Well since I have been playing this game almost non-stop since November thought I would give some advice on it and since my original review:
http://www.epinions.com/content_50126360196
is actually the GoTY addition, I dont think epinions had this category when I wrote mine and the member advice section has been retired thought I would write it here. So on to the actual game.
/*Overview of the Game*\
UT is a decently fast paced first person shooter or fps. In a fps you see through your characters eyes hence the "first person" and you go around shooting things. Has 8 or so guns including your basic enforcer (pistol), my personal favorite sniper rifle (watch your heads), the ripper gun, mini gun, the devastating redeemer, and a few others. Graphics and Sounds are both good, and were great when this game first came out. Quick tip for you while the sounds and music are nice I recommend turning down your music volume and up your game volume, that way it will be much easier to hear the footsteps of your opponents giving you hints of there locations.
The single player for Unreal Tournament, or UT from now on is kind of weak. Basically you go play different levels in the types of gameplay to just become champion. To try and offset this you can get a new skin if you beat one of the modes of gameplay.
CTF- Grab your opponents flag and bring it back to your base. Make sure you have some defense too because without your flag in your own base there wont be any scoring done until someone drops a flag and it is returned. Flags are returned after a certain amount of time after not being picked up or if it is your flag just by touching it.
Deathmatch- Kill all that dare to step in your path to a set amount of kills or to a timelimit.
Team Deathmatch- Work with your team to kill the score set and timelimit. If your team is leading when time expires you are the winners, or if you reach the set # of frags or kills before the opponent. In this game it is important to work as a team and not just going around recklessly shooting. Sure you may get lucky and get some kills but you are giving kills to the other team as well.
Domination- an odd mode where you must find 3 icons and touch them and they will be lit up by your team color. They will accumulate your team points as long as a player from the other team doesnt touch it. There are 3 of these scattered throughout the level.
Last Man Standing- Pretty obvious, in this mod you dont want to die, you dont even have to be the best player to win one of these free for all games. You can go and hide somewhere and kill only when forced to fight back. Of course it is more fun to be in the action but hiding is a smart plan. You get a set amount of lives everytime you die one is subtracted. When you reach 0 you are out and can watch the other players left until the match is over.
Skins, Mods, Mutators, and More
Skins are just what your character looks like, there are tons of great ones out on the net. Skins range from your basic trooper to warcows to odd things with 4 arms. I suggest:
http://skincity.beyondunreal.com/
it has the greatest skin selection I have found in my 8 months of playing UT.
Mods and Mutators
Basically are the same mutators changes the game by affecting a gun, your speed, and many other things. While a mod is normally a whole new gametype. Some of the best mods I have found out on the net include slavemaster where when you kill someone they become your b*tch basically and can either wait until someone kills your master to be free, or you could go collect things for them eventually earning your freedom. Win when you get a set amount of slaves earning yourself the title of slave master. Some other mods I have run into that I have enjoyed are gladiator a 1 Vs 1 mod, and jailbreak a really fun team game.
Cheating
Sure there are cheats or hacks out there, but many times you are caught and will be banned from the server meaning you can no longer play there. This is of course only in multiplayer in singleplayer you can cheat to your hearts desire. The main cheat you will run across in multiplayer UT is the
aimbot giving the person almost perfect aim. Best way to counter a person with an ambot other than kicking or banning the person, which most of the time happens even if the administrator wasnt there when the event happened. Well you can duck taking away a headshot, make sure to dodge or strafe a lot. And actually having a high ping, not a good thing when trying to play but a good counter for aimbots. To detect an aimbot if on your team hit F5 till you get to the person you belief is using an aimbot or come in as a spectator. Then go to first person view. If their crosshair suddenly flies around to people really fast many times doing complete 180's and the like the person may be cheating. Be careful of accusing people of cheating there are many great players out there make sure you are sure be for making an accusation.
Controls and Options
Well there are many different ways you could set up your UT controls the way I have it setup I consider to be much better than the way UT standard so I will give it hear.
W-forward
A-left
S-back
D-right
space-jump
c-crouch
left click-fire
right click- alternative fire
Some of the options I recommend you check are dodging, decals, and dynamic lighting. Dodging will help you well dodge and I will explain more on this later. Decals will have blood spurt out when someone is hit important when judging if you hit someone and how much health they may have left and the splatter of persons body parts when they have fallen and splattered due to the impact. Dynamic lighting is important when playing capture the flag because flags give off a glow which is important when trying to recover your own flag or in finding the enemies flag.
Tips and Tricks
OK here is the section many of you UT players out there were looking for:
Grab armor, health, and ammo whenever possible. These are important to your survival and can allow you to get those killing sprees.
Dodging, make sure you check this box it will allow you to do flips, long jumps to the side, and backflips. Simply double tap one of the movement buttons in the desired direction. Not only is this a good method to making your opponent miss and helping you last longer but also help you get to new areas otherwise unreachable without a translocator or hammer.
Translocator and Hammer- the translocator can allow you to get to many heights not reachable without it. To get really high jump then shoot then teleport and while in midair shoot again. Try not to hit the ground when doing this or many times you will leave a small crater. The hammer if you hold down the fire button can kill someone just by touching them. There is also a great trick by using the translocator and hammer in combination though. Shoot the translocator at your feet. Charge up your hammer and aim at an angle at your translocator disk. Fire and if done properly you will see your disk fly across the screen. In Facing Worlds you can basically go from one base to the other. Also if you shoot a translocator enough times the glow will disappear and when the person tries to use it they will die and you will get credit for killing them. The translocator can even be used as an offensive weapon. See someone camping, just shoot your locator at them and right as it would pass through them hit it and if done right you should kill them.
Please o Please dont kill me: Best way not to get killed is by confusing your enemy, run circles around them, jump, crouch, use your dodge moves. The longer you last the better chance you have of killing your opponent.
Where to Aim?
Well when you have the ripper gun, sniper rifle, or hammer aim for the head. These guns allow you to get a headshot killing the person with only one shot. With a rocketlauncher or some of the other explosive weapons aim for the feet that way the person will run into the explosion.
Clans
What?
Clans are a group of players that are joined together to have fun, dominate other players/clans/ladders, or whatever. Clan members add some sort of symbol to there name to allow them to be recognized as being in the clan. For example [ROV], {OCA}, (DB) etc. names normally stand for something. I was a member of Organized Crazy Addicts.
How Can You get in?
Practice, practice, practice, while it isnt always the greatest factor friendships can be skill is often the major guideline on whether you are worthy of adding the clan tag to your name. Make sure you are ready for a commitment if you want to join a clan. Often times there are practices, matches, chats, etc. that you will have to attend. Also it can mess up friendships you make in the game I have seen it so it may not be as great as a thing as you may have thought make sure you think it over before you join a clan.
You want to start your own?
Simple enough come up with a good name and think of a tag that could be the symbol for it. Now when starting out it is always nice to have some people that you think would join right off the bat. Also it helps to be pretty good otherwise the better players will more than likely not join and your clan will not be that good either. A website is almost a must for a clan and a server to be your clans home is also a plus.
Conclusion:
Well I hope all this stuff I have thrown out here has been a help and not just a boring read for you. If you have any questions on the game or anything I talked about in here feel free to leave a comment and if I am capable I will answer it. Unreal Tournament is one of the top fps out there many of the newer fpss have been made after looking at what UT and quake did. While the game no longer has the best graphic or sounds they are still pretty good. The single player is pretty weak but the multiplayer kicks @$$. For more info on this game check out some of the reviews.
