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Unreal Review (PC): Epic's overlooked classic
Game's Ratings
Overall
Graphics
Sound
Addictiveness
Depth
Story
Difficulty
Average User Score
9
10
9
10
9
8
6
08-06-16 07:43 PM
G@mehe@d is Offline
| ID: 1294200 | 1207 Words
| ID: 1294200 | 1207 Words
G@mehe@d
Level: 57
POSTS: 781/789
POST EXP: 93508
LVL EXP: 1465620
CP: 5795.2
VIZ: 20935
POSTS: 781/789
POST EXP: 93508
LVL EXP: 1465620
CP: 5795.2
VIZ: 20935
Likes: 0 Dislikes: 0
Unreal is truly something special. A game that, in the grand scheme of things, isn't really well remembered. Yet is still a true masterpiece with design elements that were well ahead of it's time (1998) Of course Unreal started development well before that, in fact it was initially going to be the "Doom killer" but development lasted a heck of a lot longer then that, and after constant delays, Unreal was finally released to the public on April 30th 1998. Despite the long development, Unreal's launch was not exactly great. Numerous bugs and performance issues with non Glide compatible 3D accelerators were of the main problems. While all of this was certainly not good. They didn't keep the game from being bad, in fact Unreal in my opinion is a masterpiece. Of course now most of those "bugs" were patched out, and modern PC hardware is more than powerful enough to muscle through the garbage Direct3D optimization. In Unreal you play as a prisoner who's ship has crashed on an unknown planet. The game starts off with you getting up and seeing that your ship is in a terrible situation, but instead of the game giving you some obnoxious cut-scene or making you rush out of the ship in a spectacular fashion, you are alone, no ones there to help you, no ones there to tell you where you need to be. You figure that out on your own. Escaping the ship is your task. This is Unreal's biggest strength. The Intro on it's own teaches the player what to expect from Unreal from a design point of view. The game expects you to figure out where to go, to observe your surrounds and understand the games plot and narrative through it's level design. Something that has been lost over the years to be sure, but something that's quite brilliant. Once you get out of the ship you walk outside to an unknown landscape, the music kicks in at just the right moment as the players jaw drops at the view. Unreal is filled with subtle set piece moments like that. It's subtle yet jaw dropping at the same time. Everything is done subtly, the level design and game mechanics tell a story without taking you out of control of the game. You have to read little bit's of information via your "universal translator" to get a good grasp of the situation, thankfully it's fairly easy to see the conflict that is facing this planet. Though I won't spoil the games story, I'd like you to get the game and discover that on your own. It's great stuff, and it's done in a way that only a video game can. Through player driven exploration and gameplay. Unreal at its heart is a shooter, but not in the vain of games like Doom, Quake, Duke Nukem 3D, or really any other easy to grasp shooter of the time. Enemies are actually kind of few and far between, but to make up for that they are very intelligent, even by todays standards. Most can dodge your shots and evade your attacks and can then get you while your moving. Every enemy encounter is an event, a combination of twitch reflex's and strategy. Finding the right weapon for each enemy and dodging their attacks is extremely rewarding, and very few games have even bothered to mimic this. Thankfully most weaponry for both you and the enemies is projectile based. So surviving is directly dependent on skill and smart thinking rather than memorization. Doom works pretty much the same way except the player had a lot more hit scan weaponry resulting in a more power trip like experience. In Unreal you feel a bit more vulnerable despite having one of the most awesome and unique arsenals in gaming history. There's a great variety in Unreal, from the level's and how they seamlessly flow from one another, to the pacing of exploration and combat. Unreal has the perfect blend of quiet time and combat, keeping the player engaged and constantly aware. The game encourages this by making you pay attention to your surrounding's to progress. I always love it when one level is an indoor castle and then it goes outside into a little village or the legendary sunspire tower that contains a level (with no loading) inside of it. Honestly you have to play this game to really get what I mean, but I can truly say that you will be sucked into Unreal. My only issue is that the indoor levels can get rather confusing at times, with too little information to actually know if you already went through an area. This is only a minor issue though. It's a game DRIVEN by it's atmosphere, by carefully crafted level design, through the lore in journal entries. Unreal is filled with set pieces but it's not bombastic or loud. It's quiet, it doesn't need to go out of it's way to impress, it just... does it. All of this is driven by the Unreal engine. Unreal in some ways is a really good tech demo for the 1st version of the Unreal engine, and some of it's features still impress. Lighting is still gorgeous to look at, and other features like reflections, volumetric fog, and extremely long draw distances help drive Unreal's atmosphere. You can look from one end of a canyon to another and there's no fog or clipping or pop in or compromise in general. In an era where 3D games were filled with compromises, Unreal only took compromises in polygon counts, which are rather low now, but back then were actually quite high. Texture resolution is pretty high even by modern standards, the use of detail textures (a 2nd layer of texture mapping) really adds a ton of detail to the environments, and it still looks good to this day. The music, is, well... stellar! Since Epic used modular music; a sample based technique that allows high quality music to be stored in small file sizes, music can be quickly and smoothly changed to suit the situation of the player, and it works quiet well. Music composition has a very 90's techno vibe to it, but it's very clearly Epic's style as similar music is in games like Jazz Jackrabbit and Epic Pinball. Both releases from Epic Megagames. Epic went on to spin off Unreal into a separate series known as Unreal Tournament. These games were and are a lot more popular then then Unreal itself. I haven't played these games so I can't comment on their quality. Overall, I strongly recommend Unreal, it's one of my personal favorites, going into it blind is your best bet which is why I spoiled as little of it as possible. Just go and get it, it's cheap whether you want a physical copy or a digital one, and all you need is a fan made patch to get it working smoothly on modern operating systems. It even comes with an editor (though getting the UnrealEd 2 would probably be a better option for Unreal Engine 1 stuff) that allows you to not only make detailed levels, but to make your own games. This game is highly recommended. OVERALL SCORE: A Of course Unreal started development well before that, in fact it was initially going to be the "Doom killer" but development lasted a heck of a lot longer then that, and after constant delays, Unreal was finally released to the public on April 30th 1998. Despite the long development, Unreal's launch was not exactly great. Numerous bugs and performance issues with non Glide compatible 3D accelerators were of the main problems. While all of this was certainly not good. They didn't keep the game from being bad, in fact Unreal in my opinion is a masterpiece. Of course now most of those "bugs" were patched out, and modern PC hardware is more than powerful enough to muscle through the garbage Direct3D optimization. In Unreal you play as a prisoner who's ship has crashed on an unknown planet. The game starts off with you getting up and seeing that your ship is in a terrible situation, but instead of the game giving you some obnoxious cut-scene or making you rush out of the ship in a spectacular fashion, you are alone, no ones there to help you, no ones there to tell you where you need to be. You figure that out on your own. Escaping the ship is your task. This is Unreal's biggest strength. The Intro on it's own teaches the player what to expect from Unreal from a design point of view. The game expects you to figure out where to go, to observe your surrounds and understand the games plot and narrative through it's level design. Something that has been lost over the years to be sure, but something that's quite brilliant. Once you get out of the ship you walk outside to an unknown landscape, the music kicks in at just the right moment as the players jaw drops at the view. Unreal is filled with subtle set piece moments like that. It's subtle yet jaw dropping at the same time. Everything is done subtly, the level design and game mechanics tell a story without taking you out of control of the game. You have to read little bit's of information via your "universal translator" to get a good grasp of the situation, thankfully it's fairly easy to see the conflict that is facing this planet. Though I won't spoil the games story, I'd like you to get the game and discover that on your own. It's great stuff, and it's done in a way that only a video game can. Through player driven exploration and gameplay. Unreal at its heart is a shooter, but not in the vain of games like Doom, Quake, Duke Nukem 3D, or really any other easy to grasp shooter of the time. Enemies are actually kind of few and far between, but to make up for that they are very intelligent, even by todays standards. Most can dodge your shots and evade your attacks and can then get you while your moving. Every enemy encounter is an event, a combination of twitch reflex's and strategy. Finding the right weapon for each enemy and dodging their attacks is extremely rewarding, and very few games have even bothered to mimic this. Thankfully most weaponry for both you and the enemies is projectile based. So surviving is directly dependent on skill and smart thinking rather than memorization. Doom works pretty much the same way except the player had a lot more hit scan weaponry resulting in a more power trip like experience. In Unreal you feel a bit more vulnerable despite having one of the most awesome and unique arsenals in gaming history. There's a great variety in Unreal, from the level's and how they seamlessly flow from one another, to the pacing of exploration and combat. Unreal has the perfect blend of quiet time and combat, keeping the player engaged and constantly aware. The game encourages this by making you pay attention to your surrounding's to progress. I always love it when one level is an indoor castle and then it goes outside into a little village or the legendary sunspire tower that contains a level (with no loading) inside of it. Honestly you have to play this game to really get what I mean, but I can truly say that you will be sucked into Unreal. My only issue is that the indoor levels can get rather confusing at times, with too little information to actually know if you already went through an area. This is only a minor issue though. It's a game DRIVEN by it's atmosphere, by carefully crafted level design, through the lore in journal entries. Unreal is filled with set pieces but it's not bombastic or loud. It's quiet, it doesn't need to go out of it's way to impress, it just... does it. All of this is driven by the Unreal engine. Unreal in some ways is a really good tech demo for the 1st version of the Unreal engine, and some of it's features still impress. Lighting is still gorgeous to look at, and other features like reflections, volumetric fog, and extremely long draw distances help drive Unreal's atmosphere. You can look from one end of a canyon to another and there's no fog or clipping or pop in or compromise in general. In an era where 3D games were filled with compromises, Unreal only took compromises in polygon counts, which are rather low now, but back then were actually quite high. Texture resolution is pretty high even by modern standards, the use of detail textures (a 2nd layer of texture mapping) really adds a ton of detail to the environments, and it still looks good to this day. The music, is, well... stellar! Since Epic used modular music; a sample based technique that allows high quality music to be stored in small file sizes, music can be quickly and smoothly changed to suit the situation of the player, and it works quiet well. Music composition has a very 90's techno vibe to it, but it's very clearly Epic's style as similar music is in games like Jazz Jackrabbit and Epic Pinball. Both releases from Epic Megagames. Epic went on to spin off Unreal into a separate series known as Unreal Tournament. These games were and are a lot more popular then then Unreal itself. I haven't played these games so I can't comment on their quality. Overall, I strongly recommend Unreal, it's one of my personal favorites, going into it blind is your best bet which is why I spoiled as little of it as possible. Just go and get it, it's cheap whether you want a physical copy or a digital one, and all you need is a fan made patch to get it working smoothly on modern operating systems. It even comes with an editor (though getting the UnrealEd 2 would probably be a better option for Unreal Engine 1 stuff) that allows you to not only make detailed levels, but to make your own games. This game is highly recommended. OVERALL SCORE: A |
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Affected by 'Laziness Syndrome'
Registered: 05-20-12
Location: Texas
Last Post: 2480 days
Last Active: 387 days
Affected by 'Laziness Syndrome'
Registered: 05-20-12
Location: Texas
Last Post: 2480 days
Last Active: 387 days
(edited by G@mehe@d on 08-10-16 10:02 PM)
