New Player Guide

How to Get Started in Alien Arena - Guide for New Players

The first thing to do if you want to get ahead in AA is to customize the controls to your liking. To do this click on 'Game Options':

Then 'Customize Controls':

And then left-click with your mouse on an action and then the next button you press the action will be "bound" to that key:

So you're set to go! The next important thing to know is how to shoot yourself in the foot and manage to kill yourself in the middle of a duel of death with some leet player.

Gun Jumping is performed by shooting the floor and holding down the jump key. You can perform it with several weapons, the most useful being the Rail-Gun and the Blaster. It is important to be facing directly down when you shoot, and to keep jump held down. What is happening is you are jumping off the blast caused by the weapon:

(please note the poor graphics are only due to the recording capabilities of my old computer -IDOL 12:40, 18 November 2008 (UTC))

So you're playing the game and getting shot all the time. Here's some tips:

1. Stay to the edges of the walls, look at each map and see where the crossfire zones are and don't run into them.

2. Practice on your own and focus your cross-hair on one point on a map and run side to side whilst keeping your aim on the same spot. Enough of this will teach you to move side to side whilst running and not presenting an easy target.

3. If you're playing someone good, watch their moves, learn from them. If you get the chance press the tilde key ` which drops down the console and type in spectator 1 to go into spectator mode where you can watch them with ease (remember to go type spectator 0 in console when you're finished).

4. When you're moving side to side, try and do it randomly, unpredictability or speed of dodging is the key to avoiding getting shot.

Another trick is to release forward and press sideways in the middle of a jump, which helps you get round tricky obstacles:

Also if you alternate left and right and turn into corners whilst rhythmically pressing jump you can go a lot faster, here I saved 2 seconds round Eternal compared to running.

This can also make you harder to hit.

Another feature which can be very useful in skilled hands is the Puredodge. This is a long sideways jump performed by hitting your 'step left' or 'step right' key twice very quickly. Also of note is that when jumping if you hit the 'step left' or 'step right' keys twice, the puredodge will be performed when you land.

Of use also is the map voting utility which occurs on most servers when the match is finished. It is important not to vote for the No1 map, because that will be the exact same map that everyone just played on and will be boring.
Also you may see the custom in First Person Shooter games to say 'gg' after a game, this means 'Good Game':


In Alien Arena braggers are not accepted well. We understand the level of skill required to win, and the amount of losing you have to do before you become great at the game.
Opposed to other games we prefer just a 'gg' rather than 'HAHAHAHAHAHAAH YOU IS PWNT YOU N0000000000000bS!!!!!' call us crazy, we just prefer it this way.
You can talk in game by pressing the 't' key and typing a message and hitting 'return/enter' and you map vote with the F1 to F4 keys (with F1 allocated to vote for map 1).