dedication to the home brew programmer it even ran mod competitions.
The Epic Make Something Real competition saw a huge number of entries and some amazingly professional entries that were all a testament to the source game’s powerful framework, the Unreal Engine 2.5.
One of the secrets of UT2K2’s modding prowess is the system’s ability to blend custom content, quite seamlessly, with the original game. While this might not be a method some of the more impressive mods use, it’s the perfect introduction to anyone looking to cut their teeth in the modding world. So here’s a bit of free advice to any fledgling game designers out there – start with Unreal Tournament 2004, and it’ll reward you every step of the way.
Red Orchestra: Combined Armshttp://www.moddb.com/mods/hollow-moon
There’s no better place to start talking about UT2K4 than with the grand prize winner of the Epic Make Something Real contest. Admittedly, since landing that auspicious prize, Red Orchestra has gone on to becomes a full commercial titles in its own right, but there’s no denying it was built on the source engine and began life as a mod like any other.
The brilliance of Red Orchestra is its realism. Sure, lots of games and mods have realistic physics engines, and historically accurate guns, landscapes and vehicles, but that’s not what Red Orchestra aimed for.
Instead we see a game that attempts to capture an air of realism by recreating the experience of its premise – a re-enactment of the Soviet and German struggles on the Eastern Front of World War II. There’s very little information on screen – no HUD, no radar, no artificial gun sights – all you’ve got are the iron sights on the end of your gun just as those soldiers would have had.
This makes aiming and actually hitting something very difficult, as you’re affected by your character’s breathing, and natural swaying of the gun, but a successful mission feels all the more rewarding because of the natural difficulty of fighting a real life war.
Red Orchestra went on to receive commercial distribution through Valve’s Steam network, and a boxed spin-off was released called Red Orchestra: Ostfront 41-45, which is essentially a professional remake by the same team using the Unreal Engine 3 license they won in the Make Something Unreal contest.
A finer testament to the vitality of the modding community does not exist.
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Blue Moon Rising
http://www.moddb.com/mods/blue-moon-rising
Every source game needs a good horror/survival mod amongst its ranks, and in the case of UT2K4, that position is held by Blue Moon Rising.
Okay, so it calls upon the horror game cliché, zombies, to a huge extent, but in many ways that’s a significant part of its allure. Blue Moon Rising brings multiplayer to the horror/survival staple, which is quite unique considering most games in the genre attempt to isolate the players to make it easier to scare and, obviously, kill them.
So right from the start this game stands out as something of a rarity that allows it to appeal to a much wider crowd than the tense gore-nographers who usually flock to this kind of rabid zombie-thon.
All but one per cent of the world’s population has been infected and turned into the undead, who are now being controlled by some malevolent entity intent on humanity’s destruction. Joining a small team of well-armed survivors, it’s up to you to tip the balance at this crucial turning point in our species survival.
We don’t want to let you in on too much of the storyline here, suffice to say it’s inspired enough to keep driving you forward through the army of flesh eaters waiting for you in Blue Moon Rising.
By the way – anyone spot the homage to Shaun of the Dead in the video above 
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Killing Floor
True enough, we’ve just discussed one horror game and happily pegged it as the blood and guts bad boy of UT2K4. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t room for more, and Killing Floor satisfies a whole different arena of mutant massacre.
Stranded in a genetics lab gone wrong, and overrun with the kind of experiments only the government, the military and corrupt corporation could ever dream up, your task is quite a simple one – get out alive.
This is very much an evolution of the first Resident Evil movie, which might not sound all that special to some people (personally, I quite liked it), but it’s only a spiritual relation. The concept is very similar, but the action and the environment turns out to be quite different, and you’re given a world of darkness filled with gothic atmosphere and brimming with imaginative mutations.
Being a laboratory, this place doesn’t have boxes and boxes of ammunition lying about the place, so conserving your bullets and making every shot count is vital to getting off the Killing Floor alive.
The outstanding visuals are worth installing this mod for alone, but you can guarantee an action packed time as well – and it’s even better if you play it in the dark…
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Submergence
http://www.hysteriagaming.com/submergence/
Because the source game was a first person shooter, it’s easy to get caught up in the line of thought that all mods also should be in this particular genre. Gererally that’s a trend we see throughout the mod world, and while a lot of game engines are indeed geared up to deliver a certain type of experience, it doesn’t mean they have to stick rigidly to the original formula.
Submergence is one of those rare mods that leans in a very different direction to its source game. Here the action is focused not on FPS gameplay, but in vehicular combat. The mod puts you in control of a unique form of submersible combat transport that battles its way through all kinds of land and underwater environments.
Global warming has caused the water levels to rise to dangerous new heights, and these M.E.V’s (Multi Environment Vehicles) are now the only way to travel. But as sustainable land becomes an increasingly rare commodity, the few remaining human survivors split into factions and fight for dominance over these valuable areas of dry ground.
Submergence features a fully destructible environment (which is quite spectacular when bullets and bombs start flying wildly) and also allows for full multiplayer action. If you’re looking for something that’s not only different from UT2K4, but from most every other game currently on the shelves, Submergence is well worth a few hours of your time.
One To Watch: Hollow Moon
http://www.moddb.com/mods/hollow-moon
We’ve said it before (and will undoubtedly say it again) but one of the best things about mods is that they’re not restrained by commerciality. They have the freedom to be creative and experimental – something that a game developer struggles with due to the pressures of saleability and corporate thinking.
Hollow Moon is very much in the realm of experimental gaming – not so much in terms of gameplay, which is set to be fairly standard FPS driven – but in terms of its visuals and audio.
The styling of Hollow Moon is aimed to appeal to those who, like us, agree that games can definitely be considered an art form. The eerie, gothic overtones and polarising decision to use black and white video give Hollow Moon a dark and deathly feel as you arrive on this remote cosmic satellite and attempt to figure out where the mining colony’s inhabitants have gone.
We talk about graphics a lot, but to be honest we rarely mention a game’s sounds. This is definitely worth a mention in Hollow Moon – mainly because there isn’t any! To be fair, that’s not entirely true. Unlike everything from Star Trek to Star Wars (with the notable exception of the awesome FireFly), Hollow Moon accepts the fact there’s no sound in space.
Wandering around this desolate, ghostly space station, the only sounds you hear come over the radio – when you’re outside, there’s no gun shots ringing out, no footsteps to give away your hunter and no screams to be heard. This adds a sensational atmosphere to the game that seems totally unexpected from a lack of sound, but Hollow Moon really looks set to prove that nothing (rather than less) is definitely more.
