Urban Terror



Urban Terror, or UrT, is a freeware multiplayer First-Person Shooter, "Hollywood realism" total conversion mod for Quake III Arena (nowadays mostly run on any of the forks of ioquake3, the open-source version of id Tech 3 which Quake III ran on). It's gameplay is explicitly characterized as "Fun over realism" by the developers, featuring more or less realistic weaponry and completely unrealistic movement. It's often compared to Counter-Strike (both conversions came out roughly at the same time), either as a free alternative, or a rip-off. More correct would be comparison to Action Quake 2, as most of the developers at the time came from AQ2, with the intent of creating fast-paced gameplay similar to the former. In fact, Urban Terror got its very name from a popular map in AQ2.

Its long-awaited next-generation version, using an updated engine and all-new models, is currently in development with public alpha available.

Tropes found in this game are:

 * Acceptable Breaks From Reality: Many. For example, you can break your fall by grabbing a ledge or performing a Wall Jump, no matter how high you're falling from. This is, of course, all for the Rule of Fun.
 * AKA-47 - Averted. All the weapons are named correctly.
 * Armor Is Useless: Played with. Kevlar vests and helmets can/will save your life and reduce damage from most weapons by a large amount, but if your opponents all have the SR8, no amount of armor will save you.
 * Blatant Item Placement: None whatsoever. You'll spawn with your selected equipment, and the only way to change or complement it while you're still alive is to loot corpses.
 * Averted with the so-called Deathrun maps, where one team tries to reach a stash of equipment and the other team tries to stop them.
 * Body Armor As Hit Points: Averted. Kevlar protects your torso and helmet your head, but neither one helps you when you get hit in legs or arms.
 * Character Customization? Minimal: you can choose gender (four models for each) and armband color. There are also console commands for "funstuff", allowing things like horns, goggles and hats.
 * Chunky Salsa Rule: Headshots (except for the Beretta and Negev) are fatal without a helmet on. The player's headless body will slump down when this happens.
 * Color-Coded Multiplayer: Player skins have changed a lot since the realistic-looking first versions, becoming brighter and more easily distinguishable. From 4.0 onwards, red (Red Dragons gang) and blue (SWAT) team wear orange and blue overalls, respectively.
 * Concealment Equals Cover: In most cases. Due to engine limitations, all materials are either breakable (like glass) or completely impenetrable (although one can shoot through doors or very thin walls, if some of the target's hit mesh intersects with it).
 * Critical Existence Failure: Players' ability to shoot accurately is not affected by them bleeding all over the place; however, being injured wreaks havoc with your stamina, and therefore, movement.
 * Easter Egg: Some death messages only display rarely, like "PlayerX lit his/her own fart" when a player steps on his/her own grenade.
 * Excuse Plot: Not even that. Why are the (presumably) escaped convicts wielding the same weaponry as an elite SWAT team? And why are the SWATs using stuff like Kalashnikovs? For that matter, what are they doing in the middle of a desert or in a scene out of Saving Private Ryan? Who cares! Choose your equipment, spawn, and frag away.
 * Fackler Scale of FPS Realism: Listed under "other", which is telling.
 * Game Mod: Many players make custom maps. And if one is a skilled enough mapper or modeler, it is possible to join the development team.
 * Goomba Stomp: Called "curb stomp"; whenever you fall from a height that would normally injure you, landing on another player kills him instantly. Very difficult to pull off, but produces a rather satisfying plonk sound.
 * Have a Nice Death: PlayerX was sliced a new orifice by PlayerY, PlayerX was torn apart by PlayerY's crass AK, etc. Most famously: PlayerX did the lemming thing.
 * Hollywood Acid: The slime that shows up in a few custom maps works like this.
 * Hollywood Silencer: Most of the weapons (except for Desert Eagle and Remington SR-8 sniper rifle) can use a silencer that reduces their firing sound to nearly inaudible level. More realistically, it also improves accuracy and removes muzzle flash.
 * Hyperspace Arsenal: Averted. Player can actually carry less than an actual infantryman or special operative does (although, armament-wise, carrying a rifle, a submachinegun, and a pistol isn't exactly common in real life).
 * Invisible Wall: Most of the maps now have rooftops and other high places clipped out to avoid excessive camping. Knowing where those walls are makes for some creative jumps.
 * Lava Is Boiling Kool-Aid: The few maps that have lava in them play this trope straight.
 * Le Parkour: So very much. Video Game Physics means that player can achieve very high speeds by just jumping in a certain way, and escape uninjured when hitting a wall. Walljumping, strafe jumping and circle jumping (as well as so-called powersliding) can make the gameplay very fast and unpredictable, as good players can use completely unexpected routes to reach their destination in seconds. These features -- especially walljumping -- have spawned an unofficial jumpmode, where the only goal is to reach the other end of a particular creatively-built map.
 * Love It or Hate It: "OMG GAY36 NOOB!!1!" Heckler & Koch G36, being the only scoped automatic weapon in the game, is strongly associated with camping beginners.
 * Also the Heckler & Koch PSG-1, which some players call PSGay or even Penis-Sucking Gaywad.
 * More Dakka: The Negev.
 * Night Vision Goggles. Called "tactical goggles", these seem to use a combination of image intensifying and IR (people glow, and they allow you to see through smoke). Goggles since 3.x have active display, placing a rectangle around players and grenades. Infamous for being used by beginners, who then merrily proceed to teamkill (tacs' main disadvantage is that they overlay all players in the same color).
 * One Bullet Clips: Averted. When you reload, you lose the ammo left in the previous magazine.
 * One-Hit Kill: The SR-8. Regardless of whether you wear a helmet or kevlar vest, a shot in the head or torso deals 100% damage. (Arms and legs take 50% damage from one SR-8 round.)
 * Rare Guns: The SR-8 is an experimental sniper rifle that never saw full production, whereas PSG-1's are very expensive in real life.
 * Right-Handed Left-Handed Guns: Except for SR-8 and Negev.
 * Run, Don't Walk: Urban Terror is definitely one of those games where stealth is rarely needed.
 * Not always. It depends on the map, the gametype and the current situation.
 * Sentry Gun: Shows up in some maps with dedicated spawn rooms. Mr. Sentry mows down players of the opposing team as well as anyone trying to hide a CTF flag in a spawn room.
 * Short-Range Shotgun: Horrible spread means that the shotgun is strictly close quarters-only weapon. Even then, using it effectively is difficult because buckshot isn't very effective against body armor, which nearly everyone wears.
 * Soft Water: No matter what height you fall from, water will do no damage to you and save you from death.
 * Sprint Meter: Stamina is shown on your health meter; if you sprint for too long or jump too much, you'll start panting and eventually your movement slows to a crawl (and you can't jump higher than few centimeters).
 * Standard FPS Guns: And nothing more. However, unlike in most FPSes, there's no rocket launcher.
 * Rumor has it that there may be a rocket launcher coming after the means of banning malicious players is improved. Most of the concern about it has to do with teamkillers blasting the ground in a spawnroom to TK a whole team worth of players.
 * Team Killer: Common, especially on some servers.
 * Tele Frag: Rare, but happens occasionally when a player stands on another player's spawn point. "PlayerX tried to invade PlayerY's personal space" is the death message for this.
 * The Blade Always Lands Pointy End In: Played straight when a player throws knives. Most people don't try this unless the server they are on has turned off grenades though.
 * Throw-Away Guns: Common, in order to avoid getting an empty gun when cycling through them.
 * Wall Jump: One of the more universally useful elements of the game; see Le Parkour above for its applications.