Unreal Tournament plays differently to most other online first person shooters. The emphasis is on speed and movement; gameplay always takes precedence over realism in the game's development.
A good example of this is the very large weapons, such as the rocket-launcher, able to be carried around and wielded with ease by normal-sized people, in most cases one-handed as if the weapon were weightless.
Players can also carry simultaneously on their person the full complement of seven or more weapons and max ammo for each without seeming to be carrying any more than what is in their hands.
Gameplay over realism may not please FPS purists, but it makes for a fun game with good replay potential.
Controlling your character[edit]
- The most effective way of controlling players is by using a mouse and keyboard combination.
- Some players use trackballs.
- It would be rare for good PC players to use a gamepad or joystick.
- The release of this game for the PS3 will put this theory severely to the test
Movement[edit]
Movement is critical in this game. Many weapons have a blast radius, so a movement left or right, forward or back will make you an easy target. Jumping and dodging is therefore critical—for two reasons. Most players will target blast weapons at the ground; and the splash damage is what needs avoiding. Being in the air plainly keeps you further from the ground. A dodge or jump is also faster than ground movement; so gets you out of the way.
There is a downside to movement. If you jump the distance, and therefore where you land, is predictable; this makes you vulnerable—especially to hitscan weapons. If an opponent is trying to hit you with a hitscan weapons, continuous small random movements, strafing left and right is better.
When playing against multiple opponents, and as your experience improves, another player might be lining up a shot from the side. Merely moving left and right means you'll be effectively stationary from his perspective; therefore adding backwards and forward movement, and moving in circles is even better. This technique is caled circle strafing.
Network Play[edit]
The network play when it works is good.
However, the ability to achieve peer-to-peer network connection is one of the drawbacks of the game. It has a built-in service for finding available network games, but it allows games to be hosted by computers that do not have the proper firewall settings to actually connect with external clients. Additionally, the firewall settings necessary to host a game are complicated, and may be unable to achieve using certain commercially available routers.
Therefore many games hosted on non-dedicated servers will show up as available connections, but only a small percentage actually allow others to connect and play.