Me – UT Hotness

My order for a retail copy of Unreal Tournament 2004 will be processed soon. Today is the first day it might be shipped and the earliest I’ll have it in my hot little hands is on April 1st. Unless Amazon is being cruel with the April Fools pranks.

Meanwhile I’ve continued to run the demo ragged and practicing the moves of the professionals. I’m no where near professional level.

But I did get a glimpse of the goal last night. Honestly, I love the spectator feature in UT. You can log into a server and watch people play. Click between focused views on individuals or float about invisibly with your personal camera to pick out the perfect angle from which to watch the action. There’s something special about floating dozens of feet over a major fire fight between upwards of 30 combatants.

But last night was a smaller, more intimate affair. A small handful of players playing a capture the flag(CTF) game. After the match I entered on ended, another stated. But the blue team was suddenly at a marked disadvantage as their numbers had dwindled to three while five folks remained on the red team.

I was soon to discover sheer numbers aren’t the only mark of advantage.

One of the players, who had left his name as the default ‘Player’ was the main focus of my attention. In the prior match, I’d noticed he was quite skilled at the one thing I’m still struggling with. The dodge jump. It’s a complex action by which you double tap the move button in the direction you want to go, then jump which results in a quick hybrid between dodging and jumping. Doing it without pausing is hard. Chaining them together is harder. This guy was pulling them off without much effort and scarce moments of miscalculation. One of the features of this level were three thin bridges that led between the two bases. Yet he dodge jumped across them many times with, perhaps, two instances of falling into oblivion over at least an hour.

Now, on to the situation at hand. The blue team was in dire straights in terms of numbers. Both teams had stolen the opposing flag, which creates a situation where neither team can score(to score, you have to have your flag in pace at the base and bring the opposing flag to it). Player is the one that had the flag and another.. I think his name was Tobias, had the flag for Red.

It was a problem with blue for a short while, as they soon were clustered back at their base, fending off attacks by the red team as they tried to get back the red flag. With all three of them at the base, it created a losing deadlock for them, as no one was out trying to get the blue flag back.

Watching with my camera centered on Player, I was privy to some savvy skirmishing as the flag bearing gladiator routinely dodge jumped and demolished his foes without being killed, keeping them from the flag. This went on for some time, with the other two eventually trying to go for the flag, while Player went off alone to safeguard his prize. And did remarkably well without a guarded escort as several who found him were subsequently destroyed.

Clicking between them, I knew where the flag was, while watching the three on five match up with baited breath, wondering which side would run out of luck first. Red did, as the one carrying the blue flag was found and taken down, the flag returned for Player to run back and make the long awaited score.

That’s the sort of stuff I find interesting. Three on five and the underdog in numbers wins by having at least one seriously skilled player on tap. This is the sort of stuff that really daunts me, looking at the disparity in skill level between myself, a casual player, and the more dedicated or just naturally better skilled than I. I’m not terrible, mind you. Usually I can hold my own, but at times it shocks me how my relative skill stacks up to those who are truly masters of gaming.

Its an admirable thing, though honestly I’d no trade too much for that sort of skill. While impressive, ultimately these are just games and as games they’re not all that important in the grand scheme of things. So long as I’m having fun, that’s what counts. And I think, once I get the full version of UT 2004, at least half of the fun will be watching those better than I am show off their talent.