Yeah, it took me forever to finish Unreal. I don’t know how many hours. At first it was great, that first level, where the lights go out, and then the waterfall! But then the weapons never felt great, and the game just kept going and going and going and going, and it was never fun. But there was just something compelling about seeing what the next area would look like, just because it looked like nothing before it. I just had to keep going, even though I never had fun after that first level. Sadly, the only thing waiting for me at the end was a hollow feeling that I’d wasted my time. And I retained none of it. I don’t remember a single thing about the experience except for that beginning area.
I’ve been playing it on and off for 20 years and it grows in my estimation. The atmosphere is off the charts and the top tier music doesn’t hurt. The weapons may lack oomph but they are varied and tactically interesting, and the enemy AI is good for the era (not as good as Half Life’s grunts, but nothing was).
It also happens to be set in a sort of “dark Trek” sci fi world that I loved as an adolescent; it’s rather similar to some sci fi comics I was drawing about 10 years before the game came out. So there’s a personal resonance. The backstory is intriguingly filled out via all the books and logs you stumble upon along the way.
Warts and all I continue to think it’s a remarkable achievement, and I don’t think it’s all downhill after Nyleve’s falls or the scripted Skaarj bit where the lights go out, or whatever.
It’s a world I like to lose myself in, and few games outside the CRPG genre achieve that for me.
The biggest thing I can remember about Unreal is how thrilled I was when I found out the Reaperbot guy was doing bot AI for multiplayer. Thus began the many, many hours of shooting bots in Unreal & the UT followups
I just love how they took this criticism to heart and made the followup, Unreal Tournament, amazing in this regard. The weapons were so satisfying in that one.
You do you Gordon. I’m just amazed that you feel this way, thinking you’re probably talking about a different game, but it still makes me happy when someone can get that kind of enjoyment out of something, even if it never hits me the same way.
“Blood is the best of the original Build games.”
Is it bollox! In technical terms, yes. But that’s about it. I just finished up the first campaign, and it’s been a slog of quick-save/quick-loads, mainly centering around the utter ridiculousness of high-damage hitscan weaponry. Yeah, I want half my health one-hit by some mook cultist from halfway across the map, thanks. Spam explosives FTW.
Amazing how that one little balance tweak ruins (for me, at least) what’s an amazing game filled with interesting secrets and dozens of little neat touches.
We have another brown, Quake 1-era inspired contender on the horizon! HROT’s (yes, HROT) set in mid-80s Czechoslovakia, and is running on a custom built engine written in Pascal that boasts a sweet unfiltered textures look. They better let me turn off animation interpolation! Is this the first game that lets you wield a hammer and sickle as a melee weapon? I love the copy-cat font the team are using for the title. It looks kinda promising.
As part of The Steam Game Festival, HROT has a short demo (took me around 10 minutes) offering a single level rich with janky 80’s Soviet goodness. It runs off a custom engine, and after giving it a whirl, it feels pretty faithful to the era its aping. I would recommend checking it out if only because you get to fight a horse wearing a gasmask. Plus, it’s only 88mb!
Prodeus are getting ready to release their alpha demo to backers sometime soon.
A new FPS from 3D Realms will be announced soon. Slipgate Ironworks, a studio comprised of some of the former Interceptor guys, are making a new IP running on UE4 scaled back to resemble classic Unreal with art by Chuck Jones (made the monsters in Duke 3D and Half-Life) and a bunch of veteran map designers. It’s supposed to be in the style of a 1998-style medieval fantasy shooter. Stephan Weyte, the voice of Caleb in Blood, is doing V.O., too.
A concept art tease:
Ohhh much excite!
Hey that’s nice. A lot of these retro-shooters were going too far back in time for my tastes. 1998 is not bad. 1998 was Unreal, Shogo, Half-Life, Thief: The Dark Project. An excellent year for first person shooters.
It’s really hard to find a year that beats 1998 in terms of quality, isn’t it? I liked all the “retro” shooters 3D Realms have put out so far, even in their unfinished states (Wrath substantially improved with the latest update a few months back), but this one sounds so promising. I wonder if they’ll opt for a scripted HL-style experience or a more open-ended, exploration one like Jedi Knight 97 or O.G. Unreal. I personally would prefer the latter, but we’ll find out soon enough.
7 posts were merged into an existing topic: Graven: an indie Ultima Underworld that…doesn’t go anywhere?
It’s just retro shooter galore when it comes to announcements today:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tF8ueWYvi38
This one makes a few direct references to Deus Ex (with the body vitals screen) and immersive-sims in general with the 0451 code that I hope it’s reflected in the rest of the game.
Where oh where is the Cybermage spiritual sequel we all crave?
Graven looks like a really good looking game. That’s a nice change for a retro-shooter.
What a weird-ass game that was.
With Prodeus hitting early access tomorrow, I just received two Steam keys via email for my basic-level KS pledge, which could potentially be a mistake as I think I’m only entitled to one, but if anyone’s interested to try and redeem it I would be more than happy to share one with the proviso that it may not work. First come, first serve. :)
I would take that if you still have it! Thanks
That trailer actually makes it seem like a shooter with unique weapons that I’ve not seen before. Impressive feat in the year 2020.