I still love Unreal, and replay it a lot.
Nice timing on the bump. Just got an email from gog saying they’re giving out Unreal Gold for free, no doubt inspired by this anniversary.
I really wanted to like Unreal 20 years ago. That hallway scene at the start of the game showed a lot of potential. Unfortunately, that scene was one of a kind in that game. The weapons were not crunchy and fun to use like in the Doom or Quake or Duke Nukem series, and the level design was very pretty but not compelling.
I forced myself to play through the game, just because of how pretty it was, and I wanted to see what else they could do with the engine, but they never did any kind of fancy memorable scripted sequence like that hallway scene again, and the game was a really big disappointment to me.
On the bright side, they really learned to make better weapons by the time they got to Unreal Tournament. The shooting in that game was so much more satisfying that it’s hard to believe that it’s by the same team.
I think even the first version of the Flak Cannon was pretty crunchy. But yes, UT improved the weapons.
Unreal is all about atmosphere, and atmosphere for me goes a long way.
I had a sort of ideal sci-fi universe in my mind as a kid. It was basically Star Trek, but meaner. FTL travel, vast universe, all that, but a bit less of the Roddenberry Utopianism and no Star Wars-style mysticism.
Unreal felt like it took place in that world. Except the levitating Nali, maybe. Or Skytown. Or…
Wonderful game, with the first good bots in shooters (yes, U1 had bots).
I played it again not so long ago. It’s actually quite tough :/ Nostalgia didn’t propel me through more than a handful of levels, but at the time it was really something. Where are its descendants? Gears for Unreal and um, Rage for Quake? Maybe the Wolfensteins.
I liked Unreal 2. I think Raven Software worked on that.
In its expansive atmosphere and emphasis on exploration equally with action, I don’t think Unreal really has a descendant. Maybe, in a way, some of the open-worldy stuff (Horizon: Zero Dawn etc.). But I rather like the clutter-free nature of Unreal’s pure-shooter design.