Urban Terror, commonly abbreviated as
UrT, is a free multi-player first person shooter game developed by FrozenSand. Originally a total conversion of
id SoftwareId Software is an American video game development company with its headquarters in Richardson, Texas. The company was founded in 1991 by four members of the computer company Softdisk: programmers John Carmack and John Romero, game designer Tom Hall, and artist Adrian Carmack...
's
Quake III ArenaQuake III Arena , is a multiplayer first-person shooter video game released on December 2, 1999. The game was developed by id Software and featured music composed by Sonic Mayhem and Front Line Assembly...
, FrozenSand released
Urban Terror as a free standalone game in 2007 utilizing ioquake3 as an engine. Although the ioquake3 project uses id Software's id Tech 3 engine under GPL license, Urban Terror's assets and code are closed source.
Urban Terror was nominated to the 2007
Mod DBPlayer's Choice*Best Indie Game: Tremulous*Best Released Mod: Point of Existence 2*Best Unreleased Mod: Black Mesa*By genre-2005:*-2004:*-2003:*-2002:*- External links :* *...
's Mod of the Year Award.
History
Urban Terror started out in 1998 as a planned mappack for
Quake III Arena, in which real world environments would be featured. It expanded from this idea to a full total conversion featuring realistic weapons and gameplay similar to
Action Quake 2Action Quake 2 is a mod for the computer game Quake II created by The A-Team. Although originally released in 1998, it still has a small player base mainly in South America, Scandinavia and especially in Finland, with active servers on several continents as of 2008...
. Silicon Ice Development was formed in spring 2000 and was made of several international developers, many whom were familiar with modifying Quake III Engine games; hence progress was made quickly. When its first version, beta 1.0, was released at QuakeCon 2000,
Urban Terror was the realism mod with the most features and graphics completed. Beta 1.0 gained popularity quickly, and many third party maps became available. The development team was expanded, and beta 1.27 was released in late 2000.
Beta 2.0 was released in June 2001, and was a major leap forward in terms of production quality. New textures, models, weapons, sounds, and maps brought the mod up to par with many contemporary commercial games of the time. The next major release occurred in August 2001, at QuakeCon 2001, of beta 2.3, which introduced several new maps. The last release for the beta 2 series occurred in January 2003, with beta 2.6a being primarily a weapons balancing
patchA patch is a piece of software designed to fix problems with, or update a computer program or its supporting data. This includes fixing security vulnerabilities and other bugs, and improving the usability or performance...
.
August 2003 saw the release of beta 3.0, a major graphical revision of
Urban Terror. Over the next 11 months, seven more updates were released, culminating in beta 3.7 in July 2004. Work on
Urban Terror for
Quake III Arena slowed down, as Silicon Ice Development was working on a release for
Wolfenstein: Enemy TerritoryWolfenstein: Enemy Territory is a free and open source multiplayer first-person shooter video game set during World War II...
, titled Urban Terror MX featuring new vehicles and gameplay. During this period,
Silicon Ice Development changed its name to
FrozenSand.
Urban Terror MX never reached alpha stage, and the project was canceled in 2006.
With the release of the ID Tech 3 engine source code,
Urban Terror could legally be released as a standalone game.
Urban Terror beta 4.0 was released in April 2007 using the ioquake3 project engine.
Urban Terror is now a standalone game. Beta 4.0 ushered in another graphical overhaul, several new maps, and numerous tweaks and bug fixes. The popularity of
Urban Terror surged as
Quake III Arena was no longer required in order to play. The current version of
Urban Terror, beta 4.1, was released in December 2007.
On the 25th December 2010 the
Urban Terror HD Alpha 0.1 test was publicly released, featuring a new Engine, new Weapons, Maps and Characters.
January 20th 2011 an interim release, 4.1.1, was open to the public. Although it doesn't contain any new weapons or changes in gameplay it does offer updated skins, funstuff (customization) and maps. Clients running 4.1.1 are expected to work on either 4.1 or 4.1.1 servers while only upgraded clients can play on upgraded servers.
Gameplay
Urban Terror is billed by FrozenSand as a "Hollywood
tactical shooterA tactical shooter is a subgenre of shooter game that includes both first-person shooters and third-person shooters. These games typically simulate realistic combat, thus making tactics and caution more important than quick reflexes in other action games...
." It blends elements from games such as
Quake III ArenaQuake III Arena , is a multiplayer first-person shooter video game released on December 2, 1999. The game was developed by id Software and featured music composed by Sonic Mayhem and Front Line Assembly...
,
Unreal TournamentUnreal Tournament is a futuristic first-person shooter video game co-developed by Epic Games and Digital Extremes. It was published in 1999 by GT Interactive. Retrospectively, the game has also been referred to as UT99 or UT Classic to differentiate it from its numbered sequels...
,
Counter-StrikeCounter-Strike is a tactical first-person shooter video game developed by Valve Corporation which originated from a Half-Life modification by Minh "Gooseman" Le and Jess "Cliffe" Cliffe...
, and Warsow. The realism in the mod is introduced through a number of changes:
The number of weapons and other gear that can be carried is limited. Damage is also more realistic than in
Quake III Arena, based on
dividing the player target into discrete areasCollision detection typically refers to the computational problem of detecting the intersection of two or more objects. While the topic is most often associated with its use in video games and other physical simulations, it also has applications in robotics...
. Depending on the map being played, external environments are realistic and can include weather effects such as
rainRain is liquid precipitation, as opposed to non-liquid kinds of precipitation such as snow, hail and sleet. Rain requires the presence of a thick layer of the atmosphere to have temperatures above the melting point of water near and above the Earth's surface...
or
snowSnow is a form of precipitation within the Earth's atmosphere in the form of crystalline water ice, consisting of a multitude of snowflakes that fall from clouds. Since snow is composed of small ice particles, it is a granular material. It has an open and therefore soft structure, unless packed by...
. Weather effects can also be controlled by game variables via administrator privileges.
Urban Terror allows players to perform superhuman feats. Damage is a key example; while damage taken depends on the part of the body which is hit, one can keep going after receiving numerous hits. Further breaking from reality,
Urban Terror also retains the movement speeds from
Quake III Arena (
circle jumpingStrafe-jumping is a form of trickjump used to increase a player's speed in computer games based on the Quake engine and now the Doom 3 engine...
) which allowed players to move through the environment incredibly quickly and includes moves such as
wall jumpThis article is about the video game move. For its real-world counterpart, see wall flip.A wall jump is a technique players can execute in several video games.-Technique:...
ing and power sliding. Wall jumping allows players to literally jump off of walls and helps the player to gain more height, distance and speed. Power sliding lets the player slides, rapidly, in a crouched position, maintaining speed. These abilities have spawned a sub-community of players who focus on specially designed "jump maps" of which the goal is to reach the end of a series of difficult courses.
Numerous game modes are featured, including classic FPS modes such as Team Deathmatch and
Capture the FlagCapture the Flag is a traditional outdoor sport generally played by children, where two teams each have a flag and the objective is to capture the other team's flag, located at the team's "base," and bring it safely back to their own base...
. Also included are Team Survivor, Free-for-All (
deathmatchDeathmatch or Player vs All is a widely-used gameplay mode integrated into many shooter and real-time strategy computer games...
), Bomb & Defuse, Capture & Hold, and Follow the Leader. Beta 4.2 will bring two additional game types: Last Man Standing, and Jump Map Training (a special mode for the aforementioned jump maps).
Weapons and equipment
Players have one primary, one secondary, one
pistolWhen distinguished as a subset of handguns, a pistol is a handgun with a chamber that is integral with the barrel, as opposed to a revolver, wherein the chamber is separate from the barrel as a revolving cylinder. Typically, pistols have an effective range of about 100 feet.-History:The pistol...
, and one
grenadeA grenade is a small explosive device that is projected a safe distance away by its user. Soldiers called grenadiers specialize in the use of grenades. The term hand grenade refers any grenade designed to be hand thrown. Grenade Launchers are firearms designed to fire explosive projectile grenades...
slot, in addition to three general equipment slots. Players must select one pistol, and one primary weapon. Players are also automatically equipped with a Ka-bar knife. Primary weapons include heavy weapons such as sniper rifles and assault rifles, as well as all secondary weapons. The secondary weapons include submachine guns and shotguns. Secondary weapons may also be equipped as primary weapons, allowing the player to pick up other primary weapons from killed players.
Of the remaining five slots (secondary weapon, grenades, general equipment) only three may be filled at spawn-time. (Equipment may be picked up from dead players to fill unused slots later on during the game.) The player may select to carry either two fragmentation grenades or two smoke grenades. The player can also select one of three secondary weapons. Finally, the three general equipment slots may be filled with any of several items such as
kevlarKevlar is the registered trademark for a para-aramid synthetic fiber, related to other aramids such as Nomex and Technora. Developed at DuPont in 1965, this high strength material was first commercially used in the early 1970s as a replacement for steel in racing tires...
armor and weapon attachments.
Damage and stamina
Damage registrationCollision detection typically refers to the computational problem of detecting the intersection of two or more objects. While the topic is most often associated with its use in video games and other physical simulations, it also has applications in robotics...
in
Urban Terror is done by dividing the player target into four discrete areas: head, torso, arms, and legs. The effects on the torso and head can be reduced by game items such as the kevlar vest and the kevlar helmet, respectively. In addition to the damage system, wounds require bandaging, and wounds sustained in the legs slow the player down considerably until they are bandaged. When a wound is not bandaged, the player will eventually slowly die from bleeding to death. Players can also bandage each other to partially restore another player's health. The bandaging process is much faster if the player that is bandaging is equipped with a medkit item, also allowing them to heal other players to nearly full health.
A stamina system is also present, and is depleted by jumping and sprinting. The amount of stamina is related to the amount of health a player has. Equipping or picking up a kevlar vest or the
IMI NegevThe Negev is an Israeli 5.56 mm light machine gun, developed by Israel Military Industries Ltd. of Ramat HaSharon , as a replacement for the 5.56 mm Galil ARM light machine gun, whose barrel would overheat easily during sustained fire...
decreases stamina considerably. Stamina is recharged fastest when a player is motionless and crouched, but will recharge slowly even during normal movement.
Anti-cheating technologies
Originally,
Urban Terror (as a
Quake III Arena mod) used the
PunkBusterPunkBuster is a computer program that is designed to detect software used for cheating in online games. It does this by scanning the memory contents of the local machine. A computer identified as using cheats may be banned from connecting to protected servers. The aim of the program is to isolate...
anti-cheating technology built into
Quake III Arena. As
PunkBusterPunkBuster is a computer program that is designed to detect software used for cheating in online games. It does this by scanning the memory contents of the local machine. A computer identified as using cheats may be banned from connecting to protected servers. The aim of the program is to isolate...
does not support modified versions of the ID Tech 3 engine, the standalone version of
Urban Terror 4.1 had no working anti-cheat system.
The next release is expected to bring about the use of
Passport, an identification system which is also complemented with an AntiCheat.
External links