Jaesun said:
OK DraQ, I finally beat the boss in Unreal, and now off to play the expansion. I really enjoyed Unreal. A couple of maps were bleh, but some were actually fun and interesting (Like the water temple, and Sunspire). That Castle made me go fffffuuuuuu just because it was huge in layout. But overall a fun experience. I definitely give it a thumbs up.
Now as many here and in chat have mentioned the expansion is apparently awesomesuace, so I can't wait to play through it.
Thanks for calling me out as a fag for not playing this enjoyable game.
Expansion is actually pretty meh, but still enjoyable. It won't be nearly as atmospheric or cohesive experience, though, and in the light of the humongous consoletard turd that was Unreal 2 it can be considered an eerie foreshadowing (Unreal was made by Epic, while both expansion and the... "sequel"... were made by Legend).
I do recommend some of the SP packs, though. Quite a few are of much higher quality than the expansion and some also do interesting things with the game itself.
Some recommendations:
1. The Tower of Shrakitha is short (4 maps, I think) and quite old, but oozes excellence in all possible aspects (and runs in basic Unreal).
2. Nali Chronicles - some bad mapping, meh weapons and evidently cut out segment in the middle, but its very atmospheric pack and almost an RPG - putting you in the skin of a Nali mage before the events of the original game, with dialogues, interesting magic system with use-based skills, some cool spells, awesome mana mechanics, pretty awesome alchemy system, and strong atmosphere (requires UT).
3. Deja Vu - pretty much vanilla flavoured, but excellent nonetheless (UT).
4. Xidia -> Na Pali Haven redux -> 7 Bullets trilogy (will be a tetralogy if Residual Decay doesn't get scrapped) - a different, somewhat more aliens-flavoured take on Unreal universe. (UT)
5. ONP - arcadish in flavour, not very atmospheric but technically excellent, long lasting pack with stuff like aircraft levels. Oh, and worst voice acting ever. And best credits sequence ever. (UT)
Ah, brotip - if you use XMPlay as your music player you can play music from Unreal without having to rip anything, it reads .umx files.