Information AboutUnreal |
''Unreal'' is a First-person Shooter Computer Game developed by Epic Games and published by GT Interactive on May 22 , 1998 . It was powered by an original gameplay and computer engine that Now Bears The Game's Name , one that had been in development for over three years before the game was released. Since the release of ''Unreal'', the franchise has had one direct sequel and two different series based on the ''Unreal'' universe. ''Unreal Mission Pack I: Return To Na Pali'' was released on . On August 30 , 2001 , ''Unreal'' was repackaged again as Totally Unreal featuring the contents of ''Unreal Gold'' and '' Unreal Tournament ''. PREMISE You take the part of a criminal aboard the prison spacecraft ''Vortex Rikers'' which has crash-landed on the lip of a canyon on the planet Na Pali, killing most of those on board. The natives of this planet (the four-armed, Pacifistic Nali ) have been subjugated by a collection or alliance of alien races, primarily the Skaarj , who kill off all survivors except you. Your primary goal is to locate and destroy the alien mother ship and escape the planet. ''Unreal'' features a broad range of settings and artwork. In the course of the game the player explores the Nali Iron Age culture, a crashed research vessel (the '' ISV-Kran ''), the dizzyingly tall Sunspire , a floating city, Nali castles and villages, Skaarj bases, and ultimately the Skaarj mother ship. Several Nali documents refer to a Messiah who will deliver the Nali from the Skaarj, with the obvious implication that the player is that messiah. CREATURES Friendly These are creatures which help you during the game Neutral These are creatures which just about do nothing the enitre game Enemies These are creatures which will intentionally try to kill you because they are working for the Skaarj (or some other main enemy, as in the case of the Marine and Mercenary) Annoying Monsters These are creatures which will try to kill you but not because they are in league with any of the enemies in the game, merely because they are carnivorous animals wanting a meal or they might be hurting you in self-defence WEAPONS VEHICLES (AS IN LOCATIONS, NOT USABLE) COMPETITION WITH QUAKE SERIES The Unreal Game Engine was seen as a major rival to Id Software 's '' Quake '' engine, and the ''Unreal'' game itself was considered to be technically superior to the '' Quake '' and '' Quake II '' titles which were out on the market at the same time. Since ''Unreal'' came packaged with its own scripting language called UnrealScript , it soon developed a large community on the Internet which was able to add new Mod s (short for "modifications") in order to change or enhance gameplay. This feature greatly added to the overall longevity of the product and provided an incentive for new development. A map editor called '' UnrealEd '' also came with the package. ABOUT THE GAME ENGINE The all-new Unreal Engine provided a plethora of possibilities to third-party content producers. Graphics Although Unreal is not the first major release with colored lighting (see '' Quake II )'' it is the first to have a Software Renderer capable of just about everything the hardware renderers (Most commonly 3dfx Glide, Direct3D and OpenGL ) are capable of, to include colored lighting, but not Bilinear Filtering . One of the limitations of the ''Quake'' engine is that large areas caused slowdowns in the game's Framerate . The ''Unreal'' engine's specialty is that it is capable of large outdoor areas without great reductions in frame rate. Of course, because ''Unreal'' is a newer and more resource-intensive game than ''Quake'' and ''Quake II'', this means that framerates were lower overall, when run on the same computer. Sound effects ''Unreal'' is also possibly the first major first person shooter to use 44.1 kHz audio for sound effects. Many sound effects take full advantage of the high frequency range capable with such a Sample Rate , as is evident when ammo is picked up or when the flak cannon is reloading, for example. Music While many game companies went from FM Synthesis in the early 1990s and/or General MIDI straight to CD audio and otherwise pre-rendered audio later on, one thing that set many of the Epic games apart from others was their use of Module Music , (composed with a Tracker ) which used stored PCM sound effects sequenced together to produce music. Epic had been using this technology for other games such as Jazz Jackrabbit and One Must Fall 2097 which allowed relatively rich-sounding music to be stored in files usually smaller than one megabyte. Naturally, this technology allowed easy implementation of dynamic music for mood changes in ''Unreal''. The Unreal soundtrack was written by MOD music authors Alexander Brandon and Michiel Van Den Bos . Alex Brandon was also responsible for the soundtracks for Unreal Tournament and Deus Ex , which also use the Unreal Engine; van den Bos also produced the soundtrack for Age Of Wonders . Map editing ''Unreal's'' method of creating maps differs in major ways from ''Quake's''. The bundled UnrealEd map editor uses the ''Unreal'' engine to accurately render the exact scene, as opposed to external editors like Worldcraft attempting to recreate it with different methods. Whereas ''Quake'' maps are compiled from a variety of different components, ''Unreal'' maps are inherently editable on the fly. This allows anybody to edit any map that is created, including the originals from the developers. Though UnrealEd loads quite a bit slower than most map editors, it runs maps smoothly and swiftly: hitting rebuild automatically finalizes the level within minutes, as opposed to the hours or (at the time) even days with a full ''Quake'' map compile. In addition, ''Unreal'' starts with a completely solid world in which you extract areas with primitives instead of starting with a void and building rooms by adding primitive shapes to fill it. Many map designers believe that this eliminates the tedium of matching up separate walls, floors and ceilings. EXTERNAL LINKS |
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