Who’s downloading this baby too?
I just finished two seconds ago, installing now. Took me 8 minutes to download the 200+ meg demo.
I can’t wait to try it! 
I’m DLing it now. The first UT is one of my favorite all time games, but 2k3 was really disappointing (I just played the demo).
I’m impressed so far, I must say. Haven’t played CTF, DM, or Team DM, but Assault was one of my favorite modes in UT and it looks like it’ll actually be played by some people, too. And the “capture these power points” is kinda how Tribes 2 should’ve turned out.
Maybe I’ll have to give it a try. I still play UT all the time (finally got it working for linux so no rebooting!), but I also wasn’t crazy about 2k3.
Yeah 2k3’s major dissapointment for me was the lack of an assault mode.
So far I’m liking 2k4 a lot. I’m still getting use to the vehicles 
Assault mode, vechicles, and a sniper rifle. Looks like they learned the basic lesson of sequals from UT2003’s suckage: Always add features, never remove good ones.
This so much like Tribes…except for no jetpack and surfing the mountains. If they just reskinned Tribes 1 to make it look modern, I’d buy it in a heartbeat.
The XMP patch for Unreal 2 is so Tribes-like it hurts. Heavy gunners, light scouts, and medium techs fight for generators, respawn points, and turrets while capturing four flags. No surfing, but there are jetpacks. Only three vehicles, though, and no fliers - but it’s a free addon to an already fine game that would have been left by the wayside otherwise.
For those (like me) who would like to download it, but can’t… we would like to hear about the games features a bit more!
(Vehicles, you say?) 
Vehicles indeed! Here’s a quick-and-dirty overview of the new gametypes from playing the demo. Ignore the textures and character models since they’re at very low quality due to this being a demo. Many of the models were designed by the guy who did the Rhedd’s Heads mod for Morrowind, if
Assault - you liked Assault back for the first UT, right? 'Course you did. It’s back. The level in the demo involves the hostile takeover of a convoy carrying a pair of powerful missiles. It’s reminiscent of the train level from the first UT, but with multiple trains running parallel to each other. The “objectives” in this one all involve standing in certain places for a few seconds in order to throw a switch that will open a door or move a platform into place. I like that there’s a shortcut - you can leap from the back of the center train onto one of the Bulldogs attacking the convoy, which will drift sideways until you can jump right into the missile bay of the last car.
Onslaught - the “capture the nodes” mode. Features the biggest map so far, and 5 types of vehicles in the demo. To win you have to link your generator to others across the map until you have a path to the enemy generator, which must then be destroyed. You can only attack nodes that have direct connections to nodes you own (shown on a mini-map). However, I’ve found that this means that once your generator has been uncovered, it’s almost impossible to get back another node since the enemy has access to respawn points at any nodes they control that aren’t under attack at the moment. The weapons have incredibly long ranges, so claiming a node can be an exercise in futility if there’s some guy with the shock rifle hiding on a mountaintop shooting the node while you build it. The link gun’s alt-fire repairs friendly vehicles and nodes, but your base’s generator can’t be repaired.
It seems in the Assault and Onslaught modes there are “weapons lockers,” which are a convenient pickup of some guns if you just respawned. The lightning gun is in some levels, and the sniper rifle has returned. The sniper now makes a big smoke cloud when you fire it.
Vehicles: I’ve forgotten the names, so I’ll just use descriptions. Driving is very much like C&C Renegade; movement is vehicle-reletive and determined by WASD, and you can mouselook/point the turret in any direction while you do so. There are some vehicle-specific announcer shouts such as “Daredevil,” “Roadkill,” and “Carjack,” which is pretty fun.[ul]
[li]A dune buggy that has two attack modes. The primary fire chages up and shoots a kind of energy bolo that wraps around whatever it touches and then explodes. Charge it up and the bolo gets wider. The secondary fire unleashes blades on either side of the buggy so you can drive around and seperate the wheat from the chaff. [/li]
[li]A hummer clone with a big turret on the back and a smaller turret in the passenger seat. Driver’s primary attack is to honk the horn. Unfortunately, it seems that one can’t hop into the passenger or turret if there isn’t a driver in place, which seems somewhat stupid to me - it was fine in both Halo and U2, so why not here? The license plate gets the driver’s name printed on it, which is a nice touch while you’re running down enemies.[/li]
[li]Some low altitude hover thingy. I found it wasn’t very useful, since it was hard to steer and I always got blasted whenever I tried to attack a moving target. It usually floats at above head height, but you can press crouch to momentarity lower it and smash poor slobs into paste.[/li]
[li]A flying thingy. Very fast. Somewhat difficult to use in battle, I found the best use was to either hover far away and hose down an area or do highspeed strafing runs. It’s difficult to turn without losing speed, and the altitude controls are odd - jump is move up, crouch is move down, so you won’t be doing any amazing swooping dogfights. Secondary fire is a missile that I think may home in on enemy vehicles - it homes in on enemy fliers, at any rate. I did just read that it controls better in first-person (f4), so I’ll have to go try that.[/li]
[li]A tank. What’s to know? It’s big and slow and makes things go boom. Most enemy vehicles only take a single shot to explode. Alt fire is a zoom. Another person can hop in and man a machine gun for protection.[/li]
[li]There’s also a stationary turret, which isn’t really a vehicle, but I’ll put it here anyway. It’s big, sturdy, and fires a pair of high-power lasers a good distance.[/li][/ul]
Personally, I liked the Bulldog secreted away in UT2k3, even though it was kind of floaty and could turn over on a hard corner. The new vehicles drive very solidly and don’t make jumps, but with enough application of leverage (for example, an anti-tank missile) they’ll tumble around as flaming wrecks that can even squish anyone unlucky enough to get in their way. Through it all, it still plays like UT, which means that you’re not going to live very long, even in a vehicle. Respawns are quick and usually there’s a locker nearby to pick up something more threatening than the assault rifle, which for some reason is pretty pathetic by itself.
Comments in Italics above added by me, of course.
UT2K4
200M
56k
See, I like the little haulass one seat hover thingie. Grab one, go zooming to the next point, blow up the power node, get killed, grab another one, zoom back to the node, build it, boom, capped.
Anyone else found the Stunt stuff yet? If there’s one thing better than doing a Dukes Of Hazzard in a big tank, it’s getting rated!
I thought I didn’t like this game until I tried Onslaught mode online.
Wow.
Oh, and the rating stuff is cool. I found it when I tried to go the wrong way on a very steep hill.