Introduction

In this article I will introduce new players to ut2004 by comparing it to other shooters, and showing how ut2004 is different

Unreal tournament 2004 is the sequel to unreal tournament, which in turn was based on the single player game unreal. If you play the original unreal game you may be able to notice similarities in the weapons of unreal and unreal tournament 2004, however much has changed.

UT2004 differs from other games in the fact that it does not try at all to be realistic, and it gives no apologies for this, other games may try to explain certain essential features so that it seems possible, and many others cannot use good ideas due to realism, ut2004 is not bounded by the laws of what seems normal and what would happen in real life, these laws are abandoned so that the best possible fps (first person shooter) game can be created without compromising the gameplay due to realism. For example:

1. Unrealistic weapons
2. No need to reload, all ammunition is stored in a single clip
3. ability to double jump, and also to trick jump in ways impossible for any real human
4. hitscan weapons accuracy is 100% irregardless of how you are moving

Compared to games such as counter strike for example.

The fact that there are hitscan weapons at all in the game also makes it quite unique. I will explain the terms hitscan and projectile now

A hitscan weapon is a weapon that when fired takes no time at all to reach its target, theoretically at least. This means that what ever is under your crosshair when you fire a hitscan weapon WILL get hit, assuming that the gun is accurate, which in ut2004 both hitscan weapons are. A projectile on the other hand takes a some time from the moment it is fired to reach its target. The amount of time it takes depends on both the distance between the shooter and the target and the speed of the projectile. This is why slow moving projectile weapons are not recommended for long range. In many shooters that try to be realistic, all weapons, even sniper rifles are projectile weapons (although the speed of the sniper round is often very fast) this means that shots must be lead, ie the shooter must aim for where their target will be when the round reaches them.

Allthough this makes it easier to aim in ut2004, the amount of movement of other players cancels this out, you are also expected to move while you aim and shoot a target who is dodging you, of course this is impossible in many games as you must stay still to use the scope, again in ut2004 many good players don't even use the scope often, as it slows them down. It is sort of like using a racing grade car, sure it may be much easier to turn, but what is expected of your skills is much higher when you are on the track then when you are simply driving around in "real life" I will discuss aiming and accuracy in great detail in a later post, as well as how to improve your accuracy.

UT2004 also has a large number of gametypes:

Deathmatch
Team Deathmatch
Last Man Standing
Mutant
Invasion

CTF (Capture the flag)
Bombing run
Double Domination
Onslaught
Assault

Of course just like anything in ut2004, there are heaps of other unofficial gametypes made by other players, for example clan arena, which is basically a two team survival match, last team alive wins the round. I will go into more detail to each gametype in later posts

First post

Ok, here goes

I have decided to start a blog dealing with ut2004 and more specifically, in how to become a better ut2004 player, especially in deathmatch gametypes. I do not claim to be the best ut2004 player out there, but there are lots of things I now know about the game that I would have benefited greatly from being told about previously. First I suppose I should tell you a little about me and ut2004. I first played ut2004 at a lan cafe late 2006. The game began to grow on me as my friends and I began to frequent that lan cafe, and I became more experienced with the game. In mid 2007, after traveling to that lan cafe many times just to play ut2004 I decided it would be more economical to simply buy the game, so I bought the unreal anthology, which for those that don't know, consists of four games, unreal, unreal 2, unreal tournament and unreal tournament 2004, and I recommend it to any others who do not yet have the game and are interested in getting it.

After defeating the single player mode in experienced difficulty at the lan cafe, I was quite disappointed with my first attempts at playing online. Any good player will tell you that people are completly different to bots, and some even go so far to say that playing with bots offline will hurt you more then it will help you. At the moment I could beat a godlike bot 30 to 0, without the bot killing me once in 15 minutes, and most good players could, however there are players better then me online who could do the same to me (if I wasn't trying too hard of course :P)

I often hear people complaining about the difficulty of the bots in ut2004, saying that in the higher difficulty levels, the bots become aimbots and can dodge your fire with ease. Trying to hit a godlike bot with a projectile weapon is the best way to demonstrate this, they will bounce off the walls and the floor in ways that players simply physically cannot. The bots however, are fundementally stupid, compared to players at least, and if something works on them once, it will again, and again, and again, they have no medium or long term stratergy, if they see a player they simply fire at them, they don't try to guess the players next moves, corner them with no weapons, spawn camp, ambush or outsmart them. Also despite their inhuman ability to dodge projectiles, godlike bots do very little to prevent being hit by hitscan weapons. This is the key difference between good players and bots, and with a little bit of practice it becomes easy to kill any bot.

This guide will start with an overview of ut2004 and how it differs from other shooters, for those of you who have played ut2004 little, then it will go into more detail about the game mechanics, skip this section if you want. I will then discuss aiming in detail, with an in depth discussion on the world of computer mice, sensitivity, acceleration and dpi will be discussed. I will try to add as much as possible about game skills such as movement, as well as suggested tweaks to the settings. Then, advanced techniques, including timing, using sounds to pinpoint the position of your enemy, avoiding pickups to fool your enemy.

I will also post links to other references that I have found helpful. I will leave you now with a thought, on first appearances ut2004 seems quite an easy game, the weapons don't suffer from recoil, reloading is unneccesary, hitscan shots do not need to be led ect... This is all true, ut2004 is a simple game to play, but it is a very difficult game to fully master.