@@yogxoth1959 Because passion doesn't rake ALL the money like the cash cow that is "live service" nowadays. Remember, to corpos like EPIC, it's always about the money.
Well, at least these games can be still played now and later on accessed via emulation. The same can't be said of these modern titles which "eco-friendly" vanish pretty much into thin air once the plug is pulled from the servers.
Yeah it was pretty amazing, I looked at it every time I saw it in a store, but my dad just wouldn't buy it. We bought Quake 2 instead, and also were waiting for Half Life 1 to release. We played that Half Life Uplink demo and we knew it was coming soon.
@@INFILTR8US I always thought it was neat how Uplink is its own unique levels rather than just a portion of the base game. I get why companies don't always do that with demos, but it's nice to see.
@@IsmailofeRegime Uplink was cut content from the base game repackaged into a demo. There was also Half-Life: Day One, which was basically a shareware of Half-Life.
@@StevenJShow Yeah I'm aware Uplink was cobbled together from cut content, Valve basically did the same thing with the Lost Coast level for Half-Life 2 (which had likewise been cut only to be repurposed to show off new graphical effects added to the Source engine.)
Actually on the ISV Kraan's upper decks, the game spawns exactly 20 Skaarj. There's a log entry that mentions that the crew killed 40 but 20 remains. I tested this by literally killing all of them and counting. It actually spawns exactly 20. Which is a pain to fight through (literally had no ammo left by the end) but at least they're honest. Also the stone titan - you don't' have to kill him, just hop on his throne. Once you do, the bridge goes up and you can DROP IT from the OTHER SIDE while the stone titan is on it.
There was this whole subplot where you are chasing in the footsteps of another human female by reading her diary entries. You eventually find her corpse near the hydroelectric lift at bluff eversmoking. That hit me hard when I played this in 1999. I haven't played unreal since and still remember that moment.
Yeah, those who read translator messages followed Kira's footsteps from ISV-Kran to Bluff Eversmokin (almost 1/3 of the game). It was sad to find her *simply* dead in the tower.
Kira's subplot actually starts even further back when you first leave the Vortex Riker, the Security Team you find dead have logs stating they contacted ISV-Kran via radio, later the Nali Talk of the "Sky Demons" coming to the Temple of Water after a "Thunder Bird" crashed from the Heavens. The whole game sets up later portions via log entries and environmental details (like seeing the Sunspire in the far distance from Terranux) and it's a fantastic bit of world building that really rewarded those who explored or paid close attention.
@@SerfsUp1848 Yeah, if you never cared to change your character, the default one is Gina and she's a big girl (female, type 1) full of tatoos and spite.
That's one of your best intro segments ever. You put real passion and work into this "shitpost youtube review show", and it's not only evident; it's _appreciated._
I'll never forget playing Unreal using the invisibility power-up and getting closer to a group of enemies that were all next to each other only to find out... they were playing dice. What a game.
In UT99 they actually went to the trouble of making the scrap metal bits the flak cannon fires molten-hot when first fired, then eventually cooling down to a gray color after a while. You can find a lot of tiny detail like that went into the game if you play with the timescale and take time to look around in super slo-mo. This is stuff that goes into games when devs have talent, and no asshole publishers breathing down their necks about deadlines all the time.
@@GuitarKid581 I found that out when I found myself at the wrong end of a flak cannon headshot for the first time. When the smiley face is perfectly visible on your entire screen for a microsecond, you know someone got you good.
Civvie's experience with Unreal was my experience with Halo. Stepping onto the ringworld after a level of gray hallways. Assault On The Control Room being a vast and expansive level with lore and everything good about the game. I know he doesn't like Halo but man, took me back.
I’d agree as someone in the same boat. Playing Unreal after decades of Halo definitely was a cool experience in its own way, as you could retroactively see the point in which these games changed.
I had the same experience with Halo, honestly. Halo, then Halo 2, then Halo 3. My favorite of the three is Halo 3 :D I also had a similar experience with Metroid Prime on gamecube.
I know what you mean. I loved exploring Tallon IV in MP. I think what really stuck out to me was originally touching down and seeing this rainy environment you land in. Gave me warm fuzzies just like when I first emerged out of the life pod on Installation 04 :D@@bladeworksmaster
And that may just be the highest compliment Civvie ever gave Carmack. Lovecraftian analogies are cool and all, but being the voice of sanity in a company guided by a complete bozo with no foot in reality is some real shit right there.
Just one thing about the 8-ball: you can "ball" it, having your rockets grouped in a ball, instead of spreaded out. Press both primary and secondary for it.
Way back in high school some madlad installed the original Unreal Tournament into the school's directory. We had LAN matches over the school network in computer lab. It was pretty dope.
Same here in an Australian high school. Not just UT, though. Halo CE, Counterstrike, Age of Empires 2, Warcraft 3 and Dawn of War Dark Crusade all made it on there. Every time admin removed the exes, a new game would turn up. Also, the IT teacher was a chad and gave away games to his class for an end of year LAN tournament, which inevitably ended up joining the list.
@@KillThadunreal limited shiny surfaces to smaller rooms. If you go into noclip mode you can see the geometry is literally automatically copied under the surface of the floor. The same method is simply not viable today. Nowadays mirrors either use raytracing, screen space reflection (which is not very accurate) or rendering a scene to a texture.
The whole section about the delisting of Unreal really hit hard How far the mighty have fallen and this video has more respect and does more for Unreal than Epic have in many, many years
*laughs in bought before delisting* Its still in my library on GOG despite the store page being nuked, so im good for as long as i live (And frankly its an eerily stable game despite its extreme age)
I'd also like to suggest that the ASMD Shock Rifle is the best *laser* in game history, but admittedly the one in Unreal 1 is probably the series' least impressive version of it.
There is something about the esthetic and athmosphere of the first Unreal Engine that continues to fascinate me to this day. I used to have term for it "Unreal feeling". It is something that I have never experienced with any other game, only Unreal and the first Unreal Tournament.
Unreal in terms of graphics I think was the first game that used 3D stuff to actually look beautiful. Games like Quake or System Shock may have had 3D, but Unreal was majestic and imaginative in way other 3D games at the time weren't. I get what you mean.
@@atarijaguarfan7893 any game if you're comparing pre- Casual Revolution (~2005) of the mainstream industry, to games from after that time. The 'immersive sim' thing is a fun joke which does however illustrate (with hyperbole) the actual truth when you replace "Immersive Sim" with ".. game that was actually designed with player agency in mind"
@@360Fov I said "of the mainstream industry" and you name a game whose developers are literally called "The Indie Stone". It couldn't be a sillier response.
"They can crawl around if you blow their legs off, but otherwise, nah, they're useless." I love the implication that it is their sole function to have their legs blown off.
There's a cool extra feature to the Eightball, too. If you tap the alternate fire while you are charging the primary fire, it will fire the rockets in a circle instead of a line, concentrating the fire. Absolutely deletes almost anything it hits.
I remember coming out of a building in Unreal, approaching some random cliffside, looking up at the skybox and actually getting a moment of mild vertigo. I'd never experienced a game so wide-open before.
Unreal will always hold a special place in my heart. I was born in 2004 and when I was young I once sneaked up to my dads office, he was on his computer playing a game. I asked him what that game was, and he told me its Unreal. A game he loved and used to play a lot when he was in University in the late 90s. I asked him if I could play or watch him play. He told me I was too young and it would probably scare me. But when I was around 13/14 and got my first own PC I saved up for, my dad one day came into my room and handed me a CD, we all can guess what that CD was. That night we spent playing the game, I played and experienced it and my dad was there to introduce me to it, and told stories "Oh at this section I was stuck for a long time back then, heres what you need to do..." I played through it and Na Pali and have since played through both of them at least once a year. Soon my mom will be away for a weekend with my sister, and Dad asked me if I still have Unreal. Of course I have, he wants to play it again and thats what we will do at one day of the free weekend, the other day we will watch a movie. Unreal will always be a core memory with my dad, my introduction to gaming and I will always keep my copy
I'll say. When I first got into PC gaming in '96, I started with games like, well, Doom or Duke Nukem 3D. I skipped Quake at the time, so I directly went from those games to Unreal. Talk about a leap forward.
Walking outside for the first time in this game was one of those game milestone moments you can't appreciate unless you experienced it at the time: the 3D environment of Doom, the tram ride in Half Life, the "seamless" transition to pre-rendered cutscenes in Final Fantasy 7, experiencing Grand Theft Auto 3 in 2001.
I'm curious what younger people think looking at this, people who started playing games beyond 2010. I imagine it would be like a 20 year old looking at the Half Life tram ride and going, "So what?"
@@dorpth As someone who started gaming after 2012 and first saw Unreal in 2021, I'm still impressed. That transition from gloomy ship interiors to wide-open alien world is just so perfect, never seen anything that hits like it.
I have been floored by only a handful of games in my life. I've been around gaming since the days of atari lol. This is one of those games. I went from quake to this and honestly avoided half life for the longest time. It looked dull to me compared to this game.
There is a full fan-made remaster being made at the moment. It's called Unreal Redux. There is a TH-cam channel and a website for it which any fans of this game should check out!
@@flanovskiydtauskiy5870 Evolution is really not. Strange angry social reject of a dev who isn't all that good at modding, destroying your Unreal install for his mod to work.
51:09 You are correct, a lot of the levels in Return To Na Pali were from the Beta version of Unreal, content that never made it to the finished release. Though I have these beta versions, and the Return To Na Pali versions of the levels have definitely been cleaned up and some a good bit different (see Spire Valley which was originally a hub map). A lot of levels in Return To Na Pali are original though to this expansion, Nevec (one of my all time favorite levels with a bangin soundtrack), Glathriel village 1 and 2, all the Prometheus Crashsite levels, etc. I'm surprised they didn't use more from the Beta, there were a LOT of levels cut. The Beta version of Unreal was twice if not 3x as long, it's crazy how much there used to be and how much got scrapped (I imagine so it all fit on one CD back then lol).
Interesting to hear this. I always knew a significant chunk of RTNP was restored beta content but didn't realise just how much was cut from the original game. A shame we didn't get to experience official releases of these maps, I would've loved to explore more of the planet. Unfortunately I felt the expansion was a huge let down compared to the original game. A few interesting ideas, but I never enjoyed the flow and the magic just wasn't there for me, it still felt like a beta product. Perhaps recapturing the spirit of the original was something that couldn't be repeated? Completely agree with you on the Nevec music, that track is incredible. The music in Unreal elevated the atmosphere so much. I still remember dismantling the Unreal soundtrack circa 2000 using tracking software to understand how each of the tracks were composed. Alexander Brandon and Michiel van den Bos produced some amazing work!
To believe in this day and age the cut levels would still make unreal a shortgame in todays standards. Albeit, admittingly unreal has a lot more "pure content" then a lot of these 30-50 hour games which just reuse assets in a sort of a hub world with quests and even side quests to increase gameplay time.
A fun, slightly useful fact about the Eightball Gun: If you hold down the primary, then the secondary (Or vice versa) then release whichever you held first, it keeps your shots in a much tighter hexagonal spread.
@@ReviewShark hey I just saw that video! Yeah I was on an Unreal review binge, topped with Unreal Redux stream yesterday, and Civvie tops it off with his own Unreal video.
gold is patch 226..the sounds came before unreal gold from what I remember. probably patch 224 did this. Unreal =! unreal gold... many players and servers post na pali release + UT release still opted to use 225, 226 had an incompatible and unstable server client + the editor would crash constantly...so 225 lasted all the way up until 227 became popular ~2008 which brought the two version together the right way imo.
The flak cannon is so badass that it's not a shotgun: It's a grenade launcher that shreds its grenades to create a spread of shrapnel that ricochets. This thing in close quarters was literally a slap chop.
More so for me. I love Quake. I really love Quake, but I loved any excuse to play UT at my friends who had a Dreamcast or PC. Every weapon was a joy to use. It's fun to see the debut of these iconic weapons. I got Unreal Gold when it was free on GoG, but I sadly have not got much beyond leaving the ship yet.
No, hard disagree here. First, rocket sounds you hear is not even the original sounds, it was changed in a later patch shipped with Unreal Gold, you can hear the original sounds in th-cam.com/video/W8xcuGRelq0/w-d-xo.html. Second, it is too damn loud to the point that it peaks out sound cards and turns into pure noise
Something about the foliage and liquids just look so much nicer than straight realistic graphics. There's also just something so gorgeous about when you first leave your ship and look out over the fields and the cliff above the water. Just gorgeous.
A good engine is required for sure, but talented artists and level designers are the ones who make the game amazing. For instance, Bioshock and Postal 2 were built on the same Unreal Engine 2. And crappy Unreal 2: The Awakening too...
This is hands down the best and most accurate unreal tribute on TH-cam. You killed it. As a lifelong Unreal mega fan, thank you so much for this. I absolutely loved it. ❤️❤️❤️
Funfact: The "Gina" model shares the same face as the Nali goddess Vandora. She's also the model most commonly featured in unreal promotional material. Meaning she's most likely the "canon" prisoner 849.
The default model or name is usually the canon one. The only exceptions I can think of are the Suikoden and Quest for Glory games (some Personas too IIRC?) where the protagonists' canon names are only in the novelisations. That explains why the male VO is sub-par though: it was an extra added in when skin swaps were implemented in single player.
Looking back at everything I'm surprised that the default Prisoner 849 didn't become anywhere nearly as iconic as other FPS protagonists of the day. Maybe that's just because there were so many alternative choices for what they looked like. Not sure if she's got the "same" face as Vandora, low poly graphics and all, but they've got the same expression in the art for SURE.
Something else I forgot, but there is a bit of text in bluff eversmoking that refers to the prophesied hero as being a "savior princess from the stars".
Something I noticed while watching was that the Automag actually makes clicking noises when fired with low ammo, like how a real pistol might. That’s a nice touch, even games today don’t get that detail right, I like it.
Goddammit Civvie, you made me cry by the 7th minute mark from a mixture of nostalgia and agreement with your statement. Keep up the good work and keep spreading the good word on Unreal and other dying game franchises.
He did it! HE DID IT!!!! UNREAL 1!!!! Been waiting for this one, was just watching Unreal Redux level-making stream yesterday. The hype is Unreal all over again.
Oh man. Watching civvie's video I was thinking I might install Unreal myself. Haven't played it in years. I'd not heard about Redux. It's not out yet. Now I don't know if I should wait for it or not.
Skaarj are still my favourite enemies in all of video games, absolutely awesome design and smart AI. Thank you for this video, great editing. I remember how I was in mindblown at that time by Unreal's graphics, was reading all the notes, I was so immersed into that world. Great time to begin my gaming life.
Couldn't agree more! The Skaarj are some of the most frustrating enemies in an FPS video game. Their AI is so advanced for the time. They are frustrating in a good way though, that every battle with them leaves you feeling satisfied or even lucky that you survived.
32:54 Just wanted to point out there is a message log at the begining of the level indicating 17 skaarj still alive which is exactly how many eventually spawn in the area before the electric fence.
it's a log from tatiana zimny, in polish it means cold, and kran means a tap. i wonder if it any relates, but i've just seen that all the prisoners etc. have eastern european names. as a matter of fact it makes sense, because unreal takes super mario to another dimention and the human ships look somewhat hydraulic if you see it
Hey Civvie did you know that if you kill crucified Nali in a distance in mountains in Bluff Eversmoking a thunder will come from the sky and give you super health? Also, you can get ASMD in secret way earlier ;) I love you man, thank you for covering this underrated gem.
You'll be pleased to know that Epic just gave the OldUnreal crew the go-ahead to redistribute Unreal and UT99, alongside their existing unofficial patches. Unreal II, UT2004, and UT3 are still MIA though.
It reminds me of the story of every single freaking developer ever to survive eight years of existance. I have so much venom for gaming now that I've damn near quit it entirely. Down to maybe two per YEAR, I used to get around a half dozen per month if not a full dozen or more during the days when I thought steam sales were a good thing.
I would not have had a problem with Epic focusing on Fortnite its money cow if they at least allowed Unreal to stay alive. They are outright making sure that no one from the community can continue development of UT4 and have been trying to completely erase the legacy of the Unreal franchise from the universe. Valve at least gives freedom to the community to continue their franchises and pays homage to them. Epic is ashamed of Unreal. That's how bad it is. Imagine being ashamed of making of the most revolutionary games of all times. Also imo UT3 is awesome. It has the awesome game modes of 2004, the awesome maps, and tbh overtime I've grown to like how it was colorful and realistic at the same time.
30:58 yeah, its an enemy wave event, so after killing the first Skaarj, it triggers one at a time to spawn until you kill them all, for the grate to open. Whether that first Skaarj triggers the alarm or not unfortunately doesn't matter =P Woulda been a fun little easter egg that if you killed that first Skaarj before he triggered the alarm, the rest wouldn't spawn and you could go on your merry way.
I was not prepared for Civvie to go on that tirade about the state of the modern gaming industry in the intro but it was put into words here better than anyone else I've ever heard say it. Good on you for taking the safety off your mouth every once in a while Civvie, they deserve it.
23:00 Far as I'm aware, it has to do with projectiles that arc in general. Something about the bot AI not knowing how to react to stuff that doesn't travel in a straight line. I'm not complaining, it makes the Eightball grenades and the GES Bio Rifle real facewreckers against the Skaarj and whatever's a bad time for them is always a good time for me.
I finally played through this game last year and was completely blown away by it. I feel your pain in the sad fact that it is forgotten entirely, now with Epic killing it off by delisting it on stores. The enemy AI for the Skaarj made them one of the most frustrating set of enemies I've ever faced in an FPS game. It's the Berserker Skaarj that gave me the most fits. There's a blue one in the Darkening level in a cramped hallway that is a serious pain. I loved how the story was told through the translator logs. By the time you reach the crashed IVS-Kran ship, you start finding logs about a human named Kira who was kidnapped by Skaarj. You end up finding her prison cell in Buff Eversmoking and follow a trail thinking you might find another survivor to link up with. You eventually find her body in the tower.
Any other Civvie 11 fans catch this, Strat's channel is a fun watch if you are into old school RPGs or deep dives into RPG mechanics, it's a great channel to subscribe to.
ID: Changing of the guard over 2 decades ago, new guard has made new games that are true to the IP, remastered old ips, celebrated its fans with huge conventions, made a new version of doom for SNES that will sell and work in a SNES. Tim Sweeney: Why aren't people paying me money? New players: What's unreal? (walks off and plays doom/quake)
I remember reading somewhere that one of the composer's PC couldn't run Unreal, so they had to make fitting music based on the level description in a .txt file.
I still vividly remember the very first Skaarj encounters, forever burned into my memory as was the soundtrack! Fun fact: The events of Unreal are acknowledged in Unreal Championship 2. A Skaarj contestant expresses anger of the death of their queen, and when asked why the Skaarj attacked humans, he points out it wasn't personal, the Skaarj just like hunting lesser species. They also rounded up another Nali to slaughter them repeatedly as a sport.
In Unreal Tournament one of the first one on one death match levels is against the sole survivor of the ISV Kran who hopes to forget the nightmare of witnessing most of their fellow crewmates being butchered by Skaarj by perishing in the tournament.
That and some of the music. The theme from ctf_face ("Facing Worlds", best ctf map of any game ever) still pops into my head and it's been like 20 years.
Dropping into the zombie sewer in Quake for the first time as a kid was pure horror. Playing with keyboard controls made everything harder. Then you have to figure out how to get out. I can't remember if I figured out they needed to be blown up with grenades the first time I played.
Unreal will never die as there are some who are still working on projects such as Krull0r's insanely good remake. I also hope to keep the classic unreal going as part of a large project I am working on myself.
Man Civvie 11 has a bad habit of informing me on corporate bullshit I didn’t know I needed to be sad about. Really feel the awe and wonder of a person playing this for the first time back when it first launched.
Ah yessss 98 was an amazing year. I remember playing Half life and Unreal at the same lan parties back then. It was crazy how different they played. Looking back I wish Unreal had won out and we had more games like it.
It was the time when sci-fi shooters felt outdated, but god forgive us we've made mistakes. Thanks to today's technologies we have much awesome indy stuff like Dusk, Amid Evil, Incision etc Today's AAA shooters are military-themed pieces of shit
This was the first game that I told myself as a kid working at 14 that I NEED a gaming pc. After buying one from a pc builder..... man this GAME RULED! The nostalgia right now is kicking.
Operation Na Pali, a single player mod for UT99 is a true expansion pack for Unreal. You'll visit even Vortex Rikers at the end with the insta shock rifle.
I always liked Unreal more than Half-Life. Amazing atmospheric, music, weapons, environments, enemies ... it's got it all. (HL is still great though.) I also remember my dad pretty much buying a whole new PC to play this game.
Oh be afraid of no fanboys, or I can say it for you: Half Life sucks balls. Only got popular because kids loved real-world guns mad those days, and didn't need a non-crap PC. Otherwise: shitty outdated graphics (lol Quake 1 engine, upgraded for the skeletal anims so useless with those chunky models, and some explosions looking shit because Turok - still the textures were blurry af), a DooM/Quake-carbon-copy story, really one of the worst level designs I've seen (especially as there were Quake1 mission packs and TCs that were designed much better)... Glad it aged well and died by now, as is annoying and easy af by the modern standards. Funny enough, most of the Unreal's negative reviews were bashing the "excessive difficulty", something that helps to keep one neat and shiny even today :)
Half-Life is Definitely a bit overrated, but its nothing compare to bloated praise what Half-Life 2 has. HL2 is a glorified tech-demo with Boring, Outdated and even worse game design than HL1. I really don't get why the game part progressed backwards so much. I was a die-hard Half-life and Valve fan, Looking back i sincerely believe HALO was better in every single way that HL tried to achieve and everyone should had played it instead.
The bit about Epic not preserving or acknowledging it's history is one of those things that thankfully has a happy ending as of today, with Epic officially promoting and linking to the Freeware releases of the games with the fan patches.
God, I loved this game when it first came out! Escaping the claustrophobic prison ship and suddenly being in a huge valley, with birds flying overhead, and little rabbity things hopping around! And the glorious music! It blew my mind. So glad that it is getting quite a lot of retrospective attention recently - it seemed almost forgotten about for a very long time.
The fact this early Unreal engine supported colored lighting and absolutely _massive size_ maps compared to the relatively tiny segmented maps in Q1, Q2, Q3, GoldSrc, LithTech and other engines back then was a big factor. Actually everything about this engine's capabilities were the best of the late-90s to early 2000s period, though most of the really superior effects (like real time light/shadows, gourad shading, hi-res & detail textures, etc) wouldn't be utilized until later games like Undying when hardware had improved by a couple years. I still find the Unreal1/UT99 versions of the engine very impressive in what they're capable of. And they just have a certain aesthetic "look" that you can instantly recognize too, regardless of the game. I kind of miss that, nerdy as it is. Nowadays of course everything looks incredible but it all runs on the latest Unreal or Unity and all look the same.
The unreal 2 Damn gets me everytime. I've always appreciated Unreal because with its creation it also gave us Unreal Tournament (With a better flak and ASMD Shock Rifle and the REDEEMER.) 99 and 200(3)4. It's a shame they ditched the UT they were working on and may never revive the Unreal series... and yet they're not the only ones who've done it.
Eh, every new version of UT was a wild advancement in tech, but a step backwards in some key elements of the original. I for one, rather missed the horrid death screams and the death anims in ut2004, ragdolling made deaths seem cartoonish rather than brutal, and original ut99 was already not as brutal as original Unreal in the gory horrible death department. Another nitpick is getting rid of the high-damage slowfire automags and replacing them with some crappy high speed tiny damage assault rifles no one wants to use.
My first exposure to Unreal was Tournament in 99. Still have it on a thumb drive and jam it once in a while. A masterpiece of multi-player. Fast, chaotic, satisfying gibbage!
I remember being obsessed with Unreal 1 (aka Old Unreal) back when I was a kid. I still play through this game every year or two. Unreal 1 was what got me into story writing, then into making maps (in UT2004), and finally infected me with love for tracker music. Thanks for bringing back the memories Civvie!
I think that Unreal was the first game I ever saw with an official post launch patch. They made a lot of the weapons stronger, because in the launch version the enemies were mad tanky. The Stinger got a significant buff in the patch, they even changed the model just a bit if I remember correctly.
They also changed all the weapon sounds at some point to much beefier ones, most of which made it to Unreal Tournament as well. Fun fact - they were made by Sonic Mayhem of Quake 2 fame. He's credited in both Unreal Gold and UT.
I remember seeing Unreal for the first time in a PC shop and this man could see the awe I had looking at this strange new game and then...he walked into a wall and there were NO PIXELS, my mind was blown back then.
Not only no pixels, but when you used 3Dfx Glide, Direct3D or S3 MeTal renderers, you could see detail textures layered onto the main texture to give you an impression that the texture is more detailed than it really is.
@@AnubitekOfficial The same engine, after all, although Deus Ex didn't use as much capabilities as Unreal itself did. Though I must say, Deus Ex utilized hub levels which is impressive on its own rights.
The only Unreal game that Digital Extremes didn't help make is the only one that's rumored to be having a re-release. Very interesting indeed. Digital Extremes deserves more credit for those than Epic.
Still have my Diamond Monster Fusion 16 MB card.....first was a Verite 2100 4 MB (that overclocked from 40 Mhz to 70, with some added heat sinks...and a fan). That transition from non accelerated to accelerated was epic!
This game still kicks all kinds of Unreal ass. Thanks for finally covering this one Civvie and for reminding me of when Epic used to be a great company.
No ones gonna read this, but the little predator guys were the most feared enemy in monster hunt maps in UT99. Map creators would put a swarm of 100s of these guys with massive amounts of health and damage to insta kill you as a way not to stray off the beaten path. They are so extremely aggressive sometimes their AI was put other enemies as final bosses, I remember hating fighting a queen that is so aggressive with a massive health pool. The modding community for 99 was so insane I miss it so much, a core part of my childhood.
I appreciate Civvie's rant about Epic killing what was it's flag ship shooter. I couldn't have said it better. Rip Unreal.
It made me sad. Why does the AAA gaming industry suck so hard nowadays? Everything has to be a product. There’s no passion.
@@yogxoth1959 Because passion doesn't rake ALL the money like the cash cow that is "live service" nowadays. Remember, to corpos like EPIC, it's always about the money.
@@yogxoth1959 Welcome to late-stage-capitalism.
@@haydentravis3348 Quite likely more like terminal stage.
Well, at least these games can be still played now and later on accessed via emulation. The same can't be said of these modern titles which "eco-friendly" vanish pretty much into thin air once the plug is pulled from the servers.
The box of this game was covered in one giant high res in-game screenshot, that's how good it looked at the time.
Yeah it was pretty amazing, I looked at it every time I saw it in a store, but my dad just wouldn't buy it. We bought Quake 2 instead, and also were waiting for Half Life 1 to release. We played that Half Life Uplink demo and we knew it was coming soon.
@@casedistorted Uplink was my first exposure to Half-Life, that demo blew my young mind at the time.
@@INFILTR8US I always thought it was neat how Uplink is its own unique levels rather than just a portion of the base game. I get why companies don't always do that with demos, but it's nice to see.
@@IsmailofeRegime Uplink was cut content from the base game repackaged into a demo. There was also Half-Life: Day One, which was basically a shareware of Half-Life.
@@StevenJShow Yeah I'm aware Uplink was cobbled together from cut content, Valve basically did the same thing with the Lost Coast level for Half-Life 2 (which had likewise been cut only to be repurposed to show off new graphical effects added to the Source engine.)
Actually on the ISV Kraan's upper decks, the game spawns exactly 20 Skaarj. There's a log entry that mentions that the crew killed 40 but 20 remains. I tested this by literally killing all of them and counting. It actually spawns exactly 20. Which is a pain to fight through (literally had no ammo left by the end) but at least they're honest.
Also the stone titan - you don't' have to kill him, just hop on his throne. Once you do, the bridge goes up and you can DROP IT from the OTHER SIDE while the stone titan is on it.
There was this whole subplot where you are chasing in the footsteps of another human female by reading her diary entries. You eventually find her corpse near the hydroelectric lift at bluff eversmoking. That hit me hard when I played this in 1999. I haven't played unreal since and still remember that moment.
Yeah, those who read translator messages followed Kira's footsteps from ISV-Kran to Bluff Eversmokin (almost 1/3 of the game). It was sad to find her *simply* dead in the tower.
It's funny how such a simple touch as those logs helped immersion so much. I tried to read all of them.
Kira's subplot actually starts even further back when you first leave the Vortex Riker, the Security Team you find dead have logs stating they contacted ISV-Kran via radio, later the Nali Talk of the "Sky Demons" coming to the Temple of Water after a "Thunder Bird" crashed from the Heavens. The whole game sets up later portions via log entries and environmental details (like seeing the Sunspire in the far distance from Terranux) and it's a fantastic bit of world building that really rewarded those who explored or paid close attention.
@@SerfsUp1848 Yeah, if you never cared to change your character, the default one is Gina and she's a big girl (female, type 1) full of tatoos and spite.
@@SerfsUp1848 Oh, go away.
RIP Civvie, his final episode before the Clown Room claimed him. (An hour long, we're spoiled)
Don't worry, clones are a thing. Also, time travel. Multiverse Theory, too.
i wonder if civvie knows it's "impotent rage" not "imponent rage". funnily enough "imponent" is also a word but it means something reaaaally different
#FreeCivvie
@@cheater00 I'm sure he meant imponent, look at the position he's trapped in
I just love the end of this vid.
"....what's in the Clown Room?"
"......desolation."
That's one of your best intro segments ever. You put real passion and work into this "shitpost youtube review show", and it's not only evident; it's _appreciated._
Having never played the single player games, I never understood the "You fight like Nali" taunt from UT2k4 but now, suddenly, I do.
I'll never forget playing Unreal using the invisibility power-up and getting closer to a group of enemies that were all next to each other only to find out... they were playing dice. What a game.
In UT99 they actually went to the trouble of making the scrap metal bits the flak cannon fires molten-hot when first fired, then eventually cooling down to a gray color after a while. You can find a lot of tiny detail like that went into the game if you play with the timescale and take time to look around in super slo-mo.
This is stuff that goes into games when devs have talent, and no asshole publishers breathing down their necks about deadlines all the time.
@@J.DeLaPoer Theres also a smiley face on the front of the Flak Cannon mortar shell.
@@GuitarKid581 I found that out when I found myself at the wrong end of a flak cannon headshot for the first time. When the smiley face is perfectly visible on your entire screen for a microsecond, you know someone got you good.
i think its in bluff eversmoking. feels like they devoted more time to that map.
@@scooterdescooter4018 yup, 4 krall in the cellars.
Civvie's experience with Unreal was my experience with Halo. Stepping onto the ringworld after a level of gray hallways. Assault On The Control Room being a vast and expansive level with lore and everything good about the game.
I know he doesn't like Halo but man, took me back.
I loved Halo ever since the MCC came to PC and I beat Unreal just a few hours ago, loved it too!
I’d agree as someone in the same boat. Playing Unreal after decades of Halo definitely was a cool experience in its own way, as you could retroactively see the point in which these games changed.
I had the same experience with Halo, honestly. Halo, then Halo 2, then Halo 3. My favorite of the three is Halo 3 :D
I also had a similar experience with Metroid Prime on gamecube.
@@ShadethewolfyBro, that moment you step out into Phendrana Drifts and the gentle music kicked in really stuck out to me, it was awesome.
I know what you mean. I loved exploring Tallon IV in MP. I think what really stuck out to me was originally touching down and seeing this rainy environment you land in.
Gave me warm fuzzies just like when I first emerged out of the life pod on Installation 04 :D@@bladeworksmaster
"Former metaverse voice of reason John Carmack" I'm glad you're keeping the recurring Carmack bit up to date and topical
And that may just be the highest compliment Civvie ever gave Carmack. Lovecraftian analogies are cool and all, but being the voice of sanity in a company guided by a complete bozo with no foot in reality is some real shit right there.
"The non Euclidean shape shifting wizard Messiah from the 7th dimension otherwise known as John Carmack"
@@DinnerForkTongue zuck looks like gecko the frog, i can't shake the un-easy feeling when he is looking into the camera..
Civvie is one of the few TH-camrs that I actively wait for new content. It's always such high quality and always a joy to watch.
Same dude, same
same how does this guy exist in the matrix
Same and I think I'm pretty picky when it comes to content.
AVGN and Civvie for me. SummoningSalt too.
Correct.
Just one thing about the 8-ball: you can "ball" it, having your rockets grouped in a ball, instead of spreaded out. Press both primary and secondary for it.
i truly miss the blending of sci-fi and fantasy elements found in this era of games
Fortnite is doing a lot of that right now.
@@TheFloodFourm ...Kriff that trash.
Is it me or do baby Scar look like headcrabs?
Read Heavy Metal magazine. Or bug civvie to play the FAKK2 game.
@@TheFloodFourm I hope you understand the irony of what you just said.
Way back in high school some madlad installed the original Unreal Tournament into the school's directory. We had LAN matches over the school network in computer lab. It was pretty dope.
Same here, but in middle school. That is, until the admin caught on and banned the executable.
@NerfPlayeR135 Did anyone try renaming the exe? That works surprisingly often.
Same here in an Australian high school. Not just UT, though. Halo CE, Counterstrike, Age of Empires 2, Warcraft 3 and Dawn of War Dark Crusade all made it on there. Every time admin removed the exes, a new game would turn up.
Also, the IT teacher was a chad and gave away games to his class for an end of year LAN tournament, which inevitably ended up joining the list.
So did our high school! Library became a war zone on Facing Worlds
Fuckin legend
It can't be overstated how awesome that shining reflective floor was back in the day.
It's still impressive considering how many modern games fuck up mirrored surfaces.
Mafia fucking 3 mirrors are just a circus
@@KillThad I know right, I'm currently replaying Deus Ex for the billionth time and it still looks mesmerizing.
It still looks good now.
@@KillThadunreal limited shiny surfaces to smaller rooms. If you go into noclip mode you can see the geometry is literally automatically copied under the surface of the floor. The same method is simply not viable today. Nowadays mirrors either use raytracing, screen space reflection (which is not very accurate) or rendering a scene to a texture.
The whole section about the delisting of Unreal really hit hard
How far the mighty have fallen and this video has more respect and does more for Unreal than Epic have in many, many years
Now stay tuned for some classic throwback Skaarj skins... in Fortnite!
Or don't. Maybe if we all ignore them, they'll go away? Maybe?!
Every old and beloved game developers decided "Fuck passion, let's shackle ourselves to the teat of Mammon".
It saddens me to no end that the new UT will never leave pre-alpha. It was so much fun when people still played it.
I'd bet money theyre doing that to remake it... poorly... and you people are gonna buy it anyway lmao
*laughs in bought before delisting* Its still in my library on GOG despite the store page being nuked, so im good for as long as i live (And frankly its an eerily stable game despite its extreme age)
I remember asking Ross Scott if he'd cover Unreal and he told me he probably wouldn't. Thanks Civvie. I love Unreal's whole vibe.
Ross stays so busy and stressed, I doubt he has time right now honestly.
Ross is too busy fighting time travel sabotage.
More on that later.
@@T0asty- lol... Good one!!!
BETA!
Honestly I think Unreal is to normal for Ross. Still wouldn't mind seeing it. Unreal doesn't get enough love.
“Putting a giant spider in your game is almost as stock as putting a sewer in.”
(Resident Evil 2’s sewer spiders sweat profusely)
Pretty sure spiders don't sweat
@@NIgHTMaReFortyTwoyea they lactate
@@davidtaylor4577can't be any weirder the. The fact that platapus sweat milk
@NIgHTMaReFortyTwo thank god you turned up to kill the joke
Blood spiders start sweating spider-children
Flak cannon is, without question, the best feeling shotgun in video game history.
I'd also like to suggest that the ASMD Shock Rifle is the best *laser* in game history, but admittedly the one in Unreal 1 is probably the series' least impressive version of it.
I loved the Eightball
@@nickporter4279
Deadass. It sounds the best, though, even if the visuals don't match it.
I think it is one of the best weapons period
Tie between FEAR Shotgun and Flak Cannon for me. Flak is dangerous to winning.
There is something about the esthetic and athmosphere of the first Unreal Engine that continues to fascinate me to this day. I used to have term for it "Unreal feeling". It is something that I have never experienced with any other game, only Unreal and the first Unreal Tournament.
Unreal in terms of graphics I think was the first game that used 3D stuff to actually look beautiful. Games like Quake or System Shock may have had 3D, but Unreal was majestic and imaginative in way other 3D games at the time weren't. I get what you mean.
Even though they are not the main focus, I always enjoy the prison skits
... almost as good as the sewers.
@@apheirox SEWER COUNT: 284
That Alexander Brandon soundtrack immediately transports me back in time.
I love the fact that every level starts with the level designer's name alongside the level's name.
And that the next map starts where the previous map ended. That was rather new too.
@@De-M-oN Like Civ said, atmosphere. You felt like you were in an actual breathing world. Progression.
The OST is a legit banger and I still listen to it regularly
Unreal Tournament OST still going strong
the demoscene produced a hell of a lot of good musicians
@@priitmolder6475 Forgone Destruction. That is all.
Michiel van den Bos is a master at making unforgettable soundtracks. Unreal, UT, Deus Ex
Legit? Well, I'm glad it's not fake.
45:48 "Sneak by, go downstairs, hit the lights, make a barricade to slow them down."
Unreal is an Immersive Sim
any game is a immersive sim if you think hard enough
@@atarijaguarfan7893 any game if you're comparing pre- Casual Revolution (~2005) of the mainstream industry, to games from after that time. The 'immersive sim' thing is a fun joke which does however illustrate (with hyperbole) the actual truth when you replace "Immersive Sim" with ".. game that was actually designed with player agency in mind"
@@JohnnyNatrium Project Zomboid
@@360Fov I said "of the mainstream industry" and you name a game whose developers are literally called "The Indie Stone". It couldn't be a sillier response.
RLCoop
"They can crawl around if you blow their legs off, but otherwise, nah, they're useless."
I love the implication that it is their sole function to have their legs blown off.
😂😂😂😂😂
There's a cool extra feature to the Eightball, too. If you tap the alternate fire while you are charging the primary fire, it will fire the rockets in a circle instead of a line, concentrating the fire. Absolutely deletes almost anything it hits.
This was carried over to Unreal Tournament's Rocket Launcher as well.
Whaaaaat?! Sweet baby Jayzus . . .
@@NerfPlayeR135 That's right! Actually if I remember, tapping the button works for UT and you may have to hold the button in Unreal.
Damn, could have used this information twenty years ago. That's fucking awesome. I already thought this game was peak weapon design.
@@garretteverett2613 It's really surprising how little I've ever heard anybody talk about it. I found it by accident back in the day.
I remember coming out of a building in Unreal, approaching some random cliffside, looking up at the skybox and actually getting a moment of mild vertigo. I'd never experienced a game so wide-open before.
Unreal will always hold a special place in my heart.
I was born in 2004 and when I was young I once sneaked up to my dads office, he was on his computer playing a game.
I asked him what that game was, and he told me its Unreal. A game he loved and used to play a lot when he was in University in the late 90s. I asked him if I could play or watch him play. He told me I was too young and it would probably scare me. But when I was around 13/14 and got my first own PC I saved up for, my dad one day came into my room and handed me a CD, we all can guess what that CD was. That night we spent playing the game, I played and experienced it and my dad was there to introduce me to it, and told stories "Oh at this section I was stuck for a long time back then, heres what you need to do..."
I played through it and Na Pali and have since played through both of them at least once a year.
Soon my mom will be away for a weekend with my sister, and Dad asked me if I still have Unreal. Of course I have, he wants to play it again and thats what we will do at one day of the free weekend, the other day we will watch a movie.
Unreal will always be a core memory with my dad, my introduction to gaming and I will always keep my copy
Seeing Vandora unlocked a
very specific memory from my childhood.
mmm
Give it about a week and the artists out there will make you relive said memory not as it was, but as you remember it being.
I remember mostly being curious as to why is the painting so detailed compared to everything else in the game.
I guess the artist decided to make the most of a rare opportunity to put a big green lady with wings and quad damage into the game.
Quad damage, that got a good old laugh out of me 🤣
I remember when this came out. Seeing this for the first rendered in a gaming store blew my mind.
I'll say. When I first got into PC gaming in '96, I started with games like, well, Doom or Duke Nukem 3D. I skipped Quake at the time, so I directly went from those games to Unreal. Talk about a leap forward.
Same. Made me get Into pc gaming cuse there was nothing close to that on console
Yes, seeing this for the first rendered in a gaming store blew my mind as well.
@@Ganibbasald I too, love the first render
Its fascinating to see the similarities between Halo and Unreal, especially in the first levels.
Walking outside for the first time in this game was one of those game milestone moments you can't appreciate unless you experienced it at the time: the 3D environment of Doom, the tram ride in Half Life, the "seamless" transition to pre-rendered cutscenes in Final Fantasy 7, experiencing Grand Theft Auto 3 in 2001.
I can definitely still taste it even today, almost like it's 2005 again. Going out into the canyon is a think I never, ever, EVER autopilot through.
I'm curious what younger people think looking at this, people who started playing games beyond 2010. I imagine it would be like a 20 year old looking at the Half Life tram ride and going, "So what?"
@@dorpth As someone who started gaming after 2012 and first saw Unreal in 2021, I'm still impressed. That transition from gloomy ship interiors to wide-open alien world is just so perfect, never seen anything that hits like it.
this moment, deus ex, myth the fallen lords and halo combat evolved really birthed my love of gaming
I have been floored by only a handful of games in my life. I've been around gaming since the days of atari lol. This is one of those games. I went from quake to this and honestly avoided half life for the longest time. It looked dull to me compared to this game.
There is a full fan-made remaster being made at the moment. It's called Unreal Redux. There is a TH-cam channel and a website for it which any fans of this game should check out!
🤔 I'll have to keep an ear on the ground for it.
I heard Unreal Evolution is a really good mod, too.
Epic is going to C&D it
Trying to play the original now is difficult, because the text is so small on the menus etc. I'll def look into this redux - thanks for the tip-off.
@@flanovskiydtauskiy5870 Evolution is really not. Strange angry social reject of a dev who isn't all that good at modding, destroying your Unreal install for his mod to work.
51:09 You are correct, a lot of the levels in Return To Na Pali were from the Beta version of Unreal, content that never made it to the finished release. Though I have these beta versions, and the Return To Na Pali versions of the levels have definitely been cleaned up and some a good bit different (see Spire Valley which was originally a hub map). A lot of levels in Return To Na Pali are original though to this expansion, Nevec (one of my all time favorite levels with a bangin soundtrack), Glathriel village 1 and 2, all the Prometheus Crashsite levels, etc. I'm surprised they didn't use more from the Beta, there were a LOT of levels cut. The Beta version of Unreal was twice if not 3x as long, it's crazy how much there used to be and how much got scrapped (I imagine so it all fit on one CD back then lol).
Interesting to hear this. I always knew a significant chunk of RTNP was restored beta content but didn't realise just how much was cut from the original game. A shame we didn't get to experience official releases of these maps, I would've loved to explore more of the planet. Unfortunately I felt the expansion was a huge let down compared to the original game. A few interesting ideas, but I never enjoyed the flow and the magic just wasn't there for me, it still felt like a beta product. Perhaps recapturing the spirit of the original was something that couldn't be repeated?
Completely agree with you on the Nevec music, that track is incredible. The music in Unreal elevated the atmosphere so much. I still remember dismantling the Unreal soundtrack circa 2000 using tracking software to understand how each of the tracks were composed. Alexander Brandon and Michiel van den Bos produced some amazing work!
To believe in this day and age the cut levels would still make unreal a shortgame in todays standards.
Albeit, admittingly unreal has a lot more "pure content" then a lot of these 30-50 hour games which just reuse assets in a sort of a hub world with quests and even side quests to increase gameplay time.
A fun, slightly useful fact about the Eightball Gun: If you hold down the primary, then the secondary (Or vice versa) then release whichever you held first, it keeps your shots in a much tighter hexagonal spread.
Also the sniper rifle doesn't actually zoom, it just massively increases your FOV to simulate it.
@@ReviewShark hey I just saw that video! Yeah I was on an Unreal review binge, topped with Unreal Redux stream yesterday, and Civvie tops it off with his own Unreal video.
@@ReviewShark That's how zoom in all games work. Or IRL, for that matter
Feels so weird hearing the Unreal Gold weapon sounds and knowing the weapons sounded different in the base game.
OldUnreal 227j patch comes with OldWeapons mutator to restore the original sounds. I prefer the Gold's sounds, though.
@@pooshrulez The original flak and rockets sounds are iconic.
@@ferrousscale I knew it! I knew the flak cannon didn't sound like I remembered!
The original flak cannon's little car horn beep-beep is frankly one of my favourite things in this game.
gold is patch 226..the sounds came before unreal gold from what I remember. probably patch 224 did this. Unreal =! unreal gold...
many players and servers post na pali release + UT release still opted to use 225, 226 had an incompatible and unstable server client + the editor would crash constantly...so 225 lasted all the way up until 227 became popular ~2008 which brought the two version together the right way imo.
The flak cannon is so badass that it's not a shotgun: It's a grenade launcher that shreds its grenades to create a spread of shrapnel that ricochets. This thing in close quarters was literally a slap chop.
The slightly insane cousin of the Bolter.
"Slap Chop" lol, now i'm imagining Vince Offer selling Flak Cannons
I think you mean Slap My Nuts.
actually grenade launchers and shotguns have a lot of in common.
@@Damian_1989 ONE SHOT, BAM, SALAD, TWO SHOTS, PICO DE GALLO
"...it's called unreal because it is." Actual chills!!
Using that Snatch clip when talking about the Flak Cannon is *excellent* taste, primo flavor, absolutely divine~
It's Unreal how much effort Civvie put into this video.
You... you literally could not have watched it, it came out 17 minutes before you posted.... lol
I say we report him to the authoritys!
@@DysprosiumMr Three words: Patreon early release
:p
Truly Epic
Its UnReal how much love we all have for civvie
"I don't support child labor... children are SHIT at their jobs."
I'm a parent and this made me laugh a little too hard. Love you Civvie. XD
The Unreal rocket noise is almost as iconic as the Quake grenade sound.
More so for me. I love Quake. I really love Quake, but I loved any excuse to play UT at my friends who had a Dreamcast or PC. Every weapon was a joy to use. It's fun to see the debut of these iconic weapons. I got Unreal Gold when it was free on GoG, but I sadly have not got much beyond leaving the ship yet.
It's more the loading sound for me. LOAD DEM ROCKETS!
No, hard disagree here. First, rocket sounds you hear is not even the original sounds, it was changed in a later patch shipped with Unreal Gold, you can hear the original sounds in th-cam.com/video/W8xcuGRelq0/w-d-xo.html. Second, it is too damn loud to the point that it peaks out sound cards and turns into pure noise
No matter how advanced game engines get, UE1 will always looks amazing to me.
Something about the foliage and liquids just look so much nicer than straight realistic graphics. There's also just something so gorgeous about when you first leave your ship and look out over the fields and the cliff above the water. Just gorgeous.
He is playing The Gold version. I still have the original unpatched cd and it still looks pretty to this day - tho there is a lot of graphic bugs
A good engine is required for sure, but talented artists and level designers are the ones who make the game amazing. For instance, Bioshock and Postal 2 were built on the same Unreal Engine 2. And crappy Unreal 2: The Awakening too...
Same I bought my first GPU for the game and it truly blew my mind at the difference.
The fantasy world with good artists will always look better than any attempt at realism. Prove me wrong.
This is hands down the best and most accurate unreal tribute on TH-cam. You killed it. As a lifelong Unreal mega fan, thank you so much for this. I absolutely loved it. ❤️❤️❤️
15:16 That Skaarj encounter actually got me, made me feel a bit nervous.
It was scary as shit back in the day, not as bad now with a wealth of worse horror games played, but for the time it was nuts
There is a similar encounter in Ion Fury. Not as nervous, but it can catch you good too.
My shit dad gifted me this gem when i was but a toddler. That part scared me shitless :D Id just restart and go again until that part.
HOO! HOH! HAH!
Funfact: The "Gina" model shares the same face as the Nali goddess Vandora. She's also the model most commonly featured in unreal promotional material. Meaning she's most likely the "canon" prisoner 849.
And worst of all...Gina is used an inspiration for one of Fortnite's stock models...
The default model or name is usually the canon one. The only exceptions I can think of are the Suikoden and Quest for Glory games (some Personas too IIRC?) where the protagonists' canon names are only in the novelisations.
That explains why the male VO is sub-par though: it was an extra added in when skin swaps were implemented in single player.
Looking back at everything I'm surprised that the default Prisoner 849 didn't become anywhere nearly as iconic as other FPS protagonists of the day. Maybe that's just because there were so many alternative choices for what they looked like.
Not sure if she's got the "same" face as Vandora, low poly graphics and all, but they've got the same expression in the art for SURE.
Something else I forgot, but there is a bit of text in bluff eversmoking that refers to the prophesied hero as being a "savior princess from the stars".
There's a girl who was setup up to be such a princess but she dies in that chapter.
Making the implications turn onto the player character (Gina)
Something I noticed while watching was that the Automag actually makes clicking noises when fired with low ammo, like how a real pistol might. That’s a nice touch, even games today don’t get that detail right, I like it.
Yeah thats a detail i know. I didnt know a real pistol sould sound like that when low ammo
Happens in various Gears of War games iirc, certainly with the lancer.
Goddammit Civvie, you made me cry by the 7th minute mark from a mixture of nostalgia and agreement with your statement. Keep up the good work and keep spreading the good word on Unreal and other dying game franchises.
He did it! HE DID IT!!!!
UNREAL 1!!!!
Been waiting for this one, was just watching Unreal Redux level-making stream yesterday. The hype is Unreal all over again.
when Slayer's Testament update
Oh man. Watching civvie's video I was thinking I might install Unreal myself. Haven't played it in years. I'd not heard about Redux. It's not out yet. Now I don't know if I should wait for it or not.
Skaarj are still my favourite enemies in all of video games, absolutely awesome design and smart AI. Thank you for this video, great editing. I remember how I was in mindblown at that time by Unreal's graphics, was reading all the notes, I was so immersed into that world. Great time to begin my gaming life.
Couldn't agree more! The Skaarj are some of the most frustrating enemies in an FPS video game. Their AI is so advanced for the time. They are frustrating in a good way though, that every battle with them leaves you feeling satisfied or even lucky that you survived.
@@mikemurdock7234 What do you mean "for the time"? Do you know many examples of a better AI in modern shooter games?
32:54 Just wanted to point out there is a message log at the begining of the level indicating 17 skaarj still alive which is exactly how many eventually spawn in the area before the electric fence.
it's a log from tatiana zimny, in polish it means cold, and kran means a tap. i wonder if it any relates, but i've just seen that all the prisoners etc. have eastern european names. as a matter of fact it makes sense, because unreal takes super mario to another dimention and the human ships look somewhat hydraulic if you see it
Hey Civvie did you know that if you kill crucified Nali in a distance in mountains in Bluff Eversmoking a thunder will come from the sky and give you super health? Also, you can get ASMD in secret way earlier ;) I love you man, thank you for covering this underrated gem.
You'll be pleased to know that Epic just gave the OldUnreal crew the go-ahead to redistribute Unreal and UT99, alongside their existing unofficial patches. Unreal II, UT2004, and UT3 are still MIA though.
Epic's story reminds me a lot of Valve's story... only more... evil...
More jealous after Valve.
Epic now only wants to focus on Fortnite because it is their cash cow and just like that they are known as the Fortnite company
It reminds me of the story of every single freaking developer ever to survive eight years of existance.
I have so much venom for gaming now that I've damn near quit it entirely. Down to maybe two per YEAR, I used to get around a half dozen per month if not a full dozen or more during the days when I thought steam sales were a good thing.
I would not have had a problem with Epic focusing on Fortnite its money cow if they at least allowed Unreal to stay alive. They are outright making sure that no one from the community can continue development of UT4 and have been trying to completely erase the legacy of the Unreal franchise from the universe. Valve at least gives freedom to the community to continue their franchises and pays homage to them. Epic is ashamed of Unreal. That's how bad it is. Imagine being ashamed of making of the most revolutionary games of all times.
Also imo UT3 is awesome. It has the awesome game modes of 2004, the awesome maps, and tbh overtime I've grown to like how it was colorful and realistic at the same time.
Hopefully once the Ukraine defeats Russia, we will be able to reclaim Unreal
Does anyone have a list of all of Civie's nicknames for John Carmack? I swear they are becoming more elaborate each video
A channel called Jerry W. Shields has some.
😝
@@michaelandreipalon359 th-cam.com/video/RnkWN20xtmk/w-d-xo.html *comes in with the assist* 🏀
you know when the civvie video is over an hour long, it's gonna be a good one.
so you are saying < 1hr ones are bad? xD
The irony is this one was so good it didn't feel nearly that long.
I went back to play this game a year ago and despite all the games we have today, nothing gives me that "awe" I still get from Unreal.
Same!
same same. Thank goodness i played before Ep*c literally stole it away like grinch.
@@KingLich451
You mean Eprick?
30:58 yeah, its an enemy wave event, so after killing the first Skaarj, it triggers one at a time to spawn until you kill them all, for the grate to open. Whether that first Skaarj triggers the alarm or not unfortunately doesn't matter =P Woulda been a fun little easter egg that if you killed that first Skaarj before he triggered the alarm, the rest wouldn't spawn and you could go on your merry way.
I was not prepared for Civvie to go on that tirade about the state of the modern gaming industry in the intro but it was put into words here better than anyone else I've ever heard say it. Good on you for taking the safety off your mouth every once in a while Civvie, they deserve it.
Once the war is over, justice will be served
@@uria3679 I dislike the gaming industry as much as anyone with a brain does, but this here is peak "Gamers, Rise Up".
@Tavares0709 less gamers, more Workers. The workers need to rise up
@@Sonichero151 okay socialist. Rise up from what? 😂 any issue workers have is a result of policies which affect everyone else equally.
23:00 Far as I'm aware, it has to do with projectiles that arc in general. Something about the bot AI not knowing how to react to stuff that doesn't travel in a straight line.
I'm not complaining, it makes the Eightball grenades and the GES Bio Rifle real facewreckers against the Skaarj and whatever's a bad time for them is always a good time for me.
I finally played through this game last year and was completely blown away by it. I feel your pain in the sad fact that it is forgotten entirely, now with Epic killing it off by delisting it on stores.
The enemy AI for the Skaarj made them one of the most frustrating set of enemies I've ever faced in an FPS game. It's the Berserker Skaarj that gave me the most fits. There's a blue one in the Darkening level in a cramped hallway that is a serious pain.
I loved how the story was told through the translator logs. By the time you reach the crashed IVS-Kran ship, you start finding logs about a human named Kira who was kidnapped by Skaarj. You end up finding her prison cell in Buff Eversmoking and follow a trail thinking you might find another survivor to link up with. You eventually find her body in the tower.
Another great video. I miss days, bored, playing Unreal with mods. Loved this game as a kid.
Just watched your Gothic video the other day. Been following your channel for a couple years now, keep up the good work!
Any other Civvie 11 fans catch this, Strat's channel is a fun watch if you are into old school RPGs or deep dives into RPG mechanics, it's a great channel to subscribe to.
You missed the most busted part of the Combat Assault Rifle. You can use the altfire and primary fire at the same time.
ID: Changing of the guard over 2 decades ago, new guard has made new games that are true to the IP, remastered old ips, celebrated its fans with huge conventions, made a new version of doom for SNES that will sell and work in a SNES.
Tim Sweeney: Why aren't people paying me money?
New players: What's unreal? (walks off and plays doom/quake)
The OST has no right to be that good, i still listen to it now, just really captures you.
Alexander Brandon And Michiel Van Den Bos, two greatest composers of our time
@@LaverniusTucker2410
Easily up there with Lee Jackson and the Follin bros.
"Alexander Brandon take me to heaven!" -- Clint from LGR, 2021.
Not surprising, considering they also did the OSTs for Jazz Jackrabbit and Deus Ex.
I remember reading somewhere that one of the composer's PC couldn't run Unreal, so they had to make fitting music based on the level description in a .txt file.
I still vividly remember the very first Skaarj encounters, forever burned into my memory as was the soundtrack!
Fun fact: The events of Unreal are acknowledged in Unreal Championship 2. A Skaarj contestant expresses anger of the death of their queen, and when asked why the Skaarj attacked humans, he points out it wasn't personal, the Skaarj just like hunting lesser species.
They also rounded up another Nali to slaughter them repeatedly as a sport.
UC2 had such a good campaign. Sobek is the bro-est of bros.
"You hunted and killed us!"
"For sport, guy. For sport. As a joke. Lighten up."
UC2, yet another game with incredibly fun multiplayer we can't play anymore...
@@Maverick2736 Looks like someone might be running third-party OG XBL servers these days. I might have to get a console.
In Unreal Tournament one of the first one on one death match levels is against the sole survivor of the ISV Kran who hopes to forget the nightmare of witnessing most of their fellow crewmates being butchered by Skaarj by perishing in the tournament.
RIP Unreal.
That laugh you gave when you figured out the speed boost on the conveyor belts was great, pure joy. Thanks for another great one, Civvie.
The sound of those rockets loading brings back some great memories of Unreal Tournament
That and some of the music. The theme from ctf_face ("Facing Worlds", best ctf map of any game ever) still pops into my head and it's been like 20 years.
43:36 Quake Zombie moans will always give me chills. "Thou canst not kill that which doth not live, but you _can_ blast it into chunky kibble"
That just makes me think of Ahoy's video on Quake where they voiced the same quote
Dropping into the zombie sewer in Quake for the first time as a kid was pure horror. Playing with keyboard controls made everything harder. Then you have to figure out how to get out. I can't remember if I figured out they needed to be blown up with grenades the first time I played.
@@quintonhowells299 I heard it in his voice in my head
moo-rwoh-oo 😥
1:07:41 fun fact, in the original level in the beta, this was a Titan fight :)
Unreal will never die as there are some who are still working on projects such as Krull0r's insanely good remake. I also hope to keep the classic unreal going as part of a large project I am working on myself.
The Return to Na Pali guy sounding like an 18 year old never ceases to crack me up.
Kinda interesting what his crime was. As Civvie pointed out, he doesn't sound like hardened criminal.
@@quint3ssent1a Pirating Unreal, ironically.
1:13:50 That might be the worst, scariest, most threatening sentence ever uttered. You could feel Civvie's heart sink in the pause for effect.
Thank you to Katie or whoever puts these subtitles in Civvie’s videos- I can watch them in class without needing headphones. Keep up the good work!
👍
Man Civvie 11 has a bad habit of informing me on corporate bullshit I didn’t know I needed to be sad about. Really feel the awe and wonder of a person playing this for the first time back when it first launched.
Ah yessss 98 was an amazing year. I remember playing Half life and Unreal at the same lan parties back then. It was crazy how different they played. Looking back I wish Unreal had won out and we had more games like it.
It was the time when sci-fi shooters felt outdated, but god forgive us we've made mistakes.
Thanks to today's technologies we have much awesome indy stuff like Dusk, Amid Evil, Incision etc
Today's AAA shooters are military-themed pieces of shit
This was the first game that I told myself as a kid working at 14 that I NEED a gaming pc. After buying one from a pc builder..... man this GAME RULED! The nostalgia right now is kicking.
I remember saving up for the longest time to get a 3DFX Voodoo 3. It was a magical time.
what I find most impressive is how Civvie strategically uses limited-availability consumables instead of hoarding them
What mastery of boomer shooters looks like.
>me with 496,034 flares and an empty flashlight but still using the dispersion pistol's splash as a light source anyway
@@snakethefox9586 my people!
Operation Na Pali, a single player mod for UT99 is a true expansion pack for Unreal. You'll visit even Vortex Rikers at the end with the insta shock rifle.
Ah yes, the classic machinegun that has two fire modes: full auto and fuller auto.
I always liked Unreal more than Half-Life. Amazing atmospheric, music, weapons, environments, enemies ... it's got it all. (HL is still great though.) I also remember my dad pretty much buying a whole new PC to play this game.
Oh be afraid of no fanboys, or I can say it for you: Half Life sucks balls. Only got popular because kids loved real-world guns mad those days, and didn't need a non-crap PC. Otherwise: shitty outdated graphics (lol Quake 1 engine, upgraded for the skeletal anims so useless with those chunky models, and some explosions looking shit because Turok - still the textures were blurry af), a DooM/Quake-carbon-copy story, really one of the worst level designs I've seen (especially as there were Quake1 mission packs and TCs that were designed much better)... Glad it aged well and died by now, as is annoying and easy af by the modern standards. Funny enough, most of the Unreal's negative reviews were bashing the "excessive difficulty", something that helps to keep one neat and shiny even today :)
Unreal decimates Half-Life in almost every single area and has aged infinitely better.
Half-Life is Definitely a bit overrated, but its nothing compare to bloated praise what Half-Life 2 has.
HL2 is a glorified tech-demo with Boring, Outdated and even worse game design than HL1. I really don't get why the game part progressed backwards so much.
I was a die-hard Half-life and Valve fan, Looking back i sincerely believe HALO was better in every single way that HL tried to achieve and everyone should had played it instead.
The bit about Epic not preserving or acknowledging it's history is one of those things that thankfully has a happy ending as of today, with Epic officially promoting and linking to the Freeware releases of the games with the fan patches.
God, I loved this game when it first came out! Escaping the claustrophobic prison ship and suddenly being in a huge valley, with birds flying overhead, and little rabbity things hopping around! And the glorious music! It blew my mind.
So glad that it is getting quite a lot of retrospective attention recently - it seemed almost forgotten about for a very long time.
The fact this early Unreal engine supported colored lighting and absolutely _massive size_ maps compared to the relatively tiny segmented maps in Q1, Q2, Q3, GoldSrc, LithTech and other engines back then was a big factor. Actually everything about this engine's capabilities were the best of the late-90s to early 2000s period, though most of the really superior effects (like real time light/shadows, gourad shading, hi-res & detail textures, etc) wouldn't be utilized until later games like Undying when hardware had improved by a couple years.
I still find the Unreal1/UT99 versions of the engine very impressive in what they're capable of. And they just have a certain aesthetic "look" that you can instantly recognize too, regardless of the game. I kind of miss that, nerdy as it is. Nowadays of course everything looks incredible but it all runs on the latest Unreal or Unity and all look the same.
Game engines at the time just could not do huge sprawling outdoor scenes anything like that. That blew things wide open. I still remember the feeling.
The unreal 2 Damn gets me everytime. I've always appreciated Unreal because with its creation it also gave us Unreal Tournament (With a better flak and ASMD Shock Rifle and the REDEEMER.) 99 and 200(3)4.
It's a shame they ditched the UT they were working on and may never revive the Unreal series... and yet they're not the only ones who've done it.
Eh, every new version of UT was a wild advancement in tech, but a step backwards in some key elements of the original.
I for one, rather missed the horrid death screams and the death anims in ut2004, ragdolling made deaths seem cartoonish rather than brutal, and original ut99 was already not as brutal as original Unreal in the gory horrible death department.
Another nitpick is getting rid of the high-damage slowfire automags and replacing them with some crappy high speed tiny damage assault rifles no one wants to use.
My first exposure to Unreal was Tournament in 99. Still have it on a thumb drive and jam it once in a while. A masterpiece of multi-player. Fast, chaotic, satisfying gibbage!
@Druid of Scosglen I still have a few of the maps I made for sniper servers back in the day floating around somewhere.
The first time I played UT was one of the greatest gaming experiences of my life.
I remember being obsessed with Unreal 1 (aka Old Unreal) back when I was a kid. I still play through this game every year or two. Unreal 1 was what got me into story writing, then into making maps (in UT2004), and finally infected me with love for tracker music. Thanks for bringing back the memories Civvie!
40:19 I love how these two Krall do a synchronized hop 15 feet straight up in the air to greet you.
Also, the decapitated Skaarj involuntary grasping for its severed head is peak dark slapstick comedy.
I think I have seen the most beautiful intro anyone ever made to Unreal. Almost tears. Congratulations!
Praise be to Vandora.
I think that Unreal was the first game I ever saw with an official post launch patch. They made a lot of the weapons stronger, because in the launch version the enemies were mad tanky. The Stinger got a significant buff in the patch, they even changed the model just a bit if I remember correctly.
They also changed all the weapon sounds at some point to much beefier ones, most of which made it to Unreal Tournament as well. Fun fact - they were made by Sonic Mayhem of Quake 2 fame. He's credited in both Unreal Gold and UT.
I remember how revolutionary the ai felt and how stunning was to get out of the ship at the beginning... incredible gem of a game
I remember seeing Unreal for the first time in a PC shop and this man could see the awe I had looking at this strange new game and then...he walked into a wall and there were NO PIXELS, my mind was blown back then.
Not only no pixels, but when you used 3Dfx Glide, Direct3D or S3 MeTal renderers, you could see detail textures layered onto the main texture to give you an impression that the texture is more detailed than it really is.
@@PrekiFromPoland Deus Ex did a similar thing.
@@AnubitekOfficial The same engine, after all, although Deus Ex didn't use as much capabilities as Unreal itself did. Though I must say, Deus Ex utilized hub levels which is impressive on its own rights.
The only Unreal game that Digital Extremes didn't help make is the only one that's rumored to be having a re-release. Very interesting indeed.
Digital Extremes deserves more credit for those than Epic.
Hearing Civvie talk about the flak cannon activated old core memories and now I understand why I like shotguns in games so much.
First 3dfx game I played. I'll never forget the day
The music, the graphics, levels, good times
Still have my Diamond Monster Fusion 16 MB card.....first was a Verite 2100 4 MB (that overclocked from 40 Mhz to 70, with some added heat sinks...and a fan). That transition from non accelerated to accelerated was epic!
Shit we are old ....
we had to get a voodoo banshee
Had a cobbled together pentium pro machine, it was juuust enough to squeak out low settings.
Still magnificent.
@@Kurogane1990 1990? Old? Sure, spin me another yarn there young feller!
This game still kicks all kinds of Unreal ass. Thanks for finally covering this one Civvie and for reminding me of when Epic used to be a great company.
No ones gonna read this, but the little predator guys were the most feared enemy in monster hunt maps in UT99. Map creators would put a swarm of 100s of these guys with massive amounts of health and damage to insta kill you as a way not to stray off the beaten path. They are so extremely aggressive sometimes their AI was put other enemies as final bosses, I remember hating fighting a queen that is so aggressive with a massive health pool. The modding community for 99 was so insane I miss it so much, a core part of my childhood.
oh, we read it, we read it!
I read this!
you got to love how the skaarj at 34:54 fired one final fuck-you rocket as it fell to its death. that's dedication. that's _training_ boys
As someone who played a lot of unreal tournament on the Dreamcast growing up wondering what unreal was, thank you. This video is pretty dope