Boots of Jumping. Hmm. Sounds like something out of Diablo 2. But at least the name is accurate. In a nutshell, Boots of Jumping seeks to bring the insane bouncing madness of the UT JumpBoots to UT2k3. Some of you might be saying “Oh God, not another jumping mutator!”, but trust me, this is quality.
If you load the jumping arena mutator, everyone spawns with JumpBoots that never run out. With low gravity, you jump insanely high, but it’s just as fun with normal gravity. You can configure the jumping boost that the boots give you for even more air. One of the features that I thought was neat was that you can also configure how high you can fall from without taking any damage. With this feature, you can set the jump boots to blast you into oblivion and make sure that you will live to do it again.
At first I was wondering why the author didn’t just replace the jump boots with some other powerup. But after playing for a while, I realized the replacement would work in some maps, but not in others. However, the author did include a configurable JumpBoots pickup that can be inserted in a custom map (configurable as in #charges, jumpboost, fallheight, etc.). One feature that I think would be neat to see in later versions would be the ability to choose (if you wanted to) which powerup/weapon the JumpBoots would replace. That way, the pickup would be available without having to insert it with UED.
For the most part, Boots of Jumping is relatively bug free. Very rarely, but sometimes the boots won’t ignite for a jump. This is really only a significant problem if you go to jump a gap and you end up hopping off the edge. This really only happens during a series of jumps (bunnyhopping). The author anticipated the issue of doublejumping and acted accordingly. Only your initial jumps are boosted; doublejumps are unaffected. Otherwise, this mutator would be totally nuts.
Overall, I think Boots of Jumping does a great job at brining an old-skool favorite to a new-skool game. I love the models and the jumping effects, while not critical, add a bit more to the eye candy. While it may not hold your attention for hours and hours, Boots of Jumping is definitely worth a try. And the inclusion of the pickup might also appeal to all you mappers out there.
-Dade
