Time to make myself feel old with a retrospective
on a PC game from my youth! This is Unreal, developed by Epic MegaGames
in collaboration with Digital Extremes and published by GT Interactive on May 22, 1998. Man, 1998 was how long ago? Ugh, that last fact still hasn’t quite sunk in yet. Anyway, when it released decades ago Unreal
was an absolutely monumental title for a multitude of reasons, but one of the easiest ones to
point out was its graphical prowess. “Unreal! Yes, this is an actual PC game screenshot.” Hehe. And dude, that really was mind-boggling for
February of 1997 when Next Gen Magazine printed this. Keep in mind that at the time of this world
reveal magazine article, id Software’s Quake was only eight months old, so going from characters that looked like this to *this* was a notable improvement! Furthermore, as a fan of titles like Epic
Pinball and Jazz Jackrabbit, seeing developers I was familiar with like James Schmalz and
Cliff Bleszinski putting together ‘the most advanced 3D shooter ever made’ only a few
years after developing those 2D DOS games? That was a bit surreal. Or, unreal, if you will. [boooooo] Heck when Unreal finally released,
Jazz Jackrabbit 2 had only come out two weeks prior. So seeing both a silky smooth 2D platformer
and a silky smooth 3D-accelerated FPS arriving under the same banner within the same month
was just like... pschrrt, what, how?! And even with Unreal arriving just five months
after Quake II’s release, it still felt like a generational leap in PC gaming graphics,
and the box tried to make that abundantly clear. Other first-person shooters often covered
their package in logos and artwork providing some abstract representation of the game,
but Unreal went balls-out from the start, plastering embossed renders of its 3D models
right on the cover and including a square cut-out showing off one of four screenshots. And it was all topped off with quotes like
“The best looking game of all time.” “The future of gaming.” And, “Rest in peace Quake II.” The hyperbole continued around back as well,
with copious screenshots and descriptions cramming in every bit of self-congratulating
marketing copy they could. It seems a bit pompous in hindsight, but at
the time they truly had earned the right to brag about their tech so hey, why not. And if you needed any more confirmation of
how long ago 1998 actually was, checkout the list of products it’s optimized for. Not a single one of those APIs, instruction
sets, or multiplayer networks exist anymore, at least not in the form they did back then. Sad. Inside the box you get a bit of an unusual
cardboard insert, one that’s built to hold the jewel case all snug so the cover screenshot
is visible on the front of the box. And mine is cover variant number 2 of 4. And inside you get the game on a single CD-ROM,
as well as a booklet that contains not the manual, but even more screenshots! As well as a merchandise catalog letting you
know all the cool Unreal stuff that I’m one vulnerable late night away from irresponsibly
buying on eBay. And yep, there was also a Macintosh version
of the game ported by Westlake Interactive, which was set to release in June of ‘98
but didn’t actually show up until a year later. For that matter, there was also going to be
a PlayStation and a Nintendo 64 version of Unreal, with none other than DMA Design aka
Rockstar North working on porting the latter to the 64DD system, but both were canceled
because reasons. Back to the box though, where you also get
this little catalog for GT Interactive’s offerings for Spring of 1998, including existing
releases like Unreal and upcoming releases like Duke Nukem Forever. This “long-awaited sequel” is coming in
Winter of 1998, huh? Mm, ‘dates are subject to change’ indeed. Finally, you also get an instruction manual,
or prisoner transportation log, with over 30 black and white pages of information covering
everything from the story, to the gameplay, to the ins and outs of the options menus and
troubleshooting. And then these ads in the back are great as
well. You could win a BMW for signing up to AT&T
Worldnet apparently. And check out that Falcon Northwest Mach V, wonder if anyone still has one of those beasts lying around? And it seems the infamous Mad Catz Panther
XL controller was “officially endorsed by the creators of Unreal?” [somewhat irksome rubbery creaking noises]
Huh. Suffice to say I will be sticking to a mouse
and keyboard for the rest of this video. Once you’ve got Unreal installed and your
graphics card properly configured it’s time to dive into the most-anticipated PC gaming--aww. Welp. This is not an uncommon sight when it comes
to the launch version of Unreal, bugs and crashes are a fact of life. And Epic knew it, going so far as to include
this slip of paper in the box calling for their “hardcore” gaming audience to please
forgive them in advance because making games is hard and Unreal is full of bugs so please
be sure to download the latest updates as soon as possible.” I can think of a few companies who should
still be including messages like this but anyway. Thankfully there are patches for just about
every configuration of PC imaginable, so once it’s working you’re greeted with the legendary
Unreal castle flyby demo. [flyby demo commences triumphantly] [classy Alexander Brandon theme plays] Augh, dude, yes! Every time I start this game up and I hear
that MOD music playing, composed by Alexander Brandon and Michiel van den Bos, in combination
with those glossy 3D surfaces flying by? Brings me right back to the first time I saw
it running. It was just me and my Compaq than ran Windows
98SE, sitting there in awe at what was happening on my screen. I kept thinking, “my computer can do THIS?!” Granted, I mean, I had upgraded it with a
16MB Voodoo3 card in order to make it happen so I knew it technically could. But knowing and seeing were two different
things, and seeing this in the late ‘90s running on your computer was practically a
religious epiphany to a PC gaming geek. But impressive visuals can only carry a game
so far and Unreal is much more than a tech demo, so let’s get to it starting with the
main menu. And dang, I had completely forgotten this
is what the UI looked like originally, with no mouse cursor and a chunky green typeface. Anyway, let’s begin with the single player
campaign and its offerings of four difficulty levels and a variety of character models to
choose from. What you pick out here is pretty inconsequential
to the campaign since you play a silent protagonist in a first-person perspective, but I appreciate
the gesture regardless. And now, it’s time to wake up. [electrical buzzing, alarm blaring] [AI voice: “Prisoner 849 escaping!”] You play an unnamed soul known only as Prisoner
849, who awakes in a prison cell to pure chaos aboard a transport vessel called the Vortex
Rikers. You quickly find a universal translator tablet
lying on the ground and get to work navigating the crumbling ship, accompanied only by the
screams of unseen crew members enduring unseen horrors. [screams, explosions, eerie ambiance] And wow did this introduction make an impact back then, I had never played an FPS with such
a focus on environmental storytelling like this before. You’re just thrust into this lonely but
chaotic situation, with no idea what went wrong and very little to go on except the
written logs of dead crew members and the level design itself to fill in the gaps. Now this kind of storytelling in first-person
is has been done to death nowadays, but keep in mind this was before Half-Life had come
out, so experiencing this in ‘98 was a treat! In hindsight though, there’s a definite
similarity to System Shock here with its dark, dilapidated space station and its focus on
picking up story pieces as you go. But I wasn’t aware of that game at the time
so this was an entirely fresh experience to me. And, unlike System Shock, Unreal is a first-person
shooter above all else and it’s not long before you find a weapon, some ammo, and some
beefy alien baddies for target practice. [soothing sounds of alien target practice
commence] And while you’ll be seeing these same dudes repeatedly throughout the game, the way they’re introduced one by one is just awesome. Like, the first time a Skaarj shows up? Fantastic! [more eerie ambiance.] [alarms, shooting] Yeah that’s another thing,
Unreal makes heavy use of darkness throughout the campaign, no doubt to show off its dynamic
lighting capabilities. So you’re frequently having to make use
of flares to light your way, at least until you find any of the various flashlights later
on. But all of these lighting sources are temporary,
with the flares exploding after a short time and flashlights running out of battery life. Ah well, at least you can use a weapon and
a light at the same time, so you’re not doomed to shuffle between the two. However, as creepy and atmospheric as these
darker levels can be, personally, Unreal really feels like *Unreal* to me in the outdoor environments. Say hello to the planet of Na Pali. [critterschirp, wind blows, serene music plays] This moment is perhaps the most memorable one in the game for me, even after all these years/ Where you first step off the crashed ship
and out into this lush, alien world. The place was not only massive but beautiful,
with strange creatures flying around, a village off in the distance, weird rabbit things hopping
by begging to be shot, and the sound of a waterfall in the distance while more of that
awesome tracker music plays. [Music plays over waterfall sounds. Then, he ded.] Just saying the word “unreal” brings environments
like this to mind. They’re pretty to look at yet isolating
to exist within, containing just enough detail and wide open space to entice you to explore
further without overwhelming you at the same time. And this kind of lower polygon count geometry? I just find it ridiculously charming at this
point. I mean it’s like, “Hey look! These platforms you can walk across? It’s an elongated rectangle, have fun!” A good chunk of your story remains a pretty
straightforward, chill experience really, with no objective markers or lists of things
to do getting in the way of your wandering and interacting with the world. Most of this interaction takes the form of
bumping into doors, switches, machines, and contraptions to make them do their thing. Taking a cue from Quake, there is no interaction
key, you just kinda straddle an object for a second until it does what you want. But there are some physical puzzles as well,
like moving a box here and there so you can jump on top to reach a higher ledge, or shooting
at objects to activate them or destroy part of them to create a new platform, or blowing
up walls and surfaces to reveal a pathway or hidden room. There are also friendly NPCs, known as the
Nali, that will help you out if you have enough patience to keep them alive, opening up alternate
routes or secret chambers of weaponry and power-ups. Of course, the less amiable aliens around
do not want that to happen and will make a bee-line to try and kill them before they
can help you so being quick and precise with your guns is a must. Speaking of armaments, there are ten guns
in the original Unreal, many of which will be quite familiar to you if you’ve played
the later games in the franchise. The first gun you receive and the most basic
of them is the dispersion pistol, a low-power energy gun that recharges over time and is
most likely going to be used for shooting open objects like crates and barrels. But also has the unique ability to be upgraded
several times by picking up boosters throughout the game. Then you have the Automag, which is a hitscan
pistol that’s incredibly accurate but rather slow in terms of firing rate, yet also has
a sideways “gangsta” mode where you shoot way faster for some reason, at the expense
of a loss in accuracy. Then there’s the Stinger which is a rapid-fire
chaingun type of thing, except it shoots tarydium shards in either a straight line or a slow
but effective spread-shot. Then there’s the GES BioRifle, which is
a little bit unusual in that it shoots blobs of toxic waste in various sizes. Next up is the ASMD Shock Rifle, which is
a fantastically useful weapon, shooting powerful beams in a straight line from any distance,
as well as a secondary fire that shoots out a pulsating energy ball which can then be
shot with the other beam to make an even larger explosion. Then there’s the minigun, which works a
lot like the Stinger except it uses the same ammo as the Automag and its secondary mode
fires at a different rate. Next is the oddly-named Eightball Launcher,
which is a rocket launcher with six barrels, not eight. Apparently it’s a vestigial name from earlier
in development, but whatever man it’s awesome. You can shoot individual rockets, or you can
hold down fire to queue up to six of them in a horizontal pattern. Or use the alt fire to toss rockets in a general
direction like grenades and bounce them off surfaces, or hold down both buttons to send
a cluster of rockets in a small group. Just a fantastic gun, but even better in my
opinion is the Flak Cannon. Somewhat like the Stinger’s alt fire mode,
except here you have heated shrapnel that bounces everywhere and shreds enemies to pieces,
as well as a shell launcher that’s fantastic for doing lots of longer-range damage if you’re
skilled enough. After this is the Razorjack, which is quite
powerful but often causes more trouble than it’s worth seeing as it shoots spinning
blades that bounce all over the place and can easily lop off the heads of anyone in
its path, including you. And it also has a rather gangster secondary
sideways firing mode because you had to make that weapon “cool” somehow. And then finally there is the sniper rifle,
easily one of my favorites in this and every other Unreal title. It’s a powerful, armor-piercing, hitscan
weapon that disconnects heads from torsos in spectacular fashion, and is a pleasure
to use in Unreal’s massive environments when you zoom in. Although it just kind of decreases the FOV
to make zooming happen, there’s no scope overlay or anything, but it works and it’s
fun. As memorable and useful as these weapons are
though, I found the power-ups to be pretty standard. You pick these up and store them in your inventory
to use whenever you need, things like the aforementioned translator, flares, and lights. You also get useful stuff like scuba gear,
jump boots, invisibility, and a single-use force field. But probably the most useful one is the amplifier,
which has nothing to do with your hi-fi setup and everything to do with making your weapons
more powerful when activated. There’s also the Nali Fruit Seed, one of
the more creative health items I’ve seen. Most of the time you’re just picking up
medkits and such off the ground, but every so often you’ll see a seed which can activated
by planting it and waiting for it to grow. Seriously. You’ll find these out in the world too,
already grown. But when you plant one the longer you wait,
the more health you’ll get from the plant, up to 30 health points. It’s weird and inconvenient, but that’s
neat. And you will want all the seeds and health
items you can get because Unreal does not always take it easy on you, especially on
higher difficulties as you would imagine. I enjoy how almost all of the power-ups and
weapons you find aren’t yours alone and will inevitably be used against you. And almost all of the game’s 20-something
enemies are quite skilled in dodging and switching up their attacks, so it can often be a serious
challenge to get a bead on them depending on what you have at your disposal and what
exactly is attacking. There’s a respectable variety in them as
well, including Skaarj, Brutes, Krall, Gasbags, Mercs, Slith, Flies, Mantas, Titans! And if you’re not keen on jumping spider-y,
facehugger-like things, well, too bad because this game is full of ‘em! [sounds of shooting, Pupae attacking] However, as varied as the enemy types are, by the time you reach the mid-point
of the campaign it becomes increasingly apparent just how much of a bullet sponge many of them
can be. And unfortunately it just gets downright tedious. Because you’re fighting the same kinds of
creatures on the first levels are you do level 10, level 17, 26, 34, and so on, you get the
idea. And while the right set of circumstances still
leads to some fun firefights here and there, the combat seriously wears out its welcome
in my opinion. I mean, it’s exciting to take on your first
Stone Titan for sure, it just acts as a mini boss battle and it’s all cool and stuff. But by the time you see your fifth, sixth,
seventh, eighth one, all doing the same thing except now the bigger ones soak up more ammo? Eh, it gets old fast. And I’m sad to say that so do many of the
maps themselves, with the sheer size of them being a blessing and curse at times, twisting
all over the place and requiring tons of backtracking for no particular reason except to pad out
gameplay. Not really providing many new things to do,
but rather just shaking up how you get to those same things in slightly different environments. Don’t get me wrong though, there’s something
to be admired about this kind of complex level design from the ‘90s and I appreciate the
what the folks at Epic and Digital Extremes crafted using relatively few art assets. But man, there are only so many samey-looking
fortresses, underground cavern systems, and Nostromo-inspired spaceships that I can handle. And then there’s the ending of the game,
which is rather unmemorable. It’s a generic alien queen boss battle,
where you have a big room and a bunch of ammo, dodging a barrage a simple attacks that repeat
on an endless loop. Once that distraction is over with you get
a cutscene of you escaping the planet, hooray! Except then you run out of fuel and then contemplate
how you’ve effectively done nothing by ending up where you started: alone, as a prisoner
aboard a spaceship. “To be continued...” Thankfully you didn’t have to wait too long
to continue with the release Unreal’s one and only expansion pack, Return to Na Pali
releasing in 1999. Followed by Unreal Gold, which combined both
the mission pack and the base game together with the latest patches. The pack was a bit of a departure in that
it was developed in conjunction with Legend Entertainment, known mostly for their point-and-click
adventure games back in the day. I also don’t see this mentioned very often,
but RTNP actually works with both Unreal and Unreal Tournament. Can’t say I recall many expansion packs
doing double duty like this. And I must admit, I’ve never actually played
this pack until now or even opened my boxed copy so I’m pretty excited here! Let’s break the seal and see what you get. And that is not a whole lot really, just a
simple product registration card and a jewel case holding both the CD-ROM and an instruction
booklet covering the new features on offer. Pretty standard stuff. The expansion campaign picks up right where
Unreal left off, with your character being discovered by a human warship, the UMS Bodega Bay. But once they find out who you are and what
you’ve just done, you’re forced to go back to the planet and retrieve the data cores
of another crashed ship. And wait, what the--you have a voice now? “A day after my so-called rescue and I’m
going back to the surface of the planet. They’ve promised me a full pardon and transit
back to Earth in exchange for my help. The alternative was a trip out the airlock
without a suit.” Huh. So yeah, turns out you could talk all along
and just decided to play the first game silent I guess. Not only that, but you even get little interludes
in-between each level, showing your kill stats as well as an audio log of the protagonist’s
thoughts. “I’m pausing to record a log entry. I’m still shaken up after running into the
Skaarj and their filthy minions. I guess I thought I’d seen the last of them
when I killed the Skaarj Queen on the mothership.” There are even some short in-engine cutscenes
that freeze the action while some voiceover plays, although you can still shoot and move
the camera while this is happening, hehe. Yeah these changes can be a bit strange and ill-implemented but I don’t mind them too much. In fact, uh... I kinda like this campaign better than the
original in some ways. Now, that’s not to say it’s a masterful
narrative or that the original sucks, neither are true at all. But for whatever reason I feel that Return
to Na Pali is better-paced and remains more consistently enjoyable to play than the original
campaign these days. It helps that it’s only about 4 or 5 hours
long compared to the main game’s 10 to 13 hour story, so it doesn’t spend too long
in any one area and keeps the combat brisk without repeating as many of the same enemies
in a row. And I really quite enjoy the new Combat Assault
Rifle it comes with, which is a lot like the minigun except it shoots more accurately and its alt fire mode fires burst-fires rounds that explode on impact. And I definitely found some use in the new
rocket launcher, which acts as more of a traditional single-shot RPG and has a secondary mode for
shooting guided rockets. And the grenade launcher, eh I dunno, I can
take it or leave it. I didn’t see much need considering you still
have the Eightball which kind of shoots grenades of a sort anyway, but it is kinda handy that
its alt fire launches grenades that can be remote-detonated at any time. But yeah, that combat rifle is the one I used
most here, especially handy against the new enemies like the Pack Hunters: fast-moving
little dinosaur punks that chomp away at your knees. Then there are the Spinners, and man if you
didn’t like the jumping Pupae enemies in the original, these giant arachnids are not
going to make you feel any better. And without spoiling much, there’s also
a chance you’ll get to kill some humans for once, who are absolutely a force to be
reckoned with and again I found the combat rifle most useful here. Anyway, once you reach the finale of this
pack the ending is even more abrupt than the main game. There’s no giant boss battle, you just kind
of wander into a small chamber and take a spacecraft off the planet where you unceremoniously
defeat your enemies through a cutscene. The end! No final thoughts from our badly voice-acted
protagonist, just the credits. Hrm. Okay, on second thought, maybe Return to Na
Pali is a bit underwhelming by the end. But still, I really enjoyed it while I was
playing it! There are some truly awesome levels in there
with some creative environmental puzzles, many of which were apparently cut from the
main game and then added back through this pack, alongside the new ones made by Legend. But whether you’re playing the main game
or the mission pack, I very much recommend the story mode for Unreal, even today. Especially the first half of the original
campaign, it is still one of my absolute favorite shooter experiences of the late ‘90s. But as enjoyable as the story mode is? One cannot forget Multiplayer Unreal. Not only is the entire campaign playable in
co-op, but there are a crapload of maps, modes, and gameplay items that were available exclusively
in multiplayer. And yes, people are still playing to this
day with dedicated servers online at any given time, provided you have the right patch installed. Speaking of which, I very much recommend the
Oldunreal patches, which are fan-made updates to the game made with the permission of Epic
once official support ended. These provide all sorts of updates for more
modern hardware, including support for newer versions of DirectX and OpenGL, as well as
additional graphical tweaks and bug fixes over what Epic provided. But yeah anyway, multiplayer: it’s pretty
excellent. Whether you’re playing one of the more usual
modes likes Deathmatch or King of the Hill, or the more unique ones here like DarkMatch
or CloakMatch. All the weapons and power-ups from the main
game are here, as well as some extra stuff for deceiving your opponents, with things
like the Sound Dampener for silencing your guns and the Voice Box for making distracting
noises. But the biggest claim to fame for this mode
are probably the AI bots that it came with, of which Unreal was a trendsetter in this
regard. Now, there were earlier shooters to have bots
in multiplayer, but they were either modded in by fans or they were so basic that no one
could confuse them for human players. But Unreal, good grief, Steve Polge’s bot
tech was fantastic. Even knowing the manner in which it uses preset
waypoints to make it work, you can still easily play the multiplayer offline against nothing
but bots and have plenty of fun. And of course this experience would only get
better and more expanded from here with the eventual release of Unreal Tournament in 1999,
but that will have to wait for another day. Ahh and I haven’t talked about UnrealEd
yet, which was the fantastic editing suite that it came with on the CD from day one. This was the same program used by the developers
to make the game and including it was an absolute dream come true to 13-year-old me with lofty
game designer ambitions. And naturally this built-in modability led
to a barrage of modifications, mutators, map packs, and fan-made additions over the years. Not to mention the proliferation of the Unreal
Engine itself which continues to dominate in the games industry in various forms to
this day. And bringing it all around to the modern day,
if you have the urge to revisit Unreal or even play it for the first time, it’s incredibly
easy to do so now seeing as the game is on digital storefronts like Steam and GOG.com. And hey, if you appreciated this video and
feel like supporting the channel through buying the game, feel free to use my GOG affiliate
link below this video. Either way though I hope that you enjoyed
taking a look back with me at Unreal: an FPS classic that does not deserve to be forgotten. [shooting, dying. Game over man, game over.] And if you dug what you just saw then awesome! This went a lot longer than I planned but
whatever, this game is rad. So if you’re still here then thank you very
much for watching LGR!
