Mac Game Review: Urban Terror

A few days ago, an online friend of mine asked me to try out a game called Urban Terror. He said it’s a great first-person shooter (FPS) game. I told him that I was once addicted to the multiplayer mode of Medal of Honor: Allied Assault (Electronic Arts/Aspyr Media). He then said that I should enjoy it. He actually mentioned this game about a month before. If it’s that great, how come I never heard of it before? Anyway, I decided to give it a try. The title of the game doesn’t sound like a first-person shooter game, but it actually is.

There are a couple of aspects against which you want to consider trying out Urban Terror if you like FPS games. Firstly, it’s a free multiplayer game made available by Silicon Ice Development/FrozenSand, LLC. Secondly, this game is available for three operating systems: Linux, Mac and Windows.

As for the Mac version of Urban Terror, the game application is in Universal Binary. If you want to play it, first, you need to download the zip file, whose file size is 719.4 MB. If you have finished decompressing it, then you are ready to play the game. By the way, just like in other multiplayer games, you may have to turn off network traffic utility programs (for example, Little Snitch) so that your terminal is allowed to access a server outside your network.

According to Wikipedia, Urban Terror is based on the open-source Quake 3 engine (ioQuake3) developed by id Software. They actually developed the ioUrbanTerror engine out of it. So you don’t need Quake 3 Arena to play Urban Terror.

There are three games that I want to mention before I explain how Urban Terror works in detail. I haven’t played Quake III Arena very extensively because it was available only under the Classic Environment until 2 years ago. (The game patch is now available to render Quake III Arena into Universal. Click here for more information.) If you haven’t played Quake III: Arena, imagine that it’s the multiplayer-only mode of Unreal Tournament from GT Interactive. And playing Urban Terror will remind you of Unreal Tournament 2003/2004 to some extent. Also, you can’t talk about Urban Terror without 6-year-old Medal of Honor: Allied Assault, which is one of the first games in which multiplayer gamers can be hosted by game servers.

Starting a Multiplayer Game

When you launch the game, you will go straight to the main menu. (See Screenshot 01.) If it’s your first time playing Urban Terror, you may probably want to choose Setup. There are 5 sections under Setup. Click on Control to customize buttons. (See Screenshot 02.) A good thing about Urban Terror is that it supports multiple Mouse buttons. For example, you can assign jump to Button 3, bandaging to Button 4, weapon rotation to Mouse wheel and so forth. Depending on the weapon you carry, you can also assign a weapon zoom in & out to a button.

Screenshot 01

Screenshot 02

Screenshot 03

There is something missing in the customize screen. Medal of Honor allows the player to assign the grenade selection to a button. In Urban Terror, you can’t. If you want to quickly throw a grenade, then you have to use the Mouse wheel or press #2. Once finished throwing grenades, again, you have to use the Mouse wheel or press #5 to go back to the primary weapon.

Anyway, let’s move on to the Player screen. (See Screenshot 03.) You can choose your player’s figure for each team. Right below Set Playername, it says Personal Color. This will be the color of your arrow appearing in the mini map shown at the top-left corner. And this color will also appear on the team roster. (You will find out what the team roster is under Capture the Flag.)

Next, let’s go back to the main menu and then choose play online. At the bottom of the screen, you should find Source. (See Screenshot 04.) If you set it to Internet, you will get a long list of Urban Terror servers. Right below Source, you should find Type. Urban Terror supports 7 multiplayer game modes, which we will talk about in detail soon. Anyway, you can click on this part to minimize your choices, depending on the game mode you want to play. Well, if you have decided which server to join, simply choose it with a click of Mouse and then click on the Connect button at the bottom-right conner of the screen.

Screenshot 04

Screenshot 05

Screenshot 06

If the server is not full, your terminal will download data. (See Screenshot 05.) Then you will get a brief description of the game mode you are going to play. (See Screenshot 06.) You need to choose Red or Blue team or choose Auto to let the server make the decision. Next, you are allowed to customize your equipment list before starting the game. You can carry one each of primary weapon, secondary weapon, sidearm, a pack of grenades and one unique item. (See Screenshot 07.) Click on the primary weapons icon, for example, and you will see 9 weapons. (See Screenshot 08.)

Screenshot 07

Screenshot 08

Screenshot 09

Unlike in Medal of Honor, you can always modify your equipment list and change teams at any time. Click on the escape button and then press player at the top of the menu. (See Screenshot 09.)

Multiplayer Game Modes

So what multiplayer game modes are available in Urban Terror? There are 7 of them: Bomb Mode (One team playing offensive while the other team playing defensive), Free for all, Team Deathmatch (See Screenshot 10.), Team Survivor (See Screenshot 11.), Follow the Leader (See Screenshot 12.), Capture and Hold (See Screenshot 13.) and Capture the Flag (See Screenshot 14.).

Capture the Flag… I don’t remember having played this game mode ever in Medal of Honor. I know that there are several single campaigns for Capture and Flag in Unreal Tournament 2003 & 2004. I also like another game mode called Bombing Run from Unreal Tournament 2003 & 2004. Honestly, I haven’t had a chance to play Urban Terror’s Bomb Mode. So I’m not sure if it’s the same as Unreal Tournament’s Bombing Run.

Screenshot 10

Screenshot 11

Screenshot 12

Screenshot 13

Screenshot 14

Screenshot 15

Capture the Flag

In Urban Terror, one popular game mode is Capture the Flag. So let’s talk about it in detail. You will belong to either red or blue team. For example, player named Donkey’s Butt is listed at the bottom of the red roster to the right. (See Screenshot 15.) His task is to enter opponent’s territory, capture the blue flag and bring it to the very spot where his team flag stands. If you see the top-right corner of the screen, it’s shown that the red team has captured the flag twice and the blue team five times. In Screenshot 16, Donkey’s Butt belongs to the blue team. Shown at the very bottom of the screen is the red flag that he has captured. You can see the blue flag at the center of the game screen. That’s where he needs to bring the flag to score a point. In Screenshot 17, the same player belongs to the red team and holds the blue flag. He is back to his base and cannot see his team flag. If you see the top-right corner of the screen, the red label is sort of flashing. That means a player of the opponent team has taken the red flag. In order for Donkey’s Butt to score a point, his team must recapture its own flag. Or he will never score a point. Actually, they don’t have to literally bring the red flag back to the base. If somebody on the red team kills the player holding the red flag and touches it, then this flag will be automatically returned.

Screenshot 16

Screenshot 17

Screenshot 18

Health and Healing Wounds

Urban Terror uses a completely different concept of healing wounds. In Medal of Honor, you can pick a health pack when a player dies. In Urban Terror, there is no heath pack to pick up. Rather, each player is capable of bandaging himself and comrades. If you see a badly injured comrade, just get close to him or her. (See Screenshot 19.) Then press the button for bandaging. And his or her health will be slightly restored. Just slightly… Right, bandaging is not a complete health solution. Once the player is injured, his or her health meter will never be completely restored.

Screenshot 19

Screenshot 20

Screenshot 21

You can also bandage your own body parts once injured. Shown at the left-bottom corner of the game screen is the health meter. If you see Screenshot 20, this player’s arms are injured. If he doesn’t bandage himself, his health meter will gradually decrease. And he will eventually bleed to death.

Screenshot 22

Screenshot 23

Screenshot 24

By the way, there are two types of protection gear. One is helmet. If you wear a helmet, your will never bleed above your neck. The other type of protection gear is a vest, which protects player’s torso. And if you wear a vest, you will never bleed on this body part. Unfortunately, you can’t take both. You have to choose either of them or something else (Silencer, Laser Sight, Medkit, TacGoggles, Extra Ammo) under items. Be careful if you want to choose a vest because it will reduce player’s stamina. (See Screenshot 23.)

Other Game Aspects

Let me talk about two unique aspects of Urban Terror. I just mentioned stamina under Health and Healing Wounds. If you just walk, your stamina won’t run out. But if you keep running on a steep slope or wear a vest, it will run out. That doesn’t mean player’s health condition will be permanently damaged. You will just have to wait for seconds to get your stamina back. Also, there is a button for splint. If you keep holding down this button, you can move very fast. And the player will get exhausted pretty quickly.

Another interesting aspect of Urban Terror is its asymmetrical maps. In most cases, you will belong to either red or blue team. Each map is not necessarily designed such that both teams have the exactly same base setup. If you enter opponent’s territory, you can easily get lost in a large map. There are more than two dozen default maps included in the game. And because many maps are not symmetrically designed, changing sides can make the same map look totally different. Don’t expect that you can always locate opponent’s flag. Even after capturing it, you can get lost on your way home. That’s when you want to use the mini map, which is shown at the top-left corner of the screen. It shows where you are and also where the flags are.

End Notes

So who would enjoy playing Urban Terror? If you still play or used to play the multiplayer mode of Medal of Honor, this is another game to which you will probably get hooked. Although the game concept is a little bit old and there is nothing new, Urban Terror is a fun FPS game to play. The best part of this game is the number of maps. For example, this free game comes with more than two dozen maps. As for Capture the Flag, there are 28 maps to choose from. Some maps are very cool. Unlike Medal of Honor, Urban Terror isn’t all about World War II. There is an interesting map, for example, titled Snoppis, which is kind of designed like a space colony.

Another good aspect of this game is that people of different operating systems can enjoy it altogether. In my experience, a lot of Mac gamers ask whether they can play a certain game with PC counterparts under GameRanger. The fact of matter is that there aren’t many games where Mac and Windows gamers can play together. As for Urban Terror, there are many players from different operating systems. And there are many game servers. So you shouldn’t have trouble finding servers with low ping.

Developer: Silicon Ice Development/Frozen Sand, LLC
Website: urbanterror.net
Genre: First-person shooter (FPS)
Price: Free
System requirements: Unkown
Multiplayer: Available

References: