Would it be worth it to just buy the newest one, UT 2004, for $3.99.

How are the games? Is the single player worth playing and how about the multiplayer within these games? How is the multiplayer community?

Given that I am extremely biased I would say if you want single player buy Unreal and if you want multiplayer buy Unreal Tournament GOTY

but really Unreal is the single player focused it does have bot match (unreal 2 doesn't though) and UT is multiplayer focused. If you don't mind playing bots in deathmatch and the like then ut/ut2004 is fine for single player but if you want an actual single player experience you want to play Unreal. I haven't really got into Unreal II but generally people prefer Unreal but they also have virtually no relation to each other.

As for UT I am extremely biased towards the original over 2004, that doesn't mean you wouldn't enjoy 2004 its just that its different to the original and I prefer the original. Really I think you should just buy the whole pack considering its so cheap then you can't be wrong about your choice.

In UTs server browser 665 servers with 245 players are currently online but I suspect it fluctuates during the day but you should be able to find games fairly easily.

For UT2004, which I would recommend, you can find games with people in them at any given time depending on the region you are, but bare in mind that you may need to download a lot of custom content, so a fast internet connection wouldn't hurt. There are even race-like servers, climbing servers, tricky movements servers, RPG shootout servers. I have the 3 unreal tournament games (the first 2 from GoG) and the only thing you need to do is to contact support for your unique CD-key in order to play multiplayer, they respond very quickly so that's not a problem at all.

The Unreal Tournament series (except the UT3) are the king of the FPS genre. It is fun, balanced, very customizable, and the most important part: it uses a simple client-server system.

For some reason, I like the UT2004 the best. It is the part of our LAN party since its release. It has more modes than the others. However it is not as grounded as the oirignal Unreal Tournament. The 2004 is easier to master.

The Unreal Tournament '99 is the perfect multiplayer arena FPS game. I think it has the most populated community even today. This game is very hard to master, you need superb skills to stay alive against good players.

The UT2003 is... just forget it. It is the "beta" version of the UT2004. Of course not officially, but it is basically the same as the UT2004, but the UT2004 has a way more content.

As for the final word, I can't chose between the UT or the UT2004 to recommend. The UT is the professional arena shooter for professional player, while the UT2004 is the spectacular shooter with more strategical elements (starting with the wall dodge).