When comparing Unreal Tournament vs Rocket League, the Slant community recommends Rocket League for most people. In the question“What are the best LAN party PC games?” Rocket League is ranked 8th while Unreal Tournament is ranked 93rd. The most important reason people chose Rocket League is:
Rocket League is perfect for when you want to play with friends for some couch co-op or online play. Matches are fast-paced and quick, with a bunch of back-and-forth between which team has the ball and which team has chances to intercept and get the ball on their side of the field. Coordinating with your team can open up some awesome plays where you manage to outscore the other players or get some exciting last-minute intercepts. Plus, playing with a pre-set team helps you avoid the randomness of getting matched up with strangers who may or may not want to be team players.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Great chance to get involved in the development
This game is in such early development and has so many tutorials for helping people get involved in development that if you're able to create a good map (or mod), there are still few enough mappers/developers around to where if you can get that map noticed, it might end up sticking around for the rest of the game's life as a main staple. Your map has the potential to live forever.
Pro Great movement
You can run, sprint, jump, dodge, slide, wall run, wall dodge, lift jump, and lift dodge. That's a lot of movements for you to utilize. And once you master them, it feels like you're surfing around the map, just flowing.
Pro Lots of pro players to learn from at this early phase of the game's development
Because it's still early in this game's development (UT4), a lot of the players you'll run into are top players from previous UT's (UT99, UT2K3, UT3) and have been at the game for over 15 years. This means that yes, while you'll likely get dominated when you run into these veterans, it's also a great opportunity to better your own play. There aren't a lot of gaming communities out there where you can just jump in and immediately start playing with and learning from the best players in the world.
Pro Completely free, open, and mod-able
Pro The cleanest graphic representation of projectile/area of effect/hitbox
You will know just from a glance how big of an area each weapon will EXACTLY affect, how long it takes for a timed grenade to explode, how big each projectile is and so on. Graphics are made for competitive accuracy but it didn't sacrifice the amazing visuals and cool (but subtle) particle effects.
Pro Strong community
Members of the community are beyond supportive, and they generate some amazing content. Gametypes, Maps, Custom Weapon Sets, etc. there are also semi-frequent ESL cups that anyone can join.
Pro You get to have your say in the game's development and future
The game is not yet in Beta. It's not yet even in Alpha - it's currently in the "Pre-Alpha" phase. You have the chance to interact with both Epic and community developers to make a difference.
Pro Tons of fun for players looking to team up with friends
Rocket League is perfect for when you want to play with friends for some couch co-op or online play. Matches are fast-paced and quick, with a bunch of back-and-forth between which team has the ball and which team has chances to intercept and get the ball on their side of the field. Coordinating with your team can open up some awesome plays where you manage to outscore the other players or get some exciting last-minute intercepts. Plus, playing with a pre-set team helps you avoid the randomness of getting matched up with strangers who may or may not want to be team players.
Pro Clear objectives keeps the focus on the gameplay
Get the ball in the net, soccer at it's simplest. This game is physics driven, using different cars as players, making it a fast-paced and exciting game with a basic underlying objective. Being easy to understand, just about anyone can get the hang of the game after a single play session.
Pro Simple controls
Whether you use a controller or keyboard and mouse, the controls are fairly simple. You are driving a car pushing a ball around, with forward, reverse, boost, power-slide and jump as your only real abilities to learn. The difficulty comes in learning to use them at the right times. Doing this will allow you to perform in-air and off the wall maneuvers, making for breath-taking and unexpected plays.
Pro Great for quick play sessions
Each game has a time limit of 5 minutes, paused only when a team scores to reset the ball to mid-field. By keeping each session short, the game works well for people wanting to play a quick game without getting drawn into a long play session.
Pro Customization of cars is creative and fun
There are quite a few cars to choose from, including DLC cars such as the Delorean from Back to the Future. After picking a car, you can customized it with countless possibilities. You can change the paint scheme, color, paint type (gloss/flat, etc.), wheels, boost color, hat, and antenna toppers. This allows you to create a car that truly matches your style.
Pro Moon-like physics give a delightful sense of exaggerated abilities
The physics in this game are slightly warped, making it seem like you're on the moon. This means that cars fly around if they collide or go up ramps, giving it a feel of superpowers.
Cons
Con This game is abandoned and will never be finished.
It's been over 2 years since Epic Games did any work on Unreal Tournament, and the last communications they have had with the community is a few throaway comments on a stream or a Discord chat server. The game is dead and older Unreal Tournament games are more polished & populated, go play those instead.
Con Difficult to know how big the game will ever get
The Unreal Tournament franchise has been around for over 15 years and used to reign supreme above all the other FPS's. Today however, it's much harder to predict how well it'll do compared to other top FPS games. That combined with the fact that it's a very difficult game to learn, you might end up honing your UT skills for nothing at the end of the day.
Con Constantly changing game mechanics and balancing
Because the game is still in "Pre-Alpha," the game has the potential to change in both major and minor ways from build to build. The majority of your gained experience will transfer from build to build, however it can be a bit of an annoyance having to relearn balances over and over again.
Con Playerbase is a little small these days
Con Unbalanced weapons
As of writing this (8/19/2016) the flak canon is over powered, but it's not a big deal because they change the weapon balance with each new build (about once a month).
Con There's a huge skill gap
Many of the players currently involved in the community at the moment have been playing Unreal Tournament for over 15 years. If you're new to the UT franchise or arena shooters in general, there's a chance every time you boot up the game that you'll run into and get trucked by those vets.
Con Match making can be slow at times
It can take a while to find an opponent, especially if you're a higher tier player, causing the queues to be even longer.
Con Minimal in features
While there may be more modes added with DLC in the future, currently there are only three unique game modes. This might be off-putting for players looking for more variety.