Update 3: More comparisons surfaced overnight, revealing that Limbo of the Lost apparently contains background elements of Gray Matter's Return to Castle Wolfenstein, World of Warcraft artwork, and a shocking number of Unreal Tournament 2004 maps. Left, Limbo of the Lost. Right, Return to Castle Wolfenstein.

"This is not an old game that has been dressed up," director Steve Bovis once told QuandaryLand. It is also worth noting that developer Majestic was planning a sequel to Limbo of the Lost and was seeking a new background artist for the project.

Left, Limbo of the Lost. Right, Unreal Tournament 2004.

Given the sheer number of similarities from so many different games, it is extremely unlikely that all of the duplicate assets are a result of a common texture pack, as was the case with S.T.A.L.K.E.R.'s apparent use of Doom 3 and Half-Life 2 elements.

Update 2: Along with Oblivion and Thief: Deadly Shadows, it seems the three-man Majestic team stole assets from People Can Fly's Painkiller (PC)... Read more

Epic plots new Make Something Unreal contest is a news story on Computer & Video Games, quoting Epic's Mark Rein on the possibility of another Make Something Unreal contest. The first contest resulted in the Red Orchestra team receiving an Unreal Engine license.

Creative has released a patch for Unreal Tournament 2004, adding enhanced weapon sounds and music to the game specifically for Sound Blaster X-Fi owners. According to the company; "Weapons and music both now use multiple voices for a bigger sound, and three dimensional panning for use with multi-speaker set-ups to surround you with sound." Thanks Blues News.

Looking to make a quick buck, Midway has announced plans to release an Unreal Anthology compilation this fall. The $29.95 compilation will include the original Unreal and its Return to Na Pali expansion pack, Unreal 2, the original Unreal Tournament and Unreal Tournament 2004.

As promised, the Unreal Tournament 2004 Mega Pack is now available. It includes the content from the previously released Editor's Choice Edition patch, and nine community made maps.

Beyond Unreal reports that a Mega Pack patch for Unreal Tournament 2004 is set to be released this Tuesday. The Mega Pack will include the latest patch, the ECE bonus material and nine community created maps (5 Assault, 2 DM, 2 CTF).

Epic sends along a new Unreal Tournament 2004 patch, updating the multiplayer shooter to version 3369. As always, this patch is compatible with the retail version and previous patches, and servers and clients of any version can connect to each other. Some of the changes include

* General Gameplay: Fixed DriverLeft() not be called when driver dies in vehicle without vehicle being destroyed. This fixes the vehicle not resetting, and fixes effects like the engine sound not being turned off.
* Fixed some vehicle weapon effects staying around when bots stopped firing them.
* Fixed spider mine layer incorrectly reducing mine count when a fired spider mine immediately explodes.
* Fixed manta and raptor spinning sometimes when player enters
* SPMA camera explodes if it hits water.
* Don't allow SPMA camera view to go outside world.
* Invasion HUD radar uses the viewed pawn's rotation rather than the spectator's rotation.
* Fixed low gravity not working properly in second and successive rounds of onslaught.

Epic is finalizing a new Unreal Tournament 2004 patch, and BeyondUnreal has beta change notes showing a good amount of gameplay, network and engine fixes and optimizations.

Tripwire Interactive today announced that its popular WW2 mod Red Orchestra is heading to Steam as Red Orchestra: Ostfront 41-45. Red Orchestra for UT2004 won NVidia's $1,000,000 Make Something Unreal contest, and with the Unreal Engine 2.5 license won through the contest the game will now be a stand-alone product. There's no word on when Red Orchestra: Ostfront 41-45 will show up on Steam.

"Digital content delivery is the future of gaming, and we are very excited to be a part of that future" said Tripwire Interactive President John Gibson. "Working with Valve to release the game over Steam allows Tripwire to remain independent and keep control of the games content and development. This allows Tripwire to continue to offer our fans the same uncompromising level of realism, authenticity, and gameplay they have come to expect from Red Orchestra while continuing to innovate and push the boundaries of the military FPS and simulation genres."

There's a Strike Force Q&A on GameCloud this morning, talking to Michael Hamlett of Vision Studios. Hamlett is asked about the Strike Force 2004 mod, and his company's plans for a commercial Strike Force Red Cell game.

Version 3.3 of the Red Orchestra mod for UT2004 has been released. In this release you'll find a new map, improved bot AI, a new player momentum system, and "major rendering optimizations". A patch updating 3.2 to 3.3 is available as well.

Version 2.16 of the Frag.Ops mod for Unreal Tournament 2004 has been released, adding two maps and also offering other new features, gameplay tweaks and bug fixes. We have the update from 2.15 on FileShack.

Version 3.2 of the Red Orchestra mod for UT2004 is now available. The new release adds bot support, the Iosef Stalin 2 tank, a motion blur effect for when an explosion occurs near you, a new prone movement system and much more.

Over at Planet Unreal you can find a Q&A with the team at Tripwire Interactive, makers of the Red Orchestra mod for UT2004. There are questions about winning the Make Something Unreal Contest, going retail, and the amount of people actually playing the mod.

Beyond Unreal has a new Unreal Tournament 2004 Q&A, asking Epic Games' Steve Polge and fellow developers Phil Cole and Laurent a few post-mortem questions about the multiplayer game. UT2004 turns 1 today.

Boomtown has a Red Orchestra Q&A today, chatting with Alan Wilson and Ingmar Spit of Tripwire Interactive as the team is now known. Questions are about the history of the mod, winning the Million Dollar Unreal contest, and plans for the future. Meanwhile the mod's official website has some screenshots from the new RO-StalingradKessel map which will be included with the 3.2 release.

The website of Make Something Unreal contest winner Red Orchestra has a few updates, talking about and showing off what the team has been working on for a version 3.2 release of the UT2004 WW2 mod.

Epic sends along the latest Unreal Tournament 2004 patch, which updates the game to v3355. As always this patch is completely compatible with any retail version and previous patches, but you are required to have the ECE bonus pack installed before updating. Here are the gameplay changes for this patch

- Fixed stuttering/snagging/sinking into static meshes in some places on clients in net games
- Improved getting out of water
- Fixed FaceClassic teleporter exploit
- The Cicada hud indicators should now show up in all game modes.
- Fixed SPMA causing damage at world origin.
- Fixed not being able to exit Raptor when it's on the ground
- Fixed (for assault) the energy core always showing on the HUD even if it not the current objective (thanks AngelMapper)

HomeLAN Fed is quick to interview John Gibson of the Red Orchestra mod team, winners of the million dollar Make Something Unreal competition. As for what they're going to do now: "We are going to spend the next few weeks exploring our options. The team has put a lot of thought and planning into what we would do if we won, but of course we had to actually win first before we could move forward. We are not going to rush into anything. We want to make the decisions that make the most sense for the Red Orchestra team while staying true to all of our fans".

We were sent this press release, at long last announcing the winners of the $1,000,000 NVIDIA Make Something Unreal contest. Big winner is the Red Orchestra mod, as the team receives $50,000 in cash and an Unreal engine license worth a cool $350,000. Other winners can be found at the Unreal Tournament website.