Unreal

Note: If you are seeking for the links to essential files, see the Essential files section.

Unreal is the first game in the Unreal series and was the first 3D venture by Epic Games and Digital Extremes. The game was approved by GT Interactive in 1996 and released on May 22, 1998 to the world, however by several accounts work on the engine actually started sometime around 1994. Unreal provided a single player experience along with a multiplayer mode that allowed for up to 16 players. It was rated 'M' for Mature by the ESRB for intense violence.

History

Work on Unreal began in 1994 when James Schmalz, founder of Digital Extremes, showed Cliff Bleszinski a side project he had been working on. At the time, Schmalz was creating all of his own content, and programming the game all by himself. The game had not yet been fully realized, and Schmalz was creating all of his levels on paper.

A short time later, Schmalz showed what he had been working on to Tim Sweeney, founder of Epic MegaGames (later renamed to Epic Games). Tim was impressed and began working on a level editor for Schmalz to use to build his engine. As time went on, many people became involved in the process. Some of the key people of the remote employees were Mark Rein which was brought in to do PR, Steve Polge that was hired to work on the AI and Shane Caudle who was called to make some of the game's maps. For a time, many of the people working for Epic were doing so remotely.

Originally the game was scheduled to come out in April 1997. A few months after this date slipped, pressure started mounting from GT Interactive to get the project completed. Epic moved all of its remote employees to Digital Extremes Waterloo, Toronto, Canada offices to complete the final push of the game. Roughly one year later, the game was released and its level of detail put video game publishers on notice: a new age of gaming had arrived.

Demo

A demo was alluded to many times by various people at Epic Games throughout the life of Unreal, however the only demos that were ever released came bundled with various hardware. Many people saw this as a negative to Unreal as there was no real way to try the game before you bought it.

Release Details

Unreal's Flyby Intro

• May 22, 1998 - Unreal (PC) - 1 CD
• January 21st, 2000 - Unreal Gold (PC) - 1 CD

  Included Return to Na Pali.

• August 29, 2001 - Totally Unreal (PC) - 4 CDs

  Included Unreal Gold, Unreal Tournament - GOTY and an Unreal Championship/Unreal 2 preview disc

• November 6, 2006 - Unreal Anthology (PC) - 1 DVD

  Included Unreal Gold, Unreal Tournament - GOTY, Unreal 2, and UT2004.

  Published by Midway Games, who took publishing rights from Atari

A full version of Unreal was released with certain S3 Video Cards to show off Unreal's S3TC capabilities. This version came with several S3TC showcase levels that can be found online.

A free trial of Unreal was released with certain Creative products to show off Unreal's EAX capabilities.

Reception

Unreal was given very good reviews and was generally accepted very well by gamers. However, shortly after the game's release it became apparent that the multi-player network code was not up to scratch for the 56k modem connections in wide use at the time. Due to this, the Epic MegaGames message board filled up with hundreds of posts of complaints about the poor quality of the Unreal netcode and the general need for a patch. This led to Epic's message boards being nicknamed the "Epic FlameBoards". In response, Epic released dozens of patches to the game, later including Direct3D and OpenGL support to the Software Rendering and Glide support.

Game Content

Music

Additionally there are some music tracks which were included in the game but were not used in the original game alone, such as "Opal" and "Morose". Some of these unused tracks were, however, used in Return to Na Pali.

It should be noted as well that the song "Isotoxin" is featured as the opening song of another game, called "In Pursuit Of Greed".

Weapons

• Dispersion Pistol

  The first weapon you acquire, fires small energy bolts or can charge up a larger bolt. Automatically recharges ammo. Able to be upgraded with special pickups.

• Automag

  A semi-automatic pistol.

• Stinger

  Rapidly fires tarydium shards, or a group of shards in a spread pattern.

• GES BioRifle

  Launches powerful blobs of Tarydium waste. Completely useless against Slith, as they are immune to radioactive slime.

• A.S.M.D.

  Fires an instant hit photon beam, or a moving core. Shooting the core with the beam causes a massive explosion.

• Minigun

  Rapid fire machine gun.

• Eightball Launcher

  A six-barreled rocket launcher that can charge up 6 rockets horizontally or in a tight circular group. Alternatively, rockets can, also up to six in each charge, be lobbed as grenades in a second firing mode.

• Flak Cannon

  Fires shrapnel in a spread pattern or launches a shell that explodes on contact, releasing shrapnel.

• Razorjack

  Launches fast spinning cutting blades. Blades can be guided with alternate fire.

• Sniper Rifle

  A High powered zooming sniper rifle.

• QuadShot

  The Quad Shot, a four-barreled shotgun, is an unfinished weapon that is never seen in the game but its mesh and script can be seen in the Editor, although the script is made intentionally blank, possibly so that modders could use this as a base and get creative, while other beta/alpha weapons were cut completely together with script and mesh, such as Unreal version of Translocator, Peacemaker, Impaler, Stunner, Flamethrower or Napalm Gun (turned into the biorifle). Quadshot's original function was simple, primary fire shoots one shell, secondary unloads all barrels, as described in the Unreal Bible, with possible alterations using the different shotgun choke as mentioned in the Next Generation magazine. It may have been replaced by the Flak Cannon. Also some mods have working weapons using the mesh (such as Seven Bullets).

Items

Inventory Items These can be picked up and then used during the course of the singleplayer game and a few are available in multiplayer levels. Use the bracket keys [ ] on your keyboard to select an item visible in your inventory icon bar. The currently selected item is bounded by a white box. Use the Enter key to activate an item. Activated items are highlighted in red. Press Enter a second time to deactivate an item.

Pickup Items Unlike Inventory Items, Pickup Items are activated or put into use as soon as you pick them up. For this reason, it is often wise to leave a Pickup Item on the ground and come back to pick it up when you need to use it.

Characters

• Ash

  One of the selectable characters. According to the manual with the game, Ash was one of the prison guards on the prison ship.

• Prisoner 849

  The main character of Unreal, who must find a way to escape the Na Pali planet. The true identity is unknown, but a story indicates it to be a woman by the first name Gina, the default character.

• Kira Argmanov

  Science officer aboard the ISV-Kran, Kira was captured by the Skaarj and imprisoned at Bluff Eversmoking, pursued across several locations by some of her crewmates, who died before they could rescue her. Freed from a cell by a Nali, Kira took refuge in the bell tower, where her body is later found by Prisoner 849.

• S. Kroon

  Captain S. Kroon is the captain of the Vortex Rikers. The player approaches him and he consolves and dies.

• James Cavannaugh

  James Cavannaugh is tied down in a chair awaiting to be electrocuted. The player can choose whether or not his corpse is destroyed by either electrocuting him or leaving him alone, but it will not affect progress of the game at all; however, he is already dead.

• Jonas Gershwin

  Jonas Gershwin is a prisoner onboard the Vortex Rikers whose diary is found very early in the game. Although no identifying corpse is discovered (as is the case with other human characters in the game), Jonas Gershwin makes a non-canonical appearance in the Unreal Tournament singleplayer mod Seven Bullets as an antagonist.

• Boris Clague

  Boris Clague is a prisoner onboard the Vortex Rikers, notable only as the author of a diary entry found at the beginning of the game. Boris is one of the main protagonists of the two Unreal novels Prophet's Power and Hard Crash.

Races

• Skaarj

  The Skaarj are an alien race who enslaved the Nali on the planet you crash land on, Na Pali. They are divided in various sub-classes: Warriors, Troopers, Pupae stage creatures, Warlords and Queens. However, there is one warlord and one queen on Na Pali.

• Nali

  The Nali are a race indigenous to Na Pali but subordinate to the Skaarj as they have been enslaved.

• Humans

  You play as a human prisoner whose prison ship crash landed on a mysterious planet, Na Pali.

• Brutes

  Heavy infantry beasts genetically engineered by the Skaarj, wielding handheld rocket launchers.

• Krall

  A race of unknown origin that has been enslaved by the Skaarj and act as their guards.

• Mercenaries

  A mysterious race of robotic aliens, seeking Tarydium on Na Pali for power. They are rival to the Skaarj.

• Slith

  Skaarj's amphibian cousins. Green serpents that roam in land and underwater. Use powerful claw and acidic saliva to attack their preys.

• Titans

  Enormous creatures, native of Na Pali. Found in large lands or inside various temples and a fortress dedicated to the god Velora, they like to destroy any living being in their sight with boulders and incredible physical strength.

• Gasbags

  Balloon-like creatures with five eyes. They roam various environments from above, and use fire projectiles called Belch to kill their prey.

• Mantas

  Flying creatures with a shape similar to Earth's stingrays. They are very aggressive and use their tails as weapons. Highly territorial.

• Fly

  Na Pali's oversized flies, which attack everyone with their tails. They aren't territorial as the Mantas, and it is possible that battles between the two flying races ensue.

• Underwater creatures

  Na Pali's seas and lakes are filled with three types of creatures, plus the Slith: Biterfish, Devilfish and Squid

• Tentacles

  Creatures living in cold environments. They are attached to roofs and fire teeth-like thorns.

• Bloblets

  Space Vermins. Captured into the ISV-Kran Deck1, UMS Prometheus and Mothership Lab. Highly aggressive

• Previewed Monsters

  A dragon, gargoyle, chameleon, and some other creatures were shown in tech demos and displayed on pictures and ads, but none of them where ever used in the final, finished game. Some weren't seen in the game because the places which they were in were cut to avoid making a game too long to complete, others were either replaced (like the Krall, who took the place of a minotaur-like creature) or removed altogether (like the Dragon), because they disturbed the quality of the game, the team behind which had the goal to make the game live to its full potential.

Gametypes

• Deathmatch
• Team Deathmatch
• Coop Game
• King of the Hill
• DarkMatch

Maps

Single-Player

Multiplayer

Other

• Entry
• Unreal
• Ending Sequence
• The Gateway

Bonus Content

• Fusion Map Pack: The only official bonus content for Unreal. It includes the maps DM-Cybrosis, DM-Letting, DM-Loxi, DM-Mojo, DM-Shrapnel and DM-Twilight.
• S3TC Tech Demo: Created by the videocard manufacturer S3, who is also responsible for the invention and creation of the S3TC texture compression and the DDS file format. It includes the bonus maps DmBayC, DmCreek and DmKrazy aside of other showcase maps.
• GW Press Addon Pack: A pack of additional official deathmatch maps, created by the Unreal team, as an exclusive bonus download for customers who purchased the "Official Unreal Strategy Guide" by "GW Press". It includes the maps DmScruular, DmLocke and DmVilla2.

Essential Files

Here you will find all the links to the downloads of the essential files for your Unreal installation.

Patches

Official

• Unreal 226 Final Patch for the Windows original version. Use it if you have the first, original version of Unreal, not bundled. Does not support connecting to RTNP and 227 servers.
• Unreal: Return to Na Pali 226b Patch. Upgrades the mission pack to the 226 code base. It includes several network and Direct3D fixes, and adds the Unreal Tournament interface. Use this patch for the original RTNP only. Supports connecting to Unreal servers.
• Unreal Gold Web Links Patch Fixes the start menu web links for Unreal Gold.
• More patches. Unreal has so many different patches that it's hard to choose one, and this page helps to decide the best one for you.

Official for Unreal Editor

• Rich Text Fix. Use if you are having problems with the Unreal Editor. For all compilations of Unreal except 227.
• UnrealEd Fix 4. Use if you are having problems with the Unreal Editor. For all compilations of Unreal except 227.

Unofficial

• Unreal Unofficial 227i Patch by OldUnreal. Adds a lot of new functionality and support for modern PCs to Unreal.^[1]
• Unreal Anthology Net Patch This includes the net fix for the Anthology version of Unreal to play on Unreal Gold servers. For Unreal Anthology only.

Maps

• Fusion Map Pack This official map pack by Epic includes six new deathmatch maps.
• Semi-official Division Map Pack This map pack includes various maps made by Epic employees. Some of them have been fixed by community members to make them compatible with newer versions of Unreal. It includes the 3dfx OEM demo levels, GW Press levels, three maps from the Unreal Beta and one map cut from Return to Na Pali.^[2]

Other

S3TC Textures

• High Resolution Textures. Replace client-side textures with the S3TC-compressed ones to get a lot more world detail. For all compilations of Unreal. Note: do not use these server-side.

User Created Content

• RealCTF
• Maps & miscellaneous downloads for Unreal

Additional Information

Trivia

• A dragon, gargoyle, "chameleon", and a hawk were all mentioned in previews for Unreal but were all cut from the game because they didn't live up to the "cool factor". A Minotaur creature was refined to the point that it became the Krall.
• Unreal's manual lists the Rifle's alternate fire as a three-shot burst, when it is, in fact, a zoom function. This is a leftover from the Unreal betas.
• Many were the maps cut from the final version. Some of them are: Soledad, Morose, Nexus, Nexus End, FHub6, Cryox, and The Gateway.
• A full install of Unreal uses around 420 MB of hard drive space.
• A Playstation 1 version was under development, but it was cancelled.^[3]

Previews and Reviews

• GameSpot Review (8.4/10)
• IGN Review (9.0/10)

References

External Links

• Blinded By Reality: The True Story Behind the Creation of Unreal

See Also

• Unreal - Return to Na Pali
• Totally Unreal
• Unreal 2: The Awakening