Unreal is 20 Years Old

Unreal was the first game I ever loaded up on my shiny new Voodoo1, way back in the day. That opening with the flyby of the castle.. Took a while to get my lower jaw reattached to my skull.
 
I remember when i "found" a tiny little demo of unreal, it was basically just a tech demo of the unreal engine where you walked around but it had mark rain's phone number in it, i called it and it was him and quickly hung up :)
 
I loved the first Unreal. While Quake was neat, everything felt so claustrophobic and brown. Unreal was open, colorful, and massive by comparison. Plus, it actually had a pretty neat backstory and plot elements that other shooter games were missing in those days.
 
cool thanks for the heads up about it .. tho dear god 20 years ago? .. makes me feel old as dirt ..wait i am old !(dammit)
was a great game for its time !..snagged it anyway .... even to i still have a boxed version packed away in a box somewhere ????
same box packed away with Unreal tournament , and i think UT 2003 ?
think i have Unreal 2 also .. god knows where that disk is? .. came as a bundle deal with i think a vid card as far back as i remember .. was it my voodoo 5 5500 ? or one of my creative Nvidia cards ??
 
20 Years... ?!?!?!? My wife (the Nurse) always used the phrase: "Time flies when you're sedated"...
 
So who wants to get their ass kicked at some Low Gravity Instagib 155/55 CTF in good ole Unreal Tournament. Hit me up.
 
Skillz said:
So who wants to get their ass kicked at some Low Gravity Instagib 155/55 CTF in good ole Unreal Tournament. Hit me up.
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But, it's not Unreal Tournament's birthday. Looks like you brought a Ripper to a Razorjack fight!

:p

Actually UT does sound like fun right now...
 
What I loved about the first unreal was that after playing quake with the all the browns and grays unreal had color! And it was pretty fun. Looked decent in software, great on my voodoo2. But it wasn't until UT2003/4 that I could get into the multiplayer. Quake 3 had perfect mouse tracking/turning/etc and UT 99 always felt like it had input lag and I couldn't figure out any settings to fix it.
 
Tiberian said:
Unreal Tournament was overrated, in my opinion, absolutely, but Unreal - the one player experience game that started it and spawned the UT side of the game - is awesome to this day, that's what most of us remember: that experience playing the one player game itself. I couldn't care less about the multiplayer - id Software basically invented that and Quake and all the related games did it better IMO, so I was a diehard Q1/2/3 player for many years and never gave a fuck about UT at all.

Unreal, man, there's never really been anything like that one. The coder that created the original Reaper bot for Quake was hired by Epic to write the bot code for the "bad guys" in Unreal and it was freakin' scary - and I mean that literally - to see how "smart" those things where when you faced off with the Skaarj warriors. They learned from their mistakes as you'd expect but they also learned from your tactics and would even sacrifice themselves just to provide a way for other Skaarj warriors to then swarm on you to stop you.

Scary, and breathtakingly gorgeous artwork and textures too, it was unparalleled in those respects, it still is.
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UT overrated? You are definitely in the minority.

UT was better than Quake bar none. Better weapons, better level design better artistry & music. The only reason why Quake was as popular as it was because it was made by the same company that made Doom, riding the coattails.
 
andrewaggb said:
What I loved about the first unreal was that after playing quake with the all the browns and grays unreal had color! And it was pretty fun. Looked decent in software, great on my voodoo2. But it wasn't until UT2003/4 that I could get into the multiplayer. Quake 3 had perfect mouse tracking/turning/etc and UT 99 always felt like it had input lag and I couldn't figure out any settings to fix it.
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Yeah, I loved Q1 and Q2, but they did get a bit tiresome visually in some cases. (Though their level design was very good.) Unreal was definitely a nice change of pace from those. It also felt hugely open, even though it wasn't THAT open. My friend and I each bought 2 copies Unreal Tournament and Quake 3 Arena and exchanged them for Xmas at the end of 99 I think. A couple of months later we both bought Hercules Prophet II GeForce 2 GTSes. I think the hours we played both games are off the charts in terms of anything I've played in the last several years. I always preferred Quake 3 (actually any id game to any Epic game in general) but I've had a blast with both series.
 
Tiberian said:
Still the best looking PC game of all time IMO, that's my story and I'm sticking to it - especially considering that I had the truly awesome Matrox G400 video card at the time Unreal was released and the part at the beginning of the game where your character exits the transport ship that crashed and makes his way outside, that walk to that cliff, seeing that drop, that waterfall in the distance, and then firing off a shot from the weapon and literally waiting 15 seconds for to reach the other side of the chasm was fucking breathtaking.
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Not to get picky but the G400 came out about a year and a half later. I know because I bought in on release to replace what at the time I was rocking when Unreal launched. My Matrox Mystique and Matrox branded PowerVR 3D card!
It was the first game I bought to play on my new 3D card, and probably the reason I bought the 3D card LOL.
Yes it was a gorgeous game.
 
Krenum said:
UT overrated? You are definitely in the minority.

UT was better than Quake bar none. Better weapons, better level design better artistry & music. The only reason why Quake was as popular as it was because it was made by the same company that made Doom, riding the coattails.
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I can see your point, and while I wouldn't call UT overrated at all (it deserved all of its praise) I much prefer the aesthetic, control, and tech advancements of id's games. I actually couldn't give anyone a clear call on which series is actually better, but I know that in general I prefer id games to Epic games.

The visuals in id games especially speak to me much more than Epic's. There's nothing wrong at all with Epics visuals. Their tech has always traded blows with id's in different ways, especially stylistically. However, taken as a whole, I've felt WAY more at home in id's games. They have a certain speed and precision (though maybe less overall options for movement) that I get along with. Their larger than life machinery mixed with the occult, bio-mechanics, is also pretty insane.

It can go either way, but there are definitely hardcore fans of both. I'll play either or, but given a choice, I'll go id.
 
Loved this game so much, It's single player mode got me through some rough times in 1999 when my house had burned as i had just turned 16, living in a temporary pre furnished appartment waiting out insurance both on having house rebuilt and providing funds to start replacing belongings.
I didn't get my liscense or car until a year later due to this unforseen setback and even my bike was trashed in the fire so there was not much to do except play tennis (which reuires another person). while i was without a computer for that summer, my friend let me barrow his computer to keep me occupied. The two main games i had to play were Quake II and Unreal. We had no internet at this location, so i spent the majority of my summer playing through the original release of unreal single player. That is one of the few times i played a game through from start to finish without there being a several year gap inbetween.

Three games i have this sort of attachment to are, Unreal, Heretic II, and Prince of Persia The Sands of Time.
 
So we went from can it run Crysis in the other threaed to can it run Unreal in this one, what's up next? Can it run Wolfenstein 3d?

Damn I'm feeling older as usal now, going to sob in a corner now, tinking of it, I'm around midlife crysis age, maybe I should order an Titan volta :D
 
Played the hell out of Unreal when it launched. Caused me to make my first Voodoo card purchase! (and then my second for that sweet sweet resolution boost).

Should load it back up again with the texture mods for a run. =)
 
I had to check the FPS in the flyby intro because... yeah. Last time I played this game it with a pair of Voodoo 2s and a PII 400.

Lol @1400 fps w/ D3D renderer (apparently no frame cap with this?). Also, software renderer at max detail, at max resolution that works (1600x900) still 360+ fps.
 
Damn I am going to have to wait to play it. New Spectre BIOS came out for my X99E-itx/ac and it froze at 25% and now its bricked.
 
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Wow, the Vortex Rikers is a pile of shit! :D

Installed the 227I patch and things are flying along. I maxed everything for the OGL driver. I didn't add any new textures. Figured I'd give it a whirl as is for a bit. I do think I'll give the software renderer a try in a bit though.
 
Still hard to beat the game play of UT 2004 CTF InstaGib. The Invasion RPG mod was also kick ass (I must have dumped 100's of hours into my Medic/Monster class player). I still have my 2004 install and game play CDs (with case) and I think I still have my UT GOTY disk and case somewhere...
 
With that 227i patch mentioned earlier in the thread, the game engine (using DX9) makes full use of available resolutions, my ThinkPad has a 2880x1620 panel in it so, a few screenshots at random just now as I was goofing around. It plays awesome as expected, given I have an i7-4810MQ quad core CPU and plenty of RAM. I have it "installed" on a RAMdisk at the moment so it loads in like 1 second or so. :) I can imagine it'll play great at 3840x2160 or even higher too if you've got the hardware to display it at that or higher resolutions.

Screenshot_01.png Screenshot_02.png Screenshot_03.png Screenshot_04.png Screenshot_05.png Screenshot_06.png Screenshot_07.png
 
Hornet said:
I enjoyed Unreal 2.
Wish they would make another SP Unreal title.
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Unreal has the mission pack "Return To Na Pali" which is part of Unreal Gold, but Unreal 2: The Awakening is a different product IIRC, not 100% sure as I never played it. Will have to look into that for more info I suppose, could be interesting, maybe.
 
Is it possible to download this game in Steam, then copy over the game folder to a non-Steam PC and play it?
 
Skylinestar said:
Is it possible to download this game in Steam, then copy over the game folder to a non-Steam PC and play it?
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The game is free on GOG as well and iirc that provides you with an actual .exe installer - setup_unreal_gold_2.0.0.6.exe 223MB - that you use to install it wherever the hell you like.

https://www.gog.com/game/unreal_gold

Says it'll be available for another 32 hours or so, figure about Thursday evening sometime around midnight PDT probably will be the cut-off for the free offer.

If you decide to get this, that 227i patch is a must have thing if you're playing on a modern PC with Windows 7/8/8.1/10 so, get it here:

https://www.oldunreal.com/oldunrealpatches.html

You'll want to get the "Installer for Unreal versions with Return to Napali (Unreal Gold and Unreal Anthology)" which is the second set of links, not the first which is the patch specifically for the original release of Unreal - this free one is Unreal Gold which is the first game and the mission pack "Return To Na Pali" so that's the one to get.
 
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Skylinestar said:
Is it possible to download this game in Steam, then copy over the game folder to a non-Steam PC and play it?
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Tiberian said:
The game is free on GOG as well and iirc that provides you with an actual .exe installer - setup_unreal_gold_2.0.0.6.exe 223MB - that you use to install it wherever the hell you like.

https://www.gog.com/game/unreal_gold

Says it'll be available for another 32 hours or so, figure about Thursday evening sometime around midnight PDT probably will be the cut-off for the free offer.

If you decide to get this, that 227i patch is a must have thing if you're playing on a modern PC with Windows 7/8/8.1/10 so, get it here:

https://www.oldunreal.com/oldunrealpatches.html

You'll want to get the "Installer for Unreal versions with Return to Napali (Unreal Gold and Unreal Anthology)" which is the second set of links, not the first which is the patch specifically for the original release of Unreal - this free one is Unreal Gold which is the first game and the mission pack "Return To Na Pali" so that's the one to get.
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Yeah, I'd get it both on Steam and GoG, coz why not?


The Steam version might support moving the folder some Steam games don't use DRM and are portable and can be run whether or not the Steam client is running.

http://steam.wikia.com/wiki/List_of_DRM-free_games
 
It's kind of ironic. I've bought/played thousands, possibly tens of thousands of games in my life and I forgot to check out any of the Unreal games. Thanks for the heads up guys. Downloaded Gold last night and tested it for a couple of minutes. Just guessing but it really looks like what AVP2 used as an engine and most FPS(original Doom?) did as well. Since I've been in one of those retro moods for the last month or so I'm sure I'll put more time into it. Very cool and thanks again!
 
lostin3d said:
It's kind of ironic. I've bought/played thousands, possibly tens of thousands of games in my life and I forgot to check out any of the Unreal games. Thanks for the heads up guys. Downloaded Gold last night and tested it for a couple of minutes. Just guessing but it really looks like what AVP2 used as an engine and most FPS(original Doom?) did as well. Since I've been in one of those retro moods for the last month or so I'm sure I'll put more time into it. Very cool and thanks again!
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DOOM uses the Doom engine, made by id Software
Duke 3D uses the Build engine, made by Ken Silverman
Quake uses the Quake engine, made by id Software
Unreal uses the Unreal engine, made by Epic
Aliens vs Predator 2 uses the LithTech Talon engine, made by Monolith Productions

The original DOOM, DOOM 2, and Duke 3D engines are 2d engines, or what is called 2.5d. Quake, Unreal, and AvP2 have 3D engines.


They might look similar in some ways due to having simple geometry and some similar ways of achieving effects.


You can see a list of games also made with the first Unreal engine here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Unreal_Engine_games
 
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OMG.....I enjoyed this game so much...downloading now.....and of course the first thing of nostalgia I see - 3dfx Glide driver. Oh those were the days....I loved my voodoo card. Doom and unreal ran so well on them.
 
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