The original Unreal released nearly two years back goes down in history next to the likes of 'Prey' by 3Drealms as being one of the longest games in development, ever! It makes Daikatana looks like a summer holiday and SimCity 3000 like a Thanksgiving weekend. The first time my eyes came into contact with the mighty project was at the 1995'E3 technology demo of Unreal (yes really), by that time the very technology we see now was easily noticeable but still leaning more to Quake1 styles.

Unreal itself had then been in development since 1994 and was touted as being a 1996 release. 1996 came and went, and so did 1997 and just as we got into 1998 something amazing happened, it got released. Bugged to the hilt and with only Software and 3Dfx support it needed plenty of work. These days the engine is stable and looks good on just about all cards and best of all the technology is still in-date because it was released early (laughter is heard).

Is this Unreal2?

Unreal lacked one element that even the various mod authors couldn't do (partly due to the sickening amount of bugs stopping them no doubt), that of quality multiplayer gaming. At around the same time Quake3Arena was announced the Epic team behind the original Unreal made a startling announcement. They intended to go head to head with ID with their concept of a multiplayer only game that used bots to appease the single player fans. Originally due for release months before Q3A it missed its dates and now goes head to head with the consumer nightmare of Q3A.

Next >>