I feel like a part of me has died. Well, maybe that is a little bit too dramatic.

I hope you people like stories. And I hope you people don't mind hearing an article based around my long-time affair with Unreal Tournament 2004 - one of many that have been posted, yet this one may be the most heart-rending of all ... okay, maybe I'm overexaggerating again.

Once upon a time, in a dismal, little-known town, there was some guy. This guy was called Scott, and he was coming home from school after a long, boring day, ready to drink some Irn-Bru and mellow out in front of the comforting glow of his computer, just like any abnormal person would. ( Face it, Irn-Bru and GameSpot after a long day of school? How random. )

And for some reason, when the computer started up, he hovered his cursor over the bottom right-hand corner of his (rather large) screen. 13:49 is the time. And the date is ... uh, 08 November 2006. Something about that date triggers something in my brain ... possibly something bad. Something really bad. Something bad was going to happen today, something he'd seen before ... and then the full reality hit Scott in the face with all the grace of an airborne cat.

"Server closing 08 November 2006. Sorry guys, I need the money."

Server in question? The UT2004 Funhouse server, where the majority of my 97 hours in-game (woah, is it only that many?!) have been spent. Yeah, it's finished. Never to be seen again (at least not to my knowledge. Nooo. This can't be happening.

Funhouse was a great server. Actually, no, it was an incredible server. It was a creative server. It had an addictive insane attitude. It had a who-cares atmosphere, as quoted by wise master nodham. It was a place where competition was not too serious, but teamwork was still required in a weird sort of way. It had the best, most lavishly detailed maps I've ever seen in UT - well, lavishly is probably the wrong word here. "Crazy" is probably the correct one. A lot of the maps put you in a huge room of some sort, where your character has magically shrunk and tables are something like 150 feet tall and the ceiling is a few hundred metres above your head t0o. Picture Micro Machines crossed with futuristic warzones.

It sounds good, and it was more than good - it was memorable more than anything. Some of my best online gaming moments have been in that very server : discovering random glitches with Andy, nodham, ezra, Dan and whoever else cared to join ; riding redeemers into invisible walls and laughing at my own carelessness ; finding some questionably wallpapered rooms ten feet into the swimming pool ; arguing with idiots who interrupt otherwise harmless games ; voice chatting with the gang ; insert other cool event here.

So that's why UT will never really be the same again, not without a cool place to chill out and ride redeemers into walls for no apparent reason and then laugh at other golden digital suicides.

I guess maybe, one day, we'll find another crazy server to play on. Another crazy server filled with crazy mods, crazy guns, crazy people, and crazy maps, and then we'll laugh at how we mourned over Funhouse without checking if there were similar servers first. Ezra even tells me he may set up his own fixed server one day, and seeing as he apparently has 20GB worth of mods on his hard drive, that should be very interesting if it ever happens.

But until then, UT has lost one of its most interesting, colourful, and above all, memorable servers.

Thank you for reading.

P.S.  Here are some vids/montages of Funhouse's genius, brought to you by Planet Telex Productions, which will now have to find a new game to record some quality vids.

 Tales from Lilliput (Executive Producer: stevenscott14)
 Strangelove Mod Chaos (Executive Producer: nodham)

 If anyone else has vids on GameSpot of Funhouse that I've missed, don't hesitate to remind me.

 Again, thank you for reading.