Unreal

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. Mark Rein was brought in to do PR, Steve Polge was hired to work on the AI. 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 it's 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

The initial release of Unreal was published by GT Interactive and arrived in stores on May 22, 1998.

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.

Another version of Unreal was released with certain Creative products to show off Unreal's EAX capabilities.

A re-release of Unreal was done and titled Unreal Gold. This package was released to stores January 21, 2000. Unreal Gold contained the original release of Unreal patched to version 226. It also used the Unreal Tournament UWindows interface. It also included the expansion pack, Return to Na Pali. Many people disliked this release because, while the Direct3D support was better, nearly every other facet of the engine was worse, especially network play.

Unreal Gold was also released with Totally Unreal. This package also contained Unreal Tournament - GOTY as well as an Unreal Championship/Unreal 2 preview disc.

In September 2006, Unreal Gold was re-released for (probably) the last time in the Unreal Anthology pack published by Midway Games. The pack also included Unreal - Return to Na Pali, Unreal Tournament - GOTY, Unreal 2 and UT2004.

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 then widely used 56k modem connections. Due to this, the Epic MegaGames message board filled up with hundreds of posts of complaints about the poor quality of Unreal 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

The music in Unreal was written by Alexander Brandon and Michiel van der Bos. The music, for the most part, is designed to complement the eerie and hollow feeling of the game as well as the sense of beauty in many parts of the game.

• Isotoxin

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 basic pistol.

• Stinger

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

• GES BioRifle

  Launches blobs or toxic goop. Can also charge up a large blob.

• A.S.M.D.

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

• Minigun

  Rapid fire machine gun.

• 8ball Launcher

  A rocket launcher that can charge up to 8 rockets. Alternatively, grenades can be fired.

• 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.

• Rifle

  A High powered zooming sniper rifle

Characters

• Ash

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

Races

• Skaarj

  The Skaarj are an alien race who enslaved the Nali on the planet you crash land 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.

• Krall

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

Gametypes

• DeathMatch
• Team DeathMatch
• DarkMatch

Maps

Single Player

Multiplayer

Bonus Content

• Fusion Map Pack

  The only official bonus content for Unreal.

User Created Content

• RealCTF

Additional Information

• Many previews of the game mentioned a dragon in the game. The dragon morphed into what would later be known as the Krall.

Previews and Reviews

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

References

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

See Also

• Unreal - Return to Na Pali
• Unreal 2