WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOW!
Was it worth the wait? YES! Is it awesome? YES! Simply put... Unreal is... well... Unreal.
I must admit... the first couple times I ran the game I did not like it at all. One of the
things that is interesting is that on the first "map" there are very few
baddies. I think I only counted one and he turned tail and ran once I saw him. Thus, the
first couple minutes of play, I was sitting at my desk saying "This is way to easy...
what a stupid game". Yes the graphics were impressive and the sound was incredible,
but we want gameplay, right? I spoke WAAAAAY to soon. The game is far from easy. The
Skaarj alone will give you a run for your money. One of the great things about Unreal is
that instead of having hundreds of dumb enemies attacking you at once, the games designers
opted for one or two smart enemies playing a game of cat and mouse with you. (I will talk
about the AI in more detail later).
Technical Aspects
I shall start out with graphics since that is the one technical aspect of a game everyone
sees in a review. The in-game graphics are simply incredible! While I was trying to get my
3Dfx card tweaked, I put the game in Software Rendering Mode and switched the screen
resolution to 320x240. It was still awesome! The software renderer, as promised, performs
a lot of the tasks that the 3D accelerated version does, making colored lighting,
transparency, and a whole bunch of other effects a reality for all you non-3D-accelerated
gamers. The one downside to the awesome software renderer is that the minimum system specs
for the game are rather hefty. This is really one of the only major downfalls for the
game. In the age of $1,000 PC's I think a lot of people are going to be filled with the
urge to upgrade.
The sound effects are equally as incredible. The sound of bullet casings hitting the floor
and glass breaking and falling to the ground give the game a more realistic feel than any
other FPS. Ambient noises such as the rush of water over a waterfall and the chirping of
crickets in the grass also add to the realism of the game. I don't want to say too much
about the sound because I want you to really experience it in the game. Unreal also
supports the Aureal A3D API. This API is designed to create realistic 3D sound sourcing.
While I do not have a sound card that supports A3D, from what I have heard it makes the
already great sound effects ten times better. Hmm.... can you say "time for a sound
card upgrade?" :)
What about the monster's you say? Are they as dumb as the ones in other FPS games? I can
honestly say that the AI in Unreal is ten times better than anything on the market right
now (we shall have to see what Half-Life has in store for us). On one occasion, a Skaarj
was on a platform/bridge above me and saw me. I was certain he would attack, but instead
he ran down a hallway to his left. I figured he just went and ran away. Not ten seconds
later, that same Skaarj came down a hallway behind me and started whooping my arse. I
almost fell off my chair in surprise.
Another great aspect of the AI is what I like to call the "cat and mouse
routine". Imagine yourself being chased by an enemy. You dodge behind some crates (or
other world object) to avoid the pursuer and hope to come around the other side and
suprise him. WRONG! In Unreal, the enemies wil anticipate your tactics and move to
intercept you with weapons drawn. The first time that you see this in action I am sure you
jaw will drop to the floor as mine did. Next topic.... the dreaded gameplay (play ominous
music now!).
Gameplay
Single player Unreal is about as good as it gets. You get to run around in some awesome
environments (kudos to the level designers and texture artists), pummel some really mean
and nasty enemies (kudos to the animators and skin artists), and enjoy yourself at the
same time. Unreal proves that you CAN make an entertaining single player FPS and still be
at the cutting edge of technology. I don't want to spoil any surprises for you but I will
tell you a couple of things about the gameplay. As in most modern FPS games, the keys are
fully configurable as in Quake or Quake 2. Unreal offers a system where keys can be
contfigured through a series of menu options. One thing I did see missing is the ability
to save your configurations to a file, a la "Quake Config" files, so that you
could have multiuple setups on the same machine. This may be available, but not included
in the documentation.
The environments that you will pass through on your quest are varied. You will visit a
gorgeous canyon complete with waterfall, palm trees, and Nali houses (Nali are friendly
aliens that can help you on your way and show you secrets). You will also end up in a vast
mining area complete with tunnels filled with lava (the lava effect is truly amazing). One
thing that truly struck me about the environments is that they are a lot more open than in
previous FPS games. It seems that Unreal does not have the visibility limitations that
other games do and thus can have more wide open spaces without bringing frame rate too
low.
Multiplayer
Want to know about Multiplayer? OK. Multiplayer in Unreal is a very different experience
from other FPS games. For one, the weapons are a lot different. Each weapon has a primary
firing mode and a secondary firing mode. On top of these two modes, you may hold down the
fire key to make the weapon continously fire or to perform a "massive attack"
(several shots go off at once). In addition to the weapon differences, there are also
movement differences. You can now double-click/double-strike the movement keys to perform
a dodge. These dodges are very useful in single player as well as multiplayer. The
combination of the weapon and movement differences will throw some players off at first.
My suggestion would be to play Unreal with it's built in bot mode. Bot mode allows you to
play against computer controlled players. The skill level of the bots can be set so that
they will adjust their skill level based on your abliities or their skill level can be
hard coded individually or as a group. The BOT AI is very good, rivaling the famed Reaper
and Eraser bots of Quake/Quake 2 fame. It is nice to see that the designers took the time
to include these little extras into the game. It is very nice to be able to play against
some good bots right out of the box.
Wrap Up
Unreal rules! That's about all I can say. I can't even say enough good things about this
game. The attention to detail, which I did not have much room to get into, is unrivaled.
Epic, GT Iteractive, and Digital Extremes deserve a round of applause for an awesome
title. I don't think it will kill Quake 2 just because of the fact that the multiplayer
experiences are so completely different that there will be a split among gamers (those who
prefer Q2 DM and those who prefer Unreal DM). My review did not even take into account the
fact that Unreal ships with a beta version of UnrealEd, the map/game editor. Finally, you
can start modifying the game right out of the box... no downloads and no third party
programs. Overall, Unreal is by far the best FPS out there and a front runner for the best
FPS of 1998. If any of the upcoming FPS games is half as good as Unreal, we are in for a
big treat this year. The FPS genre has never looked so good.
Additional information
Publisher: GT Interactive
Developer: Epic Megagames
OS: Win95/Win98/Win NT
CPU: Pentium 200 MMX or better
Memory: 32mb of RAM or more
CD-ROM: 4x CD-ROM or faster
Video: PCI Local Buss Video Card
450MB HD
3D highly recommended!
Multiplayer: YES
Rating: ***** (5 of 5!)
Courtesy : GamerzEdge |
