A very good and complex game that looks very beautiful.
Alrighty, you start out as prisoner in a prison-ship that crashed on a planet called Na-pali and obviously, you're pretty clueless about where you are until the you have read some logs later in the game. Everyone in the ship is either killed by the crash or by the aliens called Skaarj that took a good look inside the ship and finished off a good rest of the crew. After you clearly hear someone get slaughtered behind the door and an alien running away(oddly, it could kill you too...) you find a trusty Dispersion Pistol that will help you later in the game...
Storyline:
I only rate game's storyline only if the game came out after 1998, so this is it. Unreal's storyline is probably the weakest of all of it's aspects because all you do is practically read people's logs with no dialogue or anything, just reading... well, if you were dumb enough to not pick up the Translator at the start of the game, there would be no story at all. All this reading will bore you soon enough, depending on how much of a patient person you are. The story itself is quite interesting, it's just the way of telling it is no good.
The Good - You get curious at the start because it is pretty intriguing and curious to find out what these aliens are up to and what had actually happened!
The Bad - The way of telling the story, all these logs get frustrating a bit. No dialogue, you don't meet any friendly NPCs in the game, just corpses.
Gameplay:
The gameplay is really interesting. There are numerous weapons in this game and all of them have an alt-fire that could either be combined with the main-fire for a special effect(Shock blast with your ASMD) or they're just very different from the main-fire which makes up for alot of different ways to kill yer enemy. The weapons are all very nicely placed throughout the whole game so it will give you some time to get used to the one you are using at the moment before going over to the next one. If you had played Unreal Tournament before you will be very familiar with the weapons due to the fact that the weapons you are using in Unreal(1998) are all used in Unreal Tournament 3(2007), which is very interesting including the fact that the games are almost a decade apart. The aliens you're fighting have a great AI, they always dodge your missile in the last second which will surely piss you off sometimes, their death will be a result of great satisfaction. Unreal has some scary scenes that are pretty unusual for an old game but very entertaining... and scary. Some enemies will feel like too long to take down compared to the other games, but that's not much of a factor. Monsters may use your own weapons against you which is a twist sometimes after getting used to the monsters you fought before. This game has a multiplayer, not only that - but a deathmatch with bots in 4 different AI levels. The multiplayer feels a bit undone, but the problem is fixed in UT99
The Good - A large variety of weapons and ways to kill stuff! Great AI! Had some scary scenes! Deathmatch with Bots!
The Bad - Sometimes it is hard getting used to the numerous weapons if you haven't played any of the Unreal series before. Multiplayer feels undone.
Graphics
Ah, the graphics... the best aspect of the game. Epic is known for it's great graphics in all of it's games. Even in the past, it was as beautiful as a great engine of 1998 could ever do. Simply, Unreal's graphics are Groundbreaking. The graphics of this game is what makes it believable and sometimes scary. The second you walk out of the prison space-ship you notice that waterfall, brilliant. Enemies in the game look good enough for you to make em want to explode in pieces. Weapons' missiles look real good. Overall, graphics are epic for a 1998 game.
The Good - Groundbreaking graphics. Good missile animations. Makes up a great atmosphere to be ambushed by another monster.
The Bad - this may not be a problem right now, but it was in 1998. Since Unreal's graphics are that good, people needed a 3d booster and maybe a new videocard. Some people would rather play Quake 2 then waste money on a video card just to experience some bad ass graphics of Unreal. That is probably the only reason why Unreal didn't beat Quake 2.
Story - 8
Gameplay - 9
Graphics - 10+