FINAL THOUGHTS Epic has a long history of releasing bonus material for it's Unreal series games. It's something that sets them apart from other developers that milk a franchise with minor retail mission packs or pay for play add-ons. Having said that, I do get the impression from the feedback we've seen that the pack was rather meager by Epic's own standards. When I hear that, I have to remind people that the type of content released for today's games is far more time consuming to produce than yesterday's BSP maps and low-poly models. Here we have four of the better official maps, six new playable characters, and three very fun new vehicles.

While I would have liked to have seen more attention given to their runner-up gametype, Capture The Flag, I fully understand that Onslaught is driving the machine these days. Deathmatch (and the gametypes that use these maps) have far more maps than any other gametype and Bombing Run and Double Domination barely tip the scale in terms of user-interest.

The retail Editor's Choice Edition isn't for current owners of Unreal Tournament 2004 unless you are the type that has to collect every version and every box of something. All of the new content is downloadable for free.

Now, if you're looking to pick up Unreal Tournament 2004 for the first time... you simply can't go wrong with UT2004: ECE. You get the latest code base, 11 top user-made mods, well over 100 maps, dozens and dozens of playable characters, 11 "official" gametypes, and the ability to customize the game just about any way you like.

The best just got better.