Hands down UT because of the DM and CTF. CTF died after UT2003 came out and nothing has ever revived it an ANY FPS game. They screwed with the balance so much in 2k3 that is just wasn't fun anymore. Part of what made the translocator so critical was that the grounded movement in UT made the use of the xloc a liberating piece of technology. When you could double-dodge halfway across a map in 2k3/4 it started to blur those lines.
I would also like to point out that it's unfair the Unreal Championship 2 was left off this list even though it was not technically a "Tournament" title. It is the only standalone console title in the Unreal series and damned near perfection. It's still not UT though.
There are lots of reasons why the UT community completely degraded after UT. Part of it was simply FPS community choices in general became so vast. Gone are the days with any shooters where you can just load it up and find a vast number of servers populated. God, what happened to popping open the UT CTF server browser and literally having a 150 populated servers half full to capacity or more?
What the 2k3 and beyond haters of the franchise don't seem to be able to come to terms with is that the entire series is quite simply among the best of the best of it's generation. However, when comparing 2k3, 2k4, UT3 against its mother game UT they didn't pass muster. However, hold 2k3 and UT3 up against virtually any other FPS made. They are still the top of the top. Had there been no UT99 to be in the shadow of, 2k3/4 would have been hailed as one of the most brilliant shooters ever. Still think so. But nothing could live up to that.
In that same vain, 2k4 still in my eyes stands as one of the best vehicle combat experiences ever produced.
I would also like to point out that it's unfair the Unreal Championship 2 was left off this list even though it was not technically a "Tournament" title. It is the only standalone console title in the Unreal series and damned near perfection. It's still not UT though.
There are lots of reasons why the UT community completely degraded after UT. Part of it was simply FPS community choices in general became so vast. Gone are the days with any shooters where you can just load it up and find a vast number of servers populated. God, what happened to popping open the UT CTF server browser and literally having a 150 populated servers half full to capacity or more?
What the 2k3 and beyond haters of the franchise don't seem to be able to come to terms with is that the entire series is quite simply among the best of the best of it's generation. However, when comparing 2k3, 2k4, UT3 against its mother game UT they didn't pass muster. However, hold 2k3 and UT3 up against virtually any other FPS made. They are still the top of the top. Had there been no UT99 to be in the shadow of, 2k3/4 would have been hailed as one of the most brilliant shooters ever. Still think so. But nothing could live up to that.
In that same vain, 2k4 still in my eyes stands as one of the best vehicle combat experiences ever produced.