Unreal Tournament

In Unreal Tournament's defense, it does have these advantages over Quake 3:

• An actual plot. Unreal's plot is much stronger and more well-developed than UT's plot, but UT actually inherits from Unreal's plot. :)

• Different engine design. The engine used in Unreal and Unreal Tournament is capable of rendering positively gargantuan outdoor scenes that would make other engines grind down to a slide show. Other engines, like the Quake engine, are optimized for indoor scenes. The tradeoff is that some indoor scenes may be faster with other engines than with the Unreal/UT engine, but once you go outside - REALLY outside, as in the great outdoors, not as in a 30-foot-square courtyard, Unreal/UT will still be cooking along at 30 or more FPS (depending on your computer and video accelerator) whereas the other engines will choke. Giant scenes are rendered at high framerate. They do, however, slow down if there are a number of players visible at great distance, and speed up again as those players dart out of sight. (Most levels are not like this; I can only think of one CTF level that has this problem.)

  For example, Unreal features a level called the Sunspire. Picture a giant lava pit, about a half mile across, with a large stone obelisk about one mile tall and 1/4 mile wide. The majority of the gameplay is inside this obelisk, which is partially hollowed out; you start the level on the outskirts of the lava pit, and cross a sort of elevated peninsula and then a bridge to enter. The exit is at the top.

• Bots that talk shit. It had it before Quake 3, and many people thought it odd that the Quake 3 demo started featuring this after the Unreal Tournament demo already had it. And it wasn't actually recorded voices - it was just typed messages. With bad grammar. Almost as if it were an afterthought.

• Excellent AI. The bots can be set to any skill level from easy to godlike. There is also a feature called auto-adjust skill, in which the bots will attempt to match the average skillset of the player(s) they are currently engaging. The more skilled the bot, the more it will act like a human player; it may jump, strafe, and move in random directions specifically in order to avoid getting hit. Bots in other games run in straight lines. They may have low reaction times, but their evasion strategy is either way off or nonexistant.

• The following game types:
  • Tournament DeathMatch - Players slaughter each other indiscriminately until the time runs out or someone gets a preset number of frags.
  • Tournament Team Game - Same as above, except that players don't kill people with the same color armor.
  • Assault - Two teams. One team defends a base, and the other assaults it. The assaulting team's goal is to destroy a certain target or targets. Once this is done, the formerly defending team becomes the assaulting team, and must destroy the same target or targets for the same amount of time it took the formerly attacking team, now on defense, to destroy it or them.
  • Domination - Two or more teams. There are usually three checkpoints in the level. The goal is to step on each checkpoint, turning it your team's color. Team score is measured by how long each checkpoint stays its color, not by frags. Killing people on other teams is done mainly when they try to change the checkpoint to their own color by stepping on it.
  • Capture The Flag - Two teams try to defend their own flags, which are usually in fortified bases. At the same time, they try to fight their way into the enemy base to steal the enemy flag and run it back to their own base. To score, you must bring the enemy flag back to where your flag is planted in your base. However, if your flag has been taken, your team must get it back before you can score.
  • Last Man Standing - A quick and bloody game type. The last man alive wins.

• UnrealEd is shipped with both Unreal and Unreal Tournament. Add this to the fact that the game levels are stored as individual files, and you get to create new levels based on the ones which shipped with the game! Most other game companies jealously guard their maps, encoding them into a format where you either can't edit them at all, or can only edit them by reverse-compiling the maps, in which case you lose all the grouping information that makes the various parts of the map easier to deal with.

• Last, but most definitely not least, The Redeemer.

Another notable thing about Unreal and Unreal Tournament is the music. It isn't MIDI nor MP3 nor Redbook CD audio. It's done by tracking. Tracking is the preferred method of music creation for many who have computers but not MIDI keyboards nor actual instruments, since just about anyone can get together samples of instruments and use a tracker to write music which is played back using those samples. That means you can write the music for your custom level, and distribute it with that level, and the game has built-in support for your music - and it sounds good - the way you WANT it to sound.

Impact Hammer
A nice little melee weapon, but not something you'll really want to use as a matter of course. Can be used to jump to some insane heights, but this requires skill to avoid killing yourself. You need to hold down primary fire for a bit to charge it up, then run towards your enemy and release. If you're lucky, you'll disembowel them and see gibs fly everywhere. If you're unlucky, you'll be very close to someone with a Flak Cannon...or a charged up Impact Hammer. Oops.

Enforcer
The Enforcer is your default weapon. It's a pistol, basically, with two modes of fire. Primary fire is just a slow, but absurdly accurate, single bullet firing mode. Secondary fire is a little faster but don't bother using it at a distance because it's so goddamn inaccurate. If you kill someone who's holding an Enforcer, they will drop it and you can pick it up, so you have two at once. Nice. I've fragged quite often with this, but really it's only for use when desperate.

GES Biorifle
Shoots globs of green sludge, which stick to surfaces for a spell and then explode, making a lovely booby trap. Aimed directly at people, it can cause a hell of a lot of damage. Primary fire shoots rapid gobs of goo everywhere, while secondary fire can be held down and then released for a massive glob of death. Not really good as a primary weapon, but it has its uses.

Shock Rifle
Directly descended from the ASMD in the original Unreal, this shoots an instant bolt of electricity out, which is fairly damaging to whatever it hits. Secondary fire shoots a slow moving ball of energy which causes a fair bit of damage. If you shoot the ball of secondary fire with the primary fire, it will give off a fairly large explosion (although it requires some skill to kill with this). It's superseded by the Pulse Gun.

Pulse Gun
The pulse gun is a beefed up shock rifle. Primary fire rapidly shoots balls of energy, which can inflict mortal damage, while secondary fire, when held down, shoots a long lightning bolt. Track an opponent with this to frag them silly. A nice weapon, but watch your ammo.

Minigun
Basically a very, very fast Enforcer, with the same changes in speed and accuracy on secondary fire. Good if you want to go on a murderous rampage.

Ripper
The Ripper shoots out razor blades which ricochet off of surfaces and sink into your opponent. Before you get ideas, it's not very easy to just put out a load of blades and obliterate people: it needs a little bit of precision. Aiming for the head will take it clean off-instant frag! Secondary fire shoots the same blades, but they do not ricochet on impact and instead explode.

Flak Cannon
My second favourite weapon, the Flak Cannon can be used as both a melee and long range weapon. Primary fire shoots out lots of pieces of metal shrapnel, which hurt opponents quite badly. Secondary fire shoots out a shell, which explodes in a similar manner. Use primary fire up close, use secondary from far away (just aim it well).

Rocket Launcher
Aim this well and things will die fairly rapidly. Primary fire shoots out fast moving rockets, secondary lets out small bombs which bounce along the floor and then explode after a short time. On both modes, holding down the button will load more rockets into the launcher and allow you to let loose more than one. Holding down primary fire, then holding down secondary fire simultaneously will launch six rockets in a tight circle. Curiously, aiming for the feet with primary fire does a lot of damage.

Sniper Rifle
This is a great weapon which can kill in a single shot if you aim well. Primary fire just fires a bullet, secondary fire allows you to zoom in to your target. Find a nice ledge and have fun: I've fragged 79 people in a few minutes like this before (although most players frown upon such behaviour). Aim for the head and get an instant frag.

Redeemer
Oh. Dear. The Redeemer shoots out a slow moving missile, which on impact detonates like a nuclear weapon, creating a deadly shockwave. Aim it well. Secondary fire allows you to use the mouse to guide the rocket from the rocket's view. In this mode, opponents (and you) will have a small red target over them and you can detonate by pressing the primary fire button. Fun fun fun.

Translocator
The translocator allows you to teleport to places you couldn't otherwise reach. Primary fire shoots out a small beacon, and secondary fire teleports you to the location of said beacon. Shoot the beacon underneath an opponent and then teleport to kill (telefrag) them. If someone shoots your beacon, and you subsequently teleport to it, you will die. Whoops.

Chainsaw
Only rarely found. Primary fire plunges it forward, secondary swipes it sideways in a slicing action.