Unreal Tournament 2004: Arena Shooters and Metroid Talk

Come join me on a night in as I play a few rounds of Unreal Tournament 2004 and talk mostly about the Metroid series. Because that’s just how I do things.

Topics discussed (or really, rambled back and forth on) included arena shooters, my history with the genre and why I like them, the differences between Unreal Tournament and Quake, the things the genre needs to do to come back, and of course, the Metroid series. Particularly Metroid Prime Hunters, which is an unjustly overlooked Metroid-themed arena shooter for the Nintendo DS. This is probably as close as I can get to doing a real Metroid project right now, so I hope I was able to answer at least some of the questions you might have had about how I feel about Nintendo’s most fraught video game franchise.

Because I mentioned him, here are some links to the good work video game historian Liam Robertson has done on the Metroid series:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2lMLRIwiB_c

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UFpLm3Dg7Yg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=22E5ectnU4o

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7WNYpOJ0y4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yoV5SbM_V8M

Here are the games used and mentioned in my video:

Buy Unreal Tournament 2004 on GOG

Buy Unreal Tournament 2004 on Steam

Get the Samus Aran mod for UT2004

Get an emulated version of Metroid Prime Hunters from the WiiU eShop

This is kind of an impromptu, experimental test for a new kind of video series I’m debating starting. If you like me being this unscripted and freeform, please let me know: I have a couple of ideas for ways I can use this approach for other games.