I modded, I mapped and I played. Unreal.
The rest of this view isn't mandatory to read, but if you have no life just like me then you may.
If your an oldy PC gamer, play this.
If you enjoy FPS and have played for longer than 4 years, play this, its worth it, its a must for all FPS players. Regardless, if you don't like it, I can listen to your whining, cos It probably makes sense.
If you've spent most your time on a console, try this, but if you complain once, you must cut your hair with a hand whisk cos your an idiot. And I'm an ass.
Pleased to meet you. This is how it goes.
Something that makes me scared, very scared, is a popular FPS.
(Generations get tainted, you know ?)
Back the in 2002, Unreal was some game only my Dad played, but when I got a hold of it, hooked I was.
And I am so afraid of new games, as such gems as Unreal are forgotten, not quite Wannabe 3D as Doom or Blood, yet not quite the Unreal 3 Engine chugging around nowadays making computers cry, it scares me to think that all these console gamers, will never, make their own content, view others content, play on a server they choose, host a server, and just generally sandbox while lounging around being a complete idiot with friends, on a game you could copy to paste to someone elses drive and then say its not piracy.
Games like this are absent, and really, nothing pulls of community maps and mods like the Unreal series does.
This game and DUKE3D started me all off with FPS' and the like, nothing could have been so complete at the time, sort of like a Linux game wise, people could piss in the beer before they passed it on and we all got a taste of what...
What the hell am I saying ?
Unreal released very late 1998, and quickly spanked shelves 1999, then sexually spanked peoples computers at the time, HARD, it was a total Cry-sys(tem) back then, you needed a tough pc to play it, and it was one (among some) of the first to use full 3D maps and the like, with 3D models etc.
Although back in 2002, my Excellently Equipped pentium 3 500mhz with 256 ddr and a Geforce 2, was more than equipped to play unreal quite well, and after patching (making it look EXACTLY like Unreal Tournament regardless of that extra 0.5 in the engine there) I could softly say this made consoles look like crap, and it did, even the PS2, you actually had freedom.
You can either know the story in this game
or you can play without it.
The story being your a prisoner, being transported, the fugitive style across the galaxy to a prison colony, when funnily enough, you drive past a planet, of the large variety, and funnily enough, your foreman just doesn't have the power to escape it, he just doesn't have the power !
to escape the gravitational pull that is...
Waking, the game just goes ahead and provides raw FPS from then on in, and certain scenes which hundreds of other games have simply copied off Unreal, such as the door scene at the beginning, the Skaarj attack where the lights progressively switch off in crescendo down a corridor, trapped, in silence, to soon find a mini boss fight. Unreal's lighting and effects were unparalleled for the time being and really it did well for itself.
The game includes no cut scenes, and pretty much the same as System Shock 2, provided its information in scraps left behind, at the beginning of the game you will receive a translator, a universal one, translating anything (babel fish ?)...even languages of things never ever discovered, and thus you can read what the natives of this planet can, you can walk over dead bodies, and read clues and other last messages, and even other convicts who just happen to have escaped, half way through, you will even find a ship which also just happened to crash land here, suckers !
The game isolates you, (this is a bad thing sometimes, you will never see another human soul in the singleplayer), that and the feeling that your super awesome, fighting for yourself, and no greater good, no one is pushing, your the one going through this weird mapped out land with ironic health pick ups and random temples with floating weapons for decorations. Its a decent story, trying to find a ship to get off some planet.
The maps on the other hand are very well done, although they had to keep it down, if they didn't I'm sure the game would have the frames per second of a powerpoint containing the new testament. Whether it be an open chasm or a village in a chasm, its open and unique enough.
After the patch the sound is great, and sports a clusterf*** of advanced settings, the menu's work, simple, with a very nice animated background.
Combat is straight forward yet diverse due to good AI, certain guns do certain things, all of them arnt so special but are still somewhat fun to use, enemies are interesting and are unique, whether or not they think its funny having their legs blown off, or whether or not they think its funny as they perfectly dodge your incoming rockets then close into tear your nipples off.
I'm also gonna say that the bots on this game are very awesome, they just manage to balance the difficulty just right, unlike on UT2004, where you may find yourself A. Dying from an inhuman like shot/case B. Owning too much.
C. Why does my team always have a lower individual player score than the opposing team ? ...(If you've played ut2004 you'll know what I mean)
While most games would have a button bound to a flash light, Unreal has a inventory system, well, not really, you just press the [ ] buttons, its like changing your weapon, then when you have what you wanna activate/deactivate selected, press the enter button, things like this vary from the Translator, to throwable flares and damage doubling amplifiers.
Oh and by the way, the music kicks ass, serious.
The Multiplayers community nowadays is very small, but compact and able, the majority are programmers or mappers who will add content, there is so much content for unreal nowadays, and no one hosting, that alot of it is lost, hell the maps I made never got anywhere, and mapping is very easy, and a very fun hobby, learning it in Unreal 1 is a great way to start a career in games design and really the editor is still the same if not identical to the newer 1.5-3.0 engines.
And with the latest 227 patch/mod adding support for modded gameplay, it adds a new spin (and I still havn't ever seen a single dark match server once, have you ?)
Back then it was great, to get a game then to join a server only realizing everything is transformed, how many games do this nowadays ? Not alot.
Also, how many games have an unlocked console ? Or engine command shell, not alot ?
Unreal is the kind of game where you can stop half way through playing, save the game then say, lets make a god damn motherf***** table fort b*****.
Its gmod, pre historic Gmod.
While Half Life surely came along side Unreal at this time. by 2002, they really were giants, both spawning decent mods and decent sequels. Albeit Half Lifes team and publisher being a bit more, ambitious.
Unreal is one of those, less talked about yet not so obscure FPS games, and its hard to buy or come by nowadays.
And I'm not going to lie to you, I cant even find a torrent for the damn thing, not like I'd want to download it, but I'm just saying.
I have this game in 3 cd's that i made myself.
1. original back up 2. the original Unreal from 1998 in box, with manual and reciept 3. auto patching (225) Unreal installer that I made, which even extracts a load of mods and maps into the game.
I have 3 installations of unreal on my PC. (each patch)
thats how much I adore the Unreal series.
I have a 30gb folder containing all the mods and content for all the Unreal games apart from ut3 and unreal2.
This is the series that made me, and this is the game that set it all off for me, so I can't really bare to watch people hurt it or abuse it.
Sure its old, and sure its not perfect, but I'm speaking from what I felt back then, and that's what matters.