I played through Unreal yesterday for the first time

[Krejlooc]

The classic FPS unreal. I had played numerous sequels and spinoffs, but never had a chance to play the original. Back in the day, my PC simply wasn't up to the task, and by the time I finally had a PC that could play it at a decent pace, I had become engrossed with more modern games like Half Life (the game that made me build a at-the-time modern gaming PC).

Recently, I put together a retro PC build consisting of a 233 mhz Pentium MMX and 2 voodoo 2 12 mb video cards running in SLI. I'd been going through some old games when I ran across my never-before-played copy of Unreal and gave it a go.

Just to clarify, I've played other similarly ground breaking FPS games when they were new - I experienced Half Life and System Shock 2 around the same time together, so I was always vaguely aware of how far ahead these classic PC FPS games were compared to their console counterparts (this was the era of, say, Turok 2 on the N64).

That said, I was blown away. Sure, my expectations have to be slightly tempered - the blocky, gumby-looking character models were not impressive, certainly not like they were when Next Generation magazine proudly was declaring screenshots from the game to be "real time" and not mock-ups on their magazine cover. But the overall design of the game feels remarkably modern. My dual Voodoo 2s make the game hum like I could have only dreamed of back in 1998.

There is a lot that is antiquated in the game, yes. Aside from the graphics, the enemies are enormous bullet sponges, a problem I had with the Quake titles back in the day. But the pacing and use of atmospheric music cues and especially the way the game funnels you forward, giving the illusion of a space much more massive than it actually is, feels remarkably modern. That part early on where you leave the interior of the prison and see the outside world for the first time, when the sparse music kicks up, it's just wonderful. You can really see where later games like Halo took inspiration from.

I guess, mainly, I was shocked at how playable it still was. I'll admit that a bunch of the older 3D FPS games really don't feel very fun to me anymore - the Quake titles, especially the first, have aged quite a bit in my eyes. System Shock 2 and Half Life have always been the exceptions in my book, games that modern games obviously took inspiration from and, as a result, still feel playable today. I'm now aware of just how much Unreal inspired today's FPSes as well.

Would everybody enjoy it today? It kinda depends on your threshold for antiquated graphics and how much you can be amazed by witnessing the birth of what has become bog standard today. My appreciation mainly stems not from the game doing things I've never seen before, but rather that it's doing things that virtually every game today does... except back in 1998. It feels very standard, because it is. It set the standard.

Just felt like tipping my hat to an old PC game that still managed to wow me. Any recommendation of other games of this mold from that era would be appreciated, as well.

[Valkyrie-Favor]

Unreal is great, and much better than any modern single-player FPS in my memory. The environments are really well designed.

[Krejlooc]

Unreal is great, and much better than any modern single-player FPS in my memory. The environments are really well designed.

I thought the progression was superb. I tried to touch on it in my original post, but the locals it funnels you into are constantly changing, and you get this great pacing. Tunnels lead to wide open areas that encourage limited exploration and slowing down, with some wide-open fire fights, only to segue back into cramped, forward moving tunnels again, highlighted by the terrific use of ambient sound interspersed with sparse music.

Nothing I just described should be alien to anybody who has played an FPS in the last few years, but again - this was 1998.

[BoneSnapDeez]

Nice to see you back SR!

[Krejlooc]

To add a bit of content to my post, the PC I built:



The one on the left is a 486 DX II at 66 mhz. I installed a CF kit on it and mounted it onto a bay bracket. To avoid the hell of creating a bunch of batch files to set up my config.sys and autoexec.bat depending on what game is being launched (as I had to do back in the old days) I instead bulk-ordered a bunch of CF cards (1 gb each) and install one game per card. Each card contains an entire DOS installation, custom configured for each game. The autoexec.bat for each card is set to launch the game installed upon boot. Hence, these cards work like amiga floppies or a console cartridge - to change the game, just pop in another game, turn on the PC, and you're playing in seconds.

The PC on the right is my dual voodoo 2 pentium MMX PC.

I have a 3rd retro PC I'm building at the moment. This one is one of the so-called "Sega PC" builds, with one of those extremely rare Diamond Edge 3D NV1 "Sega PC" cards. Those were nvidia's first video cards period, and were based off of quad rendering technology, just like the saturn used. They come with a sega saturn controller mount for the PC, so you can plug sega saturn controllers into your PC and play with them. Interestingly enough, the cards are sort of all-in-one multimedia cards, acting as both a video card and a sound card. Only 6 games were made to work with this card:

-Virtua Fighter PC
-Panzer Dragoon
-Virtua Squad (Virtua Cop PC)
-Descent: Destination Saturn
-Battle Arena Toshinden PC
-NASCAR Racing

Because half the games are from sega, the card uses quads, it is compatible with saturn controllers, and the close relationship between sega and nvidia at the time, this card is often referred to as the Sega PC card. I picked one of these up a few months ago, they're monsterously rare, especially with the Saturn brackets, and especially with the specific sega games I listed above. All the above games eventually got rereleases in big boxes that supported direct X. The nv1 versions of the games above were only ever available as OEM discs, never sold separately (Except for Battle Arena Toshinden). I have gone through hell looking for these releases. Thus far, I have the following:

-Panzer Dragoon
-Virtua Squad
-Descent: Destination Saturn
-Battle Arena Toshinden PC

There have been rumors of a Daytona USA nv1 port for years, but no one is sure if that port was ever released or not. I have all the parts for my NV1 "Sega PC" build, I just haven't put it together yet.

Nice to see you back SR!

Ha, thanks. I go and come from forums like the wind, but I never really leave a forum. I have sort of a rotation of forums that I go through. I love racketboy, I would never truly leave it. Lately, I've been at ZSNES and penny-arcade catching up with other posters who similarly had thought I'd "disappeared."

[Xeogred]

I played it for the first time myself two years ago. Then the Thief series last year. Think I hit up System Shock 2 two years ago as well, had some major homework to do.

Simply put I'd say Unreal blows Half-Life 1 out of the water. I was also never that much of a Quake fan, but Unreal's simplicity was very welcoming to me and felt like the next best step after Doom, always been a Doom/Duke fanboy and it was great to see Unreal felt similar in design.

It's a shame it's a bit under the radar even to this day, or that UT completely overshadows it. I seriously didn't even know there was a first game with a long campaign until a few years back and mostly got interested knowing the composer was the guy who did Deus Ex. It was double worth it for the insane music and the amazing experience. It might be up there with Deus Ex, System Shock 2, and the Thief series for my favorite FPS's of all time.

There is no doubt games like Halo or Metroid Prime probably pulled a lot of influences from it, yet the level design in Unreal still outshines just about everything. And the game has like no dialogue whatsoever outside of those data logs, yet the way the game evolves and the pacing was amazing, the final stretch was truly awesome and I had felt like I just went through one of the biggest adventures ever and that was all carried by the visuals and the music... the atmosphere. Perhaps some of the strongest atmosphere I've ever seen next to Super Metroid or something.

Damn good game.

When I stepped out of the crashed ship at the very beginning, the Dusk Horizon track is all that needed to be "said" and I knew I was in for something crazy.


I guess there's a lot I'd take over Half-Life 1 though and I've just outplayed it a little bit. Jedi Knight is another, love that one.

[Krejlooc]

When I stepped out of the crashed ship at the very beginning, the Dusk Horizon track is all that needed to be "said" and I knew I was in for something crazy.

This is the exact track I was describing in my post. When that music begins to play, it's a powerful moment. I can only imagine how incredible it must have been in 1998.

Whether or not someone prefers Half Life or SS2 or Unreal or Theif (which is also a terrific game, btw) is up to individual taste. One thing for sure, though - these old PC FPS games still have a lot to offer. I pity anybody who can't play them because of their aged graphics, because the mechanics underneath are still rock solid.

[dsheinem]

When I stepped out of the crashed ship at the very beginning, the Dusk Horizon track is all that needed to be "said" and I knew I was in for something crazy.

This is the exact track I was describing in my post. When that music begins to play, it's a powerful moment. I can only imagine how incredible it must have been in 1998.

Whether or not someone prefers Half Life or SS2 or Unreal or Theif (which is also a terrific game, btw) is up to individual taste. One thing for sure, though - these old PC FPS games still have a lot to offer. I pity anybody who can't play them because of their aged graphics, because the mechanics underneath are still rock solid.

Unreal is amazing. Play the excellent expansion too, if you can.

After that play Unreal 2 - it gets unfairly panned I think - give it a try too!

[Nemoide]

I remember the first time I played Unreal. It really blew me away; I remember just walking around LOOKING at everything because the graphics were so gorgeous.

I never beat it though. I re-installed it a couple years ago but was turned off by how poorly the graphics aged. Now that I know what to expect, I should give it another try. The atmosphere in that game is so different from other FPSs from the time, I would like to experience it more fully.

[Krejlooc]

When I stepped out of the crashed ship at the very beginning, the Dusk Horizon track is all that needed to be "said" and I knew I was in for something crazy.

This is the exact track I was describing in my post. When that music begins to play, it's a powerful moment. I can only imagine how incredible it must have been in 1998.

Whether or not someone prefers Half Life or SS2 or Unreal or Theif (which is also a terrific game, btw) is up to individual taste. One thing for sure, though - these old PC FPS games still have a lot to offer. I pity anybody who can't play them because of their aged graphics, because the mechanics underneath are still rock solid.

Unreal is amazing. Play the excellent expansion too, if you can.

After that play Unreal 2 - it gets unfairly panned I think - give it a try too!

I've actually played Unreal 2 -- many many moons ago. I just can't really remember anything about it. I had no idea it was panned, though, I think I enjoyed it.

I doubt it would shock me as much as Unreal has, though. A large part of my amazement is stemming from just how modern this 15 year old game feels. Pretty up the visuals and re-release this game as-is today and it would still be an experience. Hardly any parts of the actual gameplay have antiquated.

I guess my amazement stems from its longevity. I'm of the personal belief that VR is about to take off big, and thus I wonder if the big FPS games of today will resemble the big FPS games 15 years from now. I would be shocked if you could drop, say, Battlefield 4 into the gaming world 15 years from now and watch it keep pace. Unreal has done just that, though. Even its successors, like Unreal Tournament, don't feel at home in today's FPS world because the arena shooter has largely gone wayside. Unreal, by contrast, exhibits a ton of the design choices we expect from a modern FPS.

They've been mentioned already, but System Shock 2, Half Life, and Thief are also games that make me feel the same exact way. I remember being floored the first time I played System Shock 2. Especially today, with the Bioshock series being what it is, System Shock 2 still feels remarkably up to date. These are games that were truly ahead of their time.