Unreal

• Platform: IBM PC Compatible
• Release Date: April 30, 1998
• Genre: Shooter
• Style: First-Person Shooter
• Similar Games: Turok: Dinosaur Hunter (Nintendo 64), Quake II (IBM PC Compatible), Unreal Tournament (IBM PC Compatible), Unreal Tournament (Macintosh), Aliens Versus Predator: Gold Edition (IBM PC Compatible)

Game Description

You're a prisoner on the Vortex Rikers prison transport. After waking up from your slumber, you realize that everyone is scrambling around in a state of shock, panic and chaos. The ship is going down, ready to crash-land on a new planet. When the Vortex Rikers plummets to the planet surface, you're knocked unconscious. Upon recovering from the crash, you step out into a new and strange world that is Unreal!

Four years in the making, Unreal, the intended "Quake II killer," features 3D graphics and textures combined with realistic lighting effects, detailed monsters with high artificial intelligence, DeathMatch Bots, an ample arsenal of weapons and plenty of levels inviting you to blast away.

Unreal supports 3dfx acceleration and also includes the beta version of the Unreal level editor. The main objective of the game is to survive long enough to find a way off the planet. Many gameplay controls are adjustable and configurable and the game supports joystick, mouse and keyboard input.

Actions include swimming, walking, running (lots), picking items up, opening doors, shooting (lots) and many more actions found in standard action games. There are ten main weapons, each with primary and secondary fire action, a dozen inventory items (none more important than the Universal Translator which is essential to survival), seven more items that can be found by exploring and seven in-your-face creatures, all trying to kill you.

Roots & Influences

With the purpose of being the definitive Quake 2 "killer", this game, in production 4 years, certainly used the Quake series of games as a starting point.

Review: Overall

Let's face it: Unreal is an amazing game; it's gorgeous and has a killer 3D engine. After all, it did take Epic Megagames almost four years to create. After all the hype surrounding this game, does it live up to the expectations and is it the Quake II killer? The answer, for the most part, is yes.

Let's look at the good things first. Unreal itself has a much better single-player game than does Quake II. In fact, the latter doesn't hold a candle. Unreal has some of the best-looking graphics I've ever seen in a PC game (next to Forsaken). The textures are simply beautiful and realistic, especially with 3Dfx. Unlike other games, the textures don't blur when players get close; they retain their look. Some of the lighting effects are painfully realistic and are just out of this world.

The level designs are brilliant as well. There are tons of levels to play through and they're all different (even though some remind me of Turok 2: Seeds of Evil for the Nintendo 64). The levels are big with lots of monsters to blast and items to collect. Thankfully, Unreal takes place in many outdoor locations with waterfalls, houses and huts, castles and caves, very much unlike Quake II, which used big, boring (and uninspired) military base levels. Variety is a definite plus. The Unreal engine is also quite stunning, probably being the best 3D engine as of its release -- which, at the same time, contributes somewhat to the game's problem.

The engine is way too advanced for its own good. Unreal is quite simply a beast when it comes to running requirements. The game only requires a Pentium 166 but, in order to get the most out of it, players will want to have nothing less than a Pentium II 200, a Voodoo2 3dfx chipset (the 12MB version), at least 64MB of RAM and 400MB hard-drive space. Anything less than this will result in choppy and slow gameplay, especially when fighting the uninspired monsters or walking through large areas. Many PC gamers have "low-end" machines and will probably experience degraded results. Fortunately, you can go into an advanced options mode and turn "high powered" things off to get better performance.

As I stated earlier, the monsters are a bit uninspired in their looks but the good thing is, they're incredibly smart and react differently depending on how you attack. The ambient sound effects are superb but the music is fairly lame (standard new age/techno soundtrack). The arsenal of weapons you are supplied with is adequate and feature primary and secondary firing methods for each weapon. There's a two-in-one grenade/rocket launcher, a bio-rifle and a razor jack that shoots blades, to name a few.

Unreal is an extraordinary game. It's unfortunate that it takes so much to run because it is the "Quake II killer" (for single-player gaming -- Quake II has it beat when it comes to the multi-player mode). This game is definitely Unreal and was certainly worth the wait.

Review: Enjoyment

The single-player game is very fun, but can be frustrating at times because of slow down or choppy gameplay. I don't like getting killed because the game hesitated or it got so choppy that I couldn't tell what was going on. But overall, the game is a blast to play.

Review: Graphics

The visuals are simply breathtaking. All the textures are lusciously detailed and the lighting effects are just astoundingly realistic.

Review: Sound

The ambient sound effects, such as screams of agony and the wildlife in outdoor areas, are just brilliant. The music, on the other hand, is bland, featuring a typical new age/techno soundtrack. The good thing is you can turn it off and enjoy the ambience!

Review: Replay Value

With the many deathmatch/multiplayer modes and the featured Bots (which are computerized deathmatch opponents), {*Unreal} has a lot of life in it. However, the multiplayer is very laggy and has a few bugs (which are hopefully being worked on as I write this review).

Review: Documentation

It's your standard 3D corridor shooter manual: tell the cheesy story, describe the gameplay and explain the weapons, items and enemies. But it's a nice manual with lots of helpful tidbits.

Production Credits

Unreal	unreal championship
unreal	unreal tournament