Be Excellent To Each Other

Warfare maps have two bases, with a power core in each, and a series of linked nodes between them; when you start the game the nodes are all white, showing them as uncaptured. You can capture any node that links to a node you already own, so initally, that's just the one node outside your base you can get -- this one is important so it's called the Prime node. On a typical map each side will have their own Prime node and then there'll be a centre node between them. So, at the start of the game, you capture your Prime node and the other team capture theirs, then you meet in the centre node and have a scrap. The goal is to capture the centre node so you can attack the enemy Prime node; once you capture that, you can finally attack the enemy power core. Whilst you're doing that, the enemy will be both trying to repel people attacking their core and trying to take back the Prime node. If they get the Prime node back, the core will be immediately protected again, so the attacking team needs to be wary and keep some people back to defend.

Right, so capturing nodes. Capturing an uncontested node (shown as white on your minimap and glowing gold in the game) is easy. Just walk over the base; it starts at zero health and gradually heals itself. It's often important to make it build faster by shooting it with the Link Gun alt-fire, running into it with the Orb (more on this in a moment), or using vehicles -- the Nightshade primary fire or Scavenger primary fire. On the other hand, to destroy a Node under enemy control shoot the base or the shielded part above, but note some weapons will do more damage than others (vehicle weapons, flak cannon, rocket launcher, shock rifle and link gun are good). Nodes under fire will not allow enemy players to spawn there if the damage occurs at least every 5 seconds but you can still teleport to it as long as you control it.

There are two complications on top of these rules.

The first are support nodes. These are not linked to other nodes, so do not form part of the main map, but do other things if you can capture and hold them. Some of them spawn more powerful vehicles than you get at the normal nodes, for example, or lower a bridge to allow you to get your big tank in the enemy base. Others (called countdown nodes) start a timer when they are captured. Hold until the timer reaches zero, and something good happens, like damage is dealt to the enemy's power core directly, even if it's shielded.

The second complication is orbs, which can be picked up from your base or from some nodes if you control them. The orb is basically your teams "node superweapon" with two features; take it to a neutral or hostile node and it will instantly capture it, right up to full health. Or, take it to a friendly node and as long as you stay alive nearby it will shield that node from all harm (this, of course, paints a pretty big target on your head). Orbs can't be carried in vehicles so you have the choice of foot, hoverboard, or (fastest) grappling to a vehicle to get around the map with it. Just be careful as orb carriers are shown on the minimap and project a tall beam of light so it's pretty obvious where they are on the map. You can sit in a beam or rocket turret with an orb, however.

If you kill an enemy orb carrier -- and you should always be on the lookout for an enemy orb coming in to a node your team controls -- the orb will be left on the floor, ready for another enemy to pick it up. You have two options. Either make sure no-one picks it up until the little timeout that appears above it counts down (this is risky), or run over to it and press X to destroy it. However you die in the process. Note that there is an achievement for doing that 100 times though!

The orbs provide a way to break stalemates and provide some extremely heart-pounding runs, skating into enemy bases on a

Gngh. Eurogamer gave this 8/10.. I was kinda hoping it would be shit. But now it turns out to be quite good. Now, I played a lot of this on the PS3 (until I stupidly lost my disc, which I have not yet re-discovered). I love it, really love it, I have always loved the UT games. But there are almost no opponents (literally, it flopped hard) and certainly no Bezzie mates. In the end I got CoD4 and went looked back.