UT 2003 Weapons

The guns

During my 20 minute demo of UT 2003 behind closed doors, I was able to glean a ton of information about the weapons and how they’ve been changed. You’ll see some old favorites with new twists, and a couple new items as well.

The Shield Gun - This one replaces the impact hammer. Primary fire is still a melee attack that can be charged up for a more powerful punch, like the original impact hammer. The secondary attack on this one generates a translucent shield in front of the player that can be used to bounce electrical attacks away (shock rifle primary, link gun, etc.) or absorb other types of damage. The more damage you take, the faster your “ammo” on the shield gun depletes. The ammo or power of the shield gun is actually more like a rechargeable battery because it comes back up over time, but it’s meant to be a semi-limited resource so players can’t just run around with shields up all the time and be impervious to damage.

There's a guy under all that armor?

That's a large gun

The Assault Rifle - The rifle takes the place of the Enforcer handguns of UT. Primary fire is a rapid fire machine gun, while secondary fire comes from an underslung grenade launcher. Think M4 carbine with an M203 grenade launcher underneath, only more futuristic looking.

The Shock Rifle - The ASMD Shock Rifle from UT remains mostly unchanged in 2003. Primary fire is still a hitscan laser, while secondary fire shoots a slower moving blob of energy that can be combo’ed with the primary fire for a more devastating explosive shot. For those of you who never played UT, remember blowing bubbles as a kid and trying to shoot them with a water pistol? It’s the same idea. The secondary fire is the bubble, while the primary fire is the water stream you try to hit the bubble with. Only when you do made contact, the “bubble” doesn’t pop harmlessly; anyone nearby takes critical damage!

Snipe!

Zap

The Link Gun - The pulse blaster from UT gets a slight change in UT 2003. Yes, the primary fire still shoots out rapid fire balls of plasma, and the secondary fire is still a lightning-gun-like shaft. The difference with the Link Gun is that several teammates with Link Guns can combine forces and have one man with a super gun. If one or more players shafts a teammate holding a Link Gun, then the targeted teammate gathers up that power and his Link Gun becomes uber-powerful as he fires it. This added power does not come without a price though. All the linked players share damage and health to a degree, so if one of the linked players starts getting shot, all the others feel it. It’s like Tomax and Xamot – the twin Crimson Commanders in GI Joe; you hurt one, you hurt the other.

The Goop Gun - Yes, the snot gun from UT makes a reappearance in UT 2003 (unfortunately). It works the same as in the first one – primary fire shoots out a small bit of corrosive goop that sticks to the ground. Holding down secondary fire loads up a larger booger that explodes into smaller snotballs on contact. The only difference is that if you repeatedly shoot more goop into an existing puddle, that puddle will grow accordingly larger.

The Mini Gun - In the original UT, the mini gun basically had two speeds, a rapid fire with a tighter spread, and a ridiculously fast rate of fire with a larger spread. That ridiculous rate of fire with the large spread is now the primary attack in UT 2003. Secondary fire is now a much much slower rate, but it shoots explosive rounds with great precision.

The Flak Cannon - One of the most powerful weapons in UT was the flak cannon. In UT 2003, the primary fire is still a grenade-like ball that explodes on contact with devastating results. However, targeted players can now protect themselves by shooting this ball out of the air, if they are skilled enough. Secondary fire for the flak cannon is still like a long range shotgun with bouncing pellets, but now distance affects the damage and speed of the particles a lot more. In other words, this weapon has been toned down somewhat in UT 2003.