Running Linux, 5th Edition - Matthias Kalle Dalheimer [113]
Single-player mode is useful to get acquainted with the different maps and game types, as the game slowly increases in difficulty. Your progress is saved at each point in the game, so you can pick up where you left off last time. If you want to get right to the action instead, try Instant Action. This lets you choose the type of game and map to play on, along with the number of bots and their difficulty. Instant Action is useful to hone skills on a certain map or to practice without applying wins or losses to your single-player record.
Be sure to become acquainted with each of the different weapons and their alternate firing modes. Also, some weapons offer combos, such as the shock rifle. Fire the alternate fire on the shock rifle to send a plasma charge, and then fire on that charge with the primary fire to create a large explosion that causes a great deal of damage (Figure 7-6). The most successful players are those who have mastered multiple weapons and can quickly switch between them as necessary.
If you are ready to play against others on the Internet or at a LAN party, click Join Game. You can then choose whether to search for LAN or Internet games, and UT2K4 will search and list all the available games. Joining in is as simple as selecting a game and clicking Join, but keep in mind that the lower your ping to a server, the more responsive game play will be.
Game Server
You can also host your own UT2K4 server as the Host Game option. This lets you configure your own game scenario much like with Instant Action, so you can choose maps, number of players, number of bots, and other settings, and then start your own custom server that others can join whether on the local LAN or on the Internet. Once you have configured your server, you can either click Listen or Dedicated to start the server. Listen starts the server and immediately connects you to it. Dedicated starts the server in the background and exits, which is ideal if you want to host a server but not play yourself. You can also start a dedicated server directly from the command line. Change to the ut2004/System directory, and then run ucc with the server argument, and then the name of the map to use:
Figure 7-6. UT2K4 shock combo
# cd /usr/local/games/ut2004/System
# ./ucc server DOM-SunTemple
Another advantage to starting the server this way is that you can run servers on machines with no 3D acceleration or graphics support at all. All of the options you can change inside the GUI can be changed on the command line as well, and there are a number of tutorials on the Internet that cover the different command-line options. If you have configured previous Unreal Tournament servers, you will find that many of the options are the same in UT2K4.
Updates
If you intend on playing UT2K4 on the Internet, you will want to keep up with your patches. Sometimes patches fix more than bugs — they prevent cheats, so in that case you will need the latest patch to connect to a server. Patches are announced on the official Unreal Tournament site at www.unrealtournament.com, but check sites such as www.icculus.org and www.linuxgames.com for links to the Linux patches. Click Join Game and you will see your current version in the upper right-hand corner.
These patches come in .tar.bz2 format, and to apply them you will want to first extract the patch directory and then overwite your current files with the patched version:
# tar -xjf ut2004-lnxpatchversion.tar.bz2
# cd UT2004-Patch
# /bin/cp -a * /usr/local/games/ut2004/
Emulators
Modern games with detailed graphics, sophisticated soundtracks, and fast-paced network play are certainly fun, but sometimes you want to hearken back to a simpler time — a time with 8- or 16-bit graphics when arguably gameplay was more important than fancy graphics. Linux has a number of emulators so you can take a trip back to the days of plunking quarters