Unreal Turns 20 Years Old

[Maggot]

I was hoping Epic would release the UE1 source code today but free game on Steam and GOG is okay. Make sure to grab the fan patch for Unreal as well https://www.oldunreal.com/oldunrealpatches.html

 

[PrettyDeadman]

Hey, does anyone wants to play Unreal Tournament 2000 here? Was having a blast with this game in the past, don't mind playing a few matches online.

 

[Tito Anic]

Happy Birthday, Unreal
It was my first game when i bought PC. 3DFX Voodoo ruled the scene. Music by Straylight Productions, godlike level design, suspense - it got all. Till this day it is "Golden Standart" how fps should be made.

 

[Israfael]

This made me so depressed - we have a saying here in Russia, "Yura (Gagarin), we've buggered everything up", and it truly depicts the current state of the FPS scene... Steam version of the game is not patched, as far as I remember - I had to download pirated version, copy some broken files (one of the maps in the second part of the game crashed on load - you get there in a tunnel) and then patch it with the latest unofficial patch so it can work with Win10 properly.

Also, I know what kind of music Xenofish produces (and I have nothing against psy breaks so to say), but the original Brandon / van den Bos was much better in any case.

 

[Vexxt]

Played this on my VooDoo2!

 

[oddech_wymarlych_swiatow]

Played this on my VooDoo2!

When Unreal was released I still haven't proper 3D accelerator and played in on S3 Virge with software mode - after years, I still prefer it over hardware mode.

Addition point was for having bots implemented right from the start - I'll put many more hours in bothmatches than in SP campaign.

 

[Ash]

Goddamn the AI are ruthless in this one.

 

[Astral Rag]

Mandatory in Unreal nostalgia threads:


Back when trailers wowed players by showing actual gameplay.

Voodoo2!

Played first on Voodoo 2 then on the glorious TNT2 and now on a 960 . I used to use Kentie's renderer but now I'm also using the patch mentioned in the OP.

Unreal and UT99 are two of those rare games that never get old. They still play, look and sound great to this day.

Many custom single player maps and campaigns can be found here:

https://unrealarchives.com/unreal-sp-campaigns-by-user-ratings/

Addition point was for having bots implemented right from the start - I'll put many more hours in bothmatches than in SP campaign.

I didn't have a decent internet connection in 98 so I mainly played against bots too. Playing "deathmatch" against good bots was still novel then. I had played Quake with Reaper bots prior to getting my hands on Unreal and those were quite good too which is not surprising since they were created by the guy who later programmed Unreal's AI.

 

[taxalot]

Unreal was always the shitty-but-prettier-than-Quake game. That we feel today nostalgic for it tells a lot about the current state of single player FPSes.

 

[Endemic]

I played them both (Q3A and UT) over LANs back in the day, before I had access to a good enough internet connection. Already have an original CD of Unreal, and the GoG version...should go back and finish it sometime

 

[sullynathan]

unreal turns free

 

[soulburner]

One of the best FPP games I ever played and, unfortunately, one of the last truly classic ones. Maps in which you can get lost in, awesome atmosphere, optional centered weapons... It's sad Unreal 2 was nothing like the first one (it was also not developed by Epic?) and the series concentrated on multiplayer - the Tournaments were great, too, but I always wanted a "real" Unreal 2.

The most fascinating thing is, however, that Unreal looks... unreal to this day.

 

[Durandal]

One thing I particularly loved about Unreal was how largely wordless it was. The story is told entirely through the environments you travel through, the creatures you encounter, the shifting mood between each song in the soundtrack, and the palpable atmosphere resulting from the combination of it all. It fit the isolating alien setting very well. Unreal relied on a kind of visual storytelling found in games like Another World or RayForce, whereas most games are too afraid to fully commit themselves to something like that. Even then Unreal did have its share of text logs, but they pertained to little side stories or translating some alien terminology, without interrupting the pacing too much.

It made for a game which wasn't just remembered for only its graphics, its gameplay, its music, or its story, but one for the journey the player underwent.

After all the fighting you go through, you manage to find a working space vessel and escape the planet, leaving it behind liberated from its oppressors. With no fuel remaining, you can only send out a distress signal and enter cryostasis, hoping that someone, somewhere, will eventually pick you up. But even then, even though you nobody might ever find you, you know that the whole thing was worth it.

Fucking worth it.

 

[Santander02]

20. EFFFIN.YEARS!!!!!!

 

[Astral Rag]

One thing I particularly loved about Unreal was how largely wordless it was.

And then the expansion pack came out...

Not that I really dislike the budget Jodie Foster. The male voice and those shitty new weapons on the other hand.

 

[HansDampf]

I remember, I had to play this in 320x240 just to get an acceptable framerate.

Also spent countless hours in UnrealEd.
Much nostalgia.

 

[soulburner]

The other thing that fascinates me about Unreal is how similar it is to Quake 1 in the art department. Many levels and textures have an uncanny resemblance to Quake. It seems both games started out as medieval/fantasy oriented games, moving more into sci-fi areas later in development. The early alpha/beta/prototypes show even more "quakeness". I'm not implying one studio stole ideas from the other, it's just the similarities are pretty cool and caused by being medieval-ish, low poly, software rendered, etc.

I love early development screenshots and stuff and I like to wonder what the developers thought about their games initially and what caused them to change direction when the actual gameplay development kicked off. If anyone here has any interesting links about this topic regardin Unreal, please share.

ps - I remember how one of the Polish magazines at the time described this game as "there's more Quake in Unreal than there is in Quake 2"

ps2 - if I recall correctly, the first releases of the final Unreal game, when set to use centered weapon models, actually had them at the center of the screen, like in Quake 1. However, some time later, an update changed it and the guns are now moved a little bit off the center. Does anyone recall which patch changed it? Or am I remembering it wrong and confusing the actual game with early screenshots? There doesn't seem to be any console commands that move the weapon model, but I would like to have the guns at the center... any ideas how I could do this? Or is there a way to get the original CD release (version 200?), legally or not, unpatched and stuff?

 

[Astral Rag]

Some of the first Unreal screenshots I saw.

Tone of earlier versions was darker still.

 

[soulburner]

ps2 - if I recall correctly, the first releases of the final Unreal game, when set to use centered weapon models, actually had them at the center of the screen, like in Quake 1. However, some time later, an update changed it and the guns are now moved a little bit off the center. Does anyone recall which patch changed it? Or am I remembering it wrong and confusing the actual game with early screenshots? There doesn't seem to be any console commands that move the weapon model, but I would like to have the guns at the center... any ideas how I could do this? Or is there a way to get the original CD release (version 200?), legally or not, unpatched and stuff?

Quoting myself, because I actually found a CD, version 205. The weapons are perfectly centered in that version. Some other things also have a better "feel" to it than the Gold version with OldUnreal applied. It would be nice if I'd find a way to play this old version in widescreen and 3dfx emulation, but that probably won't work. So... I'll probably try to move the weapon models from v205 to 227i and see what breaks.

edited edit - Here's a comparison shot of what I'm talking about. Both game versions set to "centered" weapon position:

 

[schru]

The OldUnreal patch has a mutator for old weapons, which changes their sounds and effects. Is that perhaps what feels different to you?

Also, in case any one isn't aware of it, it's necessary to disable multitextures in the advanced settings (accessible through a console command) to get various textures, skies especially, to look right on modern hardware – at least when using the default renderers or the ones provided in the OldUnreal patch, as Kentie's might not have that issue (but it makes very bright objects like lights dimmer).

 

[soulburner]

The oldweapons mutator only brings back old sounds and some other minor effects, but doesn't do anything to the weapon position, unfortunately.

 

[Cross]

There should be an option in the Unreal Gold menu that lets you choose whether to have weapons centered or to the left or right.

I don't know about any non-gold of the game versions.

 

[soulburner]

There should be an option in the Unreal Gold menu that lets you choose whether to have weapons centered or to the left or right.

I don't know about any non-gold of the game versions.

Yes, I know. The screenshots show both the original CD release and the Gold/oldunreal method of drawing the weapon when "centered" is already selected. The original has the weapon exactly centered on the screen, while Gold/oldunreal has the weapon slightly off to the right side.

 

[Cross]

I missed your post with the screenshots, but I see it now. Maybe you could edit the FOV to pull back the view to show more of the weapon models?

 

[soulburner]

No, FOV only moves backward/forward.

The screenshots are cropped, the 205 version runs only in 4:3, that's why I would like to restore the weapon position in the Gold version. It also has better performance with the DirectX9 renderer.