Thanks for watching! If you're curious as to why I recorded both games in chunky low-res, check out my previous video on why I (usually) prefer old games at their original resolutions: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-jjjlteKX_Uc.htmlsi=K6nSUQih2nAxBCL1
It's truly infuriating how Epic went out of their way to bury the legacy of the franchise that built them all because they couldn't be fucked to implement a stupid child safety feature update they were mandated by court to do for all their games because of Fortnite.
Fortnite money has turned Big Timmy into a very strange man. Unreal is a prime candidate for an interesting Nightdive remaster, but it's still modern Epic's IP at the end of the day and they seem unwilling to delve into their past at all. Give the people what they want!
@@slingshotdev It's actually not clear *why* they pulled the games. I suspect that *maybe* they had some sort of agreement with Digital Extremes (yes, that one), and it expired over two and a half years ago.
I just beat Unreal Gold for the second time last week. It’s a beautiful and atmospheric game with an amazing music and while it looks dated the use of color is still astonishingly good. One thing you can’t call Unreal is “generic”. But this video does make a great point about Unreal: it’s kind of a slog to play. Spongy enemies and on harder difficulties never enough ammo drag on. By the last few levels each time I messed up an encounter I just sighed and automatically reloaded the game. Sometimes I really just don’t want to spend 30 seconds downing a damned Skarjj Trooper that dodges like he’s Neo. And by midway through almost all levels that aren’t hubs become mazes, that while beautiful, becomes a massive headache. Even Quake with its like 10 whole shades of brown felt less confusing and more snappy to navigate lol. After watching this video I feel I’ve been perhaps a bit unfair to Halo, as I consider it a huge landmark where FPSs changed, in many ways not for the better. But you’re right, Halo is a LOT less annoying to play even though I think that Unreal has better atmosphere, music, and art direction.
I really miss how much contrast games used to have. Good use of coloured lighting against pure blacks can be transformative even for fairly crappy looking games. Arx Fatalis, the original Alice and Thief 2 are some that come to mind. I hate the way volumetric fog coats modern visuals and washes all the colour from an image. Its a topic I'd like to cover some day on the channel but my technical knowledge is a little lacking. Went on a tangent there but I feel you in regards to that feeling of exhaustion with Unreal. Its a game I really do admire, but the shortcomings become so frustrating that it can really sour the whole package. Thanks for the in-depth comment, glad I could help you reconsider Halo a bit.
People who complain about Unreal's "spongey" enemies make me wonder if they're somehow misunderstanding the role of weapons in the game, or they're using the unofficial patch and playing on the hardest difficulty which greatly multiplies enemy health for the sake of a co-op experience but negatively impacts solo play and doesn't notify the player at all. If it's the case of the former, stop trying to use the rocket launcher on the Skaarj. They're fast moving enemies, so it makes no sense to try and use a slow projectile weapon against them. Same for the BioRifle or Stinger. I see people make these mistakes in gameplay all the time and yeah... no wonder it turns the game into a slog. Why on earth would you use the slowest projectile weapons in the game against the fastest enemies??? The Flak Cannon, Automag, Sniper, Minigun and, most importantly, the ASMD Shock Rifle will rinse Skaarj like they're nothing. That's what they're there for. The Razorjack and BioRifle can be used in a pinch if need be but are last resort things. Save the Stinger and Eightball Launcher for the turret squids, brutes and reptiles.
Very good review. Although you could mention music in Unreal, which is..well unreal :). I was 15 years old when Unreal came out and completed it in few days. Didn't have any problem with levels. For me is best game i have ever played. Probably because it invoked strong feelings in me, with magnificent big levels and amazing music. Atmosphere is really out of this world. It was as much of an adventure as it was shooter. Halo 1 is pretty good too, but i really hate repeatitive levels. I think Halo Reach is probably best of halo series for me.
I gave a little nod to the music at the very beginning, which is great stuff. Michiel van den Bos, Alexander Brandon and Dan Gardopée would all go on to compose for Deus Ex too. Some of the tracks in the final space ship levels are surprisingly spooky.
I still remember the MOMENT the first "Unreal" demo was released. I couldn't wait for it because I literally (and possibly "shamelessly"?) bought a Voodoo Monster 3DFX add-on card so that I could bloody well play the thing with my system, LOL! The demo was fantastic, and I was utterly shocked at how far dynamic lighting, shaders, textures, and all that jazz had already come. And since I'd long been a Doom1 map/episode builder (I created "Darkhell" and "Blahell"--18 total maps in two episodes), after playing Dark Forces, Quake, Descent, and Jedi Knight... yup... I was hooked. :) Then... "Half Life" hit the scene nearly simutaneously. Wow. WHAT A YEAR FOR GAMING!
@@Fonald3D Yeah I'm just being pedantic. But it is slightly different from the usual regen health system, because like you said, it still has medkits like a more traditional FPS.
I don't remember who said it, but I remember hearing someone say that Halo is to video games what Shrek was to animated movies, in that both are really good, but they both started fads where nobody took the right lessons from them. "Shrek must be successful because it's a rude fairytale comedy, not because it's a well-written movie, so we should all make rude fairytale comedies." "Oh Halo must be successful because it is a slow-paced shooter with a 2-weapon limit and regenerating health, so we should make all of our shooters be slower-paced with 2 weapon limits and regen health." Halo may have started a bad trend for shooters, but it's moreso the fault of developers and publishers not really getting why Halo worked in the first place. Hell, I think most developers still don't get why Halo works, even the people who work on Halo currently. It would be nice to see some sort of resurgence for Halo style shooters now like what's been happening with boomer shooters in recent years, since nobody even tries to make them like that anymore, and we haven't gotten a Halo game that actually feels like Halo since 2009 (or 2010 if you want to be generous).
Completely agree in regards to Halo's current handlers not really understanding what made those games so wonderful. It's honestly incredible that Bungie was able to maintain their passion for the series for five full games. I'd be very curious to see some young indie devs try to take a stab at the Halo formula, but I also just can't imagine what that would look like.
I disagree that Halo started any major trend, but instead introduced ideas that would go on and be used by the major trend setter, Call of Duty and all it's clones. Every Halo clone failed. Never caught on. Well into the 2000s there wasn't a single game that replicated its success and play style. It just popularized console shooters and online multiplayer to the masses, but did what it did very well. Fast forward, COD modern warfare enters the scene. Interestingly, COD 3 functioned more like battlefield and was really great, but Modern Warfare took regenerating health, weapon limits, aim assist, simple grid maps etc. It was formulized it into a fast pace dopamine rush of a multiplayer experience. Very accessible for the average person, easy to kill and pick up, fast pace and addicting. Halo was much more complex as a shooter, as were others at the time. but CODss simplified, accessible multiplayer shooter model was so successful that it proliferated its influence far and wide, with many games copying its aesthetic and playstyle. Halo doesn't deserve any flak, no game could beat halo at being halo. COD instead created a simplified and truly addicting model to play by. Dumbed down battlefield/halo and it became COD and it hasn't stopped since.
@@9ner Halo absolutely started the trend of online console shooters. A lot more shooters at the time also added vehicles in large part due to Halo (in fact, I think one of the devs of UT04 admitted that they added vehicles because of Halo). COD also started it's own trend, but the 2000s were filled with shooters trying to copy Halo's success. If that's not a trend, idk what is.
@@RednekGamurz the point is your analogy sucks. Comparing halo ce to shrek is childish lunacy. COD is a much better comparison and had a disastrous effect on fps games. Sure, other games took elements from halo just like halo took elements from games like quake and half life, but that’s just evolution. Online shooters were much more eclectic during halo 2, it wasn’t until COD that games took their formula and aesthetic and copy and pasted it everywhere. Modern Warfare is the comparison you’re aiming for.
Something I _really_ enjoyed about Unreal (among others things) was the exploration. Didn't see this being brought up. I remember _exploring_ places being a big part of the experience for me. I didn't feel like the game was 'pushing' me all the time. It did some of the time. But quite often, it didn't. It would just set you free to explore things. There'd be a village off to the left, with a cathedral, and you didn't 'need' to go there. But you could if you chose, and if you did, and wound your way to the top, you'd find a flak cannon for the first time. Wander around the back, there's a garden and if you look around, a secret back there. There was Sky Town. Once in a while, you'd be outside of the buildings, set free on some ledge of open land between the village and the huge cliffs; surrounded by a huge endless night sky and the violet clouds way below everything. If you wandered around the edges, and ventured all the way to where some of the walls of the city _seemed_ to go right up to the cliff, you could discover just a small enough ledge to hug your way around. Do that a _couple times_ (pretty mesmerizing with the scenery with the planet below) and there's a rare health pack that boosts you up to 200. It's not obvious. You're not pushed there. It's just a reward for exploration. And there's another spot where if you do this same thing, there's simply a cool scene with 2 Krall guards standing there overlooking the sky, dimly lit, talking to each other. No real meaning to the story or anything. Just a "unique discovery", something you don't see anywhere else. Lots of hidden areas. Secret underwater caves, high ledges you don't know you can reach, alternate entrances to places, etc. This is where you find most of the game's rare items. It's similar to Metroid. Exploration focused. Atmospheric, and great music (seriously amazing, epic music). I don't think some people got this aspect when they fired it up and played for whatever reason. I'm not rebutting the points in this video, just adding what I believe is missing. If you came in expecting a non-stop "shoot and run" type of game (which can be fun), that's not what Unreal was. Or expected a really linear gameflow, something more "on rails" (like Halo), that's also not what Unreal was. A lot of the game was simply about - "what an incredible place - go explore it'. If that's not your thing, well ok. No biggie. If you go into Metroid expecting, say... Contra, you'll be confused. Metroid is Metroid, Contra is contra. Great games. Very different.
Definitely agree with you on the exploration. That's why I wanted more of those excellent outdoor levels like Sky Town and less spaceship/castle mazes. I don't feel like I got that same feeling of adventure and exploration from a level like Nali Castle, just frustration. Thanks for watching.
@@Fonald3D I agree. I enjoyed most of the levels... however there were some _real_ slogs, like the water temple, and especially the first half of the vortex rikers. Those damn identical bay doors. Hitting those arrow buttons, waiting for them to slowly re-open, over and over, going in circles because all the hallways looked the same. I suppose those were the worst levels - big mazes where everything looks the same.
I wanted to write a comment but honestly there are some quality unreal fans here who really sum it up better than I can. But I must admit, I understand where Fonald3D is coming from. When I first played Unreal, I was probably about 15/16, I did get very frustrated and lost on some levels, I put the game down for a long while. I re-played it more when I was around 18, at which point I started to appreciate the game. The atmosphere and the music was so amazing! When I was younger, I just didn't 'get' atmosphere, it's like a maturity thing. I loved that simple level where you just go for a boat ride down the river and eventually come across that windmill, the graphics and music are so mesmerising! That kind of stuff just gets lost on kids ... and this is why I think the genre 'devolved' in some aspects, why throw your pearls to the pigs kind of situation. I can't personally enjoy games like Halo because they're just too darn slow for me, I don't like being a bullet sponge. I also hate force-fed linear gameplay, and cheesy voices (like the enemies in Halo) seem to be aimed at very young children, which really does not appeal to me in the slightest. Unreal was fun for all ages, but it grew on you as you developed. Or, it did for me anyway.
My favorite FPS games released during the 2000s and Halo CE is likely my favorite FPS of all time. Glad to see someone acknowledge how great Halo CE was and not just dump on it. I've never been a fan of the FPS design of Doom/Quake and they've completely flooded the market with these kind of games thanks to Doom 2016. It'd be nice if a dev tried to make a spiritual successor to Bungie Halo. 343I has certainly failed to give us a good Halo game. As for Unreal, we never got a console port of it. So, I wouldn't mind seeing a remaster for both current consoles and pc. Unfortunately, Epic only cares about Failnite now.
I'd also love to see a remaster but I think it might be one of those shooters that absolutely requires a mouse and keyboard. Enemies move so fast that a stick might not be able to keep up without gratuitous aim assist. Could be wrong though.
I just watched this video and a couple others of yours. I wanted to say thanks for the great quality of your writing, tone, mic quality, etc. Top notch stuff. I'm surprised you have so few subscribers, you deserve many more! Subscribed.
5:47 It's funny because the original design of Unreal doesn’t show this information. This only happens because Unreal Gold seems to be using the Unreal Tournament engine. Even the whole UI menu is different from the original Unreal that most people played 6:20 From what I can understand about their design choices, based on the time the game was released, and the fact that I was around 8 or 10 years old when I played Unreal, everything felt like a novelty to me. I could stare at the landscapes, the intricate level details, shadows, and textures for hours. I never remember trying to rush my gameplay of Unreal because I was savoring every second I spent on each level, especially with that soundtrack. I wanted those moments to stay with me forever. Maps like Chizra, Terraniux, the ISV ship, and, oh my god, Sunspire and Napali Haven were a complete shock to me. I couldn't believe what I was seeing and hearing. I can't speak for others, but I kind of have the feeling that the people who made Unreal wanted players to feel immersed in the world around them, to let the visuals, music, and sound effects make the player feel like they were actually there, allowing the experience to sink in and be fully enjoyed-like walking through an art gallery or something similar. Again, everything they showcased was new to almost every single human being at the time. Even the soundtrack style was something most people hadn't experienced before, and very few people at the time even had the technology to fully appreciate it.
Thanks for your comment, I had no idea about map credit thing, but that makes a lot of sense. This whole playthrough was recorded using the Steam version (now delisted) along with the latest OldUnreal patch. As for the rest of your comment, I think you're on the money about immersion, atmosphere and memorable world design being huge aspects that Epic wanted to focus on. And I think they succeeded at that, since atmosphere is arguably its most endearing feature. At the end of the day though, its still a "find the exit" style shooter that probably would have done better as the more open and free-flowing game they originally envisioned.
Funny enough, these are my two most favourite shooters of all-time (excluding RPGs). Both attract haters who seem to misunderstand them. Unreal doesn't have bullet-spongey enemies unless you're using the arsenal stupidly or are playing on the hardest difficulty on the unofficial patch which amplifies enemy health greatly for the sake of co-op but doesn't tell the player. Halo didn't "dumb down" shooters... it has the most accurate sub-title of a game I've ever played. There's far more depth than most shooters when it comes to moment-to-moment strategy and it increased the emphasis of things like enemy/weapon variety and ammo/health conservation, etc. so integral to old-school shooters - not dumbed down - while greatly innovating in other ways. People who hate Halo because of how other games ripped off its mechanics but them misused them are thick. It's a shame that Unreal is often overshadowed by Half-Life's vastly inferior combat mechanics, heavy linearity and janky, cheesy setpieces - all the while being praised for "puzzles" (of which it contains precisely none) and its game changing story (starring a whopping ONE character... whose entire purpose is to be mysterious). Unreal crushes it in every respect - especially in terms of combat, graphics and audio engine. The latter two make Half-Life seem comparatively prehistoric.
I disagree with you say that Unreal crushes HL. Honestly both are too different to directly compare, but HL had much smoother progression. You will rarely ever get lost and the game does a great job of making you feel like you are in an actual research facility. Combat is a give or take. I don't like the combat in either to be honest. Half life has the enemies like marines and grunts which can be annoying because they don't get stunlocked and Unreal had very bullet spongy enemies later in the game, especially on hard and above difficulties. Also HL introduced the skeletal animations which were pretty revolutionary. I will give credit to Unreal's music. It is wayyy better than HL's.
I think Unreal is remembered better by those who played it on top PCs on the years 2000-2003, as then it was not struggling even on 60fps, max settings & max resolution. Then it really wiped the floor of all nineties games, by just how well it was done.
Unreal's complicated map design probably originates from the idea that Unreal was going to be more like a metroidvania with hub areas and backtracking between levels, something that ended up not happening and causing a lot of the levels to remain very maze like with little guidance (for example, the mine levels and the first temple levels were connected by the same hub which was the 2nd map, and some levels used to be connected and even have shortcuts for backtracking but were split at some point into development) While I do deeply enjoy Unreal's vanilla campaign and still replay it from time to time with its mesmerizing atmosphere and music, I do have to agree it does have several issues with navigating and enemy placement, I think where Unreal really shines is its amazing editor and the endless amount of custom content made by the community over the years (who still release very impressive mods, maps and even completely new ways to play the game to this day) Some mods address the problems of AI feeling spongy and forcing the strafing Deathmatch fights with the opponents in favor of deadlier combat that goes both ways, and can give a much fresher way to experience the game I also find some custom levels do recognize the lack of variety in fighting enemies and will mix and match all the different types in the same areas to create more appealing encounters than the 1 on 1 Deathmatch style of enemy encounters the main campaign goes for while also providing the ammo to keep up to the player I just wish Epic would allow someone to reboot this series, a modern reboot of Unreal that keeps the original atmosphere and ideas but gives it a fresh coat of paint, easier to navigate map design and less spongy, more dynamic enemies
I've read a little about this initial concept they had for the game. Shame it didn't work out, because a 1st person Metroid-style game like that would have been phenomenal for 1998. You can definitely see a lot of the bones of it lying around some of the levels. Thanks for watching.
Unreal is getting remastered by a fan at the moment just lookup Unreal redux here on RU-vid. What mostly happened is i think epic just moved onto online games only and stopped doing single player games after Unreal Tournament 3 that's also possibly the same with other old FPS games. As for id software they were wonderful in keeping up with the original Doom games by also this year making Final Doom also known as Doom 95 upgraded to better graphics
Even if Halo 3 was a technically superior game, Halo CE it’s still my favorite. It has an ambience and gameplay that feels natural, not overproduced. Great video comparison.
Yeah! COD 4 and onward fucked everything up, but MW1 an 2 are actual masterpieces that have withstood the passage of time with only a paradigm shift in graphical pipelines making it clear they were old But GOD. The fallout of those games. FPSs still haven't recovered. It even got on Halo.
Boi, CoD 4 deserves a separate video just by how it influenced (or gaming in general as it's not only destroyed FPS in general but changing the whole landscape in many genres in general. Halo changed gaming for sure but it hasn't demolished entire FPS like COD did.
I don't think Halo was particularly "harmful to the genre" as you convey. Sure it was a console shooter however it bore more mechanical resemblance to the works that inspired it. Call of Duty 4 Modern Warfare however was the progenitor to the "FPS Dark Age" (the period of 9 years from 2007 to 2016 where it felt like every developer you knew was trying to make their own cod4 and failing miserably) Vince Zampella made such a good video game that Call of Duty as an intellectual property supplanted star wars as the centerpiece of the western cultural zeitgeist, and killed off the first person shooter for the better part of a decade a bit like what half life alyx has done to big budget VR games (there are almost none post-alyx) Modern Warfare dug the FPS genre into so deep of a rut that it took of the return of doom in 2016 to dig us out.
Doom 2016 is probably what turned the ship around but I remember Serious Sam 3's hype almost entirely being predicated on the fact that it was a old-school style shooter without recharging health, weapon limits and a cover system. The marketing heavily leaned into that too. People were definitely getting antsy for a shooter to shake things up again. Thanks for watching.
I just installed the old disc version of unreal, was going to play it on my old Compact Armada 1700. Its kinda insane to see both Epic and Bungie fall from grace so hard in the modern age...
Thank you for putting into words (or video) how I've felt about Unreal. It's one of the earliest shooters I've ever played in my childhood, and even back then, those shortcomings were felt. I can't recall how many times I've wandered through levels trying to find the correct lever, only to turn on noclip and fly to the end (after searching for it). The game still has a vocal and dedicated fanbase, that often neglects this aspect of the level design. Don't get me wrong. Its beautiful that all those castles, ships and temples have all those fleshed rooms and chambers, filled with colors and decoration, but everytime I try to go back to relieve that experience, it is very quickly put off by those mazes. I really wish someone would make a mod that would "put some linearity" into the game, or at least add modern design sensibilities into the levels.
Nightdive's remasters of Turok 1 and 2 made a lot of little changes to level design to help the player navigate them without dumbing anything down. Unreal needs similar treatment, because some of those maps just have zero flow whatsoever.
@@Fonald3DI hear you. Doom 2 is my most played FPS game, but mainly because of the community wads like Eviternity 1/2, Valiant, Ancient Aliens, Struggle: Antaresian Legacy, Sunlust, BTSX, Going Down, Resurgence, DBPs etc. Endless wads to choose from nowadays that are better than Doom 2's original levels. Infact it has been half a decade since I last played the original maps.
It's funny that I can agree with everything you say about each game individually but have the opposite takeaway, for me personally I'll happily play Unreal again and again (this video is tempting me) Halo on the other hand is a game I still haven't finished despite playing it on probably a dozen occasions over the years. Every time the first hour, maybe two, I think "yeah I get it now this game is pretty fun" and then by another hour in I'm so bored that I just can't be bothered. It's hard to even put it into words without sounding like I just want to bash it.
Sometimes you just love a game in spite of all its glaring issues, and other times you just can't be doin with a game despite recognizing how high-quality it is. For me, Unreal is one of those "I like this, but I don't really want to play it anymore" titles and I think that's how a lot of people, such as yourself, feel about the Halo games. You don't get to choose which games you like! They just sneak up on ya!
Same here bro I’ve played unreal entirely twice, and I’m on my third play though on unreal difficulty, halo I can’t manage to finish the campaigns, you really get the full experience within the hour
Great video! Despite me disagreeing with a lot of the stuff in here, you make a lot of great points. I've always found Halo's combat very repetitive and grating. Bungie made a lot of the design decisions so that they wouldn't have to make as many design decisions for combat encounters (Two weapon limit + weapon pickups and shields factored into this), and all I can say is that I could tell that they didn't put as much work in. Despite being in different environments with different arenas, I always felt I was largely doing the same thing over and over again. Despite it's flaws, I really like Unreal because it excels in aesthetics like you mentioned, and I also just think the weapons are extremely fun to use. I think that the fact that enemies like the Skaarj act more like deathmatch bots makes the game more fun for me than Halo, since the enemies actually take some strategy to defeat, like not using rockets in a straight forward manner since they can dodge them. In Halo you just kinda shoot the bad guys while mitigating damage, not that it takes no effort but it's a very simplistic affair fit for an Xbox controller. Definitely struggled with certain levels being mazelike, but I've had worse luck with games like Thief.
thanks to Halo for making children aware of FPS games. Unreal is amazing, and needs a Nightdive like ohgodplease. However, I watched the entire thing and then subscribed. Thanks for your work, clearly some effort here and I look forward to the well-deserved growth of this video.
Thanks for watching. Halo and Unreal have such passionate and vocal fanbases and as a result I spent a lot of time making sure the script felt as fair to both games as possible. No clue if Nightdive will ever be allowed to get their hands on it, but I hear they might be doing a remaster of The Darkness soon, which would be awesome.
@@Fonald3DSome of these older games, especially these two, would be perfect candidates for VR releases. Quest headset can surely run Unreal1 tech, and the lack of existing long-form experiences in VR it seems like this is a no-brainer. It couldn't cost too much to touch up the weapons, reloading, etc. Oh well. [grammar edit]
Apparently Unreal 2 was fairly mediocre, and Unreal Tournament massively overshadowed the single player entries so I guess they didn't feel the need to make another one.
@@saricubra2867 the og unreal had also multiplayer that was just unrealtournament, while unreal tournament lacked a good SP campaign, the game can be good but multiplayer only is not relevant after the hype, doom3, half-life2 and even halo are remembered by everybody while UT3 and UT4 have been lost in the collective memory
@@Foxtrop13 Unreal multiplayer was half baked. For UT3 and UT4 they are overshadowed by UT2004. Fun fact, Rocket League started as an UT2004 mod. Unreal Tournament 99 and 2004 are legendary, original Unreal is nothing special with the exception of the game engine.
The campaign lengths I listed are based on the recording times of my own playthrough footage + a few different longplays to get an idea of an average. The final castle and space ship levels of Unreal are diabolical though, so maybe that could extend an average playthrough.
Unreal is truly a before and after in many regards, but it sufers from somenthing American McGee mentioned right during the turn of the millenium: "Sooner or later I'd get bored of soldier guy killing aliens in space" (Regarding the FPS tropes of the time). And while Halo runs with that, pushing a concrete narrative was probably their best move.
There's a surprisingly large amount of lore to Unreal but unfortunately none of it is particularly engaging to read during an FPS game. There were even two full length novels published too.
What you said at the end really hit. I had been going through my phase after loving Halo for a while to "man, these old fps let me run around super fast with 10 guns. That's so much better." While i do think this is true to an extent. Halo does have sanbox issues as you climb the difficulty ladder. These boomer shooters have their own issues, however. It is mainly a sanbox issue. In most of these games, the arsenal is either fullscale copied from doom and quake or reskinned from doom and quake. It gets boring using the same 8 weapons across every single game. So halo was indeed a breath of fresh air. So I'll be ready for more shakeups when doom dark ages and metroid prime 4 hit next year. I know the phrase if it ain't broke don't fix it. However, it becomes broken when across 10+ new boomer shooters im using the same guns functionally as i used in doom and quake. That's one reason unreal stands out, even against Halo. Unreals sanbox is very unique compared to other shooters.
I think a lot of classic shooter fans (I'm also one of them) get stroppy if anything deviates from that Doom, Quake or Serious Sam style of gameplay. Never really understood why, faster gameplay doesn't necessarily mean better gameplay, same goes for slower gameplay. Thanks for watching.
Great video. I don't entirely agree with whst you said about Marathon (it's combat can be snapppy under the right level design circumstances. See custom mappacks like Kill Them All and Phoenix) and I also don't think Unreal's level design is that complicated. But I definitely agree with you regarding the combat in Unreal with every fiber of my body. The combat in Unreal is a slog fest. THE MOST bullet spongy enemies in an FPS ever. I recall Civvie11 saying that he considers Unreal to be the real Quake 2 and I was like "oh hell no". Both Quake 1 and even Quake 2 have wayy more fun combat. Unreal's combat is horrible. But I also agree that the atmosphere in Unreal is fantastic.
Hard disagree on some points with Unreal, it DOES have special moments that are unbeliveable during combat. The opportunities are less there maybe, it's also a game that really becomes better the more you play it and become good at it. And it can't be nostalgia because I discovered it in 2014. I agree some levels overstay their welcome and can be hard to navigate, but 1: skill issue (kinda), and 2: never play System Shock 1 or even 2 at that point lol.
I love both System Shock 1 and 2 but I wouldn't say they're comparable as far as level obtuseness goes. SS1 has literal mazes that look like they're from a children's activity book, but you also have full access to an in-game map with lots of functionality, so its not really an issue. Its been a few years since I've replayed SS2 but I don't recall ever getting lost until possibly the final section on the infected Rickenbacker where its just flesh corridors. Thief 1 and 2's levels are much more complex but they're so well designed that its very easy to orient yourself. Thanks for watching btw.
@@Fonald3D @Fonald3D honestly I never felt too annoyed by Unreal's structure, except chizra and isvkran, pretty much all the game is a linear path. Thanks for the video I'm still glad it was made. It's just that I feel like we lost way more than we gained for getting from maze and confusing layouts, to literal straight lines. If I had to pick one I'd pick the former every time.
@@deus_nsf There's a middle ground of FPS level design in there somewhere which is very difficult to achieve. Not sure many games have accomplished it.
The level design was the reason why I couldn't finish Unreal. I got tired of all the mazes. I finished Unreal 2 though, like 3 times. And yes, I know that it's the worst game in the franchise, but at least it was a straightforward game. And you'd think I'm mad for finishing Unreal 2 three times, but hey, it was one of my first shooters from childhood and I still have some fondness for it, I was amazed by it back then.
I loved this video, because it sums up my feelings of Unreal 1 as well. Maybe 5 or 6 years ago I decided to play through Unreal 1 and its expansion in Unreal Gold. It was a fulfilling experience to finally having made that accomplishment and made it through those journeys, but boy did I try before and failed. I love the very beginning of Unreal, being a prisoner and escaping that ship, experiencing the epic soundtrack once exiting the ship on an alien planet, and later visiting the very first mines with the iconic shiny lava pools. Unfortunately, not long after the mine section, I somehow tended to lose interest of that game. It was like the game started to feel a bit empty and samey, even though there was some aesthetically pleasing ancient ruins not long afterwards. The beginning of the game got me hooked, but it only lasted that long before it all waned off. To be frank, I have way more fun playing through the short but focused levels of Quake 1 than the interconnected mazey maps of Unreal. I'm still glad that I did manage to finally play through Unreal 1 and its expansion. It was quite a journey, and the journey did in fact have its moments where the game really stood out from the norm. The pacing wasn't always the best, and according to Cliff Blezinski's book Control Freak, Unreal was in a way described as a group of eager young talent making cool maps with the Unreal level editor for the new Unreal Engine, and in the end somehow stitch all the maps together for the full experience. Kind of cool to think about, because nowadays I suppose that's not how Triple A games usually are being made. Especially not Halo 1 I assume, which was released only a few years later.
That early temple level is such a jarring change of pace after the well-designed mines and the outdoor intro section. I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of people tap out at that point. Thanks for the nugget of info from Cliffy B's book, funnily enough those first three levels before the temple are the only single player ones made by him.
I so dearly want a mod made of halo 1 (its not called halo ce) with all the copy+paste stuff removed and replaced by new content. AotCR without those octogon rooms. Last 3 levels with full original geometry. Complete overhaul of the library. this is so much work but such a mod could make for one of the greatest games of all time. the rushed levels is the single only thing holding it back.
That would be awesome. It would probably have to be done in the old Gearbox Custom Edition, there were some very cool weapon and vehicle mods for that.
Myself, if I had to trace Halo's DNA, I'd go: DooM>Marathon(+Duke Nukem 3D+Quake)>GoldenEye>Unreal>Half Life>Halo CE(>Unreal Tournament 2K4)>Halo 2(+Half Life 2)>Halo 3>CoD4MW>Halo Reach>post Golden Age CoD+TitanFall>343 Halo. PS: Yes, I agree Halo is directly responsible for CoD, Yes, I love Halo, yes, I believe CoD ruined Halo, to classic Halo is an Arena shooter, just a very unique and different one. I miss classic Halo. If you enjoyed the classic Halo trilogy, check out Unreal 1, check out the Half Life series, and check out TiranFall 2 single player, all great experiences.
Indeed, I'm so pissed that EA cancelled TitanFall 3 in favor of Apex Legends, because I genuinely believe they had what it take to pull it out a secon time, I do not care for TitanFall multiplayer, but dayum, that campaign is much better than it has any rights to be.
Eh naaah. i disagree about the enemies ai part. Fighting skaarj is interesting to the very end of the game. Unreal has the most fun combat of all arena FPS games imo
I hear you but it isn't always that simple. N64 shooters like Goldeneye, Perfect Dark and Turok 1 did things for the genre that hadn't been done before in the PC space, and would end up shaping later PC FPS titles. The vast majority of the genre's evolution prior to Halo happened on PC, but just because a shooter uses a stick doesn't mean its worth writing off.
I played Unreal for the first time 2 years ago with zero fondness or nostalgia. It’s quite frankly one of the most impressive games i’ve ever played. It’s hard to swallow some of the criticism here because i want excuse any and all faults due to its imursive atmosphere. The music, lighting and spectical of the game is beyond compare for me, though i’d be lying to say i don’t agree with all of the criticisms layed out here. I probably won’t play through the whole game ever again but i would recommend someone play it for the first time, and if not please check out the OST.
I never played my copy of Unreal for more than a few minutes. Didn't like the dark and moody environments, I suppose. (Or, to be more precise, they made me anxious.) I did play the PC version of Halo, though, and... I wasn't impressed? The environments were repetitive even before the Flood hit, I never really understood the praise the AI received, and the weapon system didn't really appeal to me either. But that was also around when FPS games stopped being my primary genre and I branched out to a ton of others.
Turn up the gamma! Maybe your anxiety will pass. It can be a very dimly lit game, especially the final few levels. I love the contrast it brings to the game though.
Its exceptionally well paced. In my experience, the most replayable single player games always have really tight pacing, like RE4, DMC1, Dark Souls etc
Naw man, it was one of my favorite games and maybe the most influential shooter of all time that did the most damage. That game is Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. That's truly the before and after for the fps genre.
Halo hurting shooters for a decade? That's rhetoric. We're still suffering from the plight of ADS and sprint thanks to cod4. Outside of marketing, I can't think of any games that actually tried to copy the Halo formula, not any from the 2000s anyway.
From 2001 onwards, the majority of shooters adopted two-weapon limits with recharging health systems and melee/grenade buttons - all because of Halo. There were also sci-fi shooters that genuinely tried to steal Halo's thunder a bit, like Killzone, Haze, The Conduit, Resistance etc. Call of Duty carries an equal amount of blame for just how homogenized most shooters became during that time too, but it was Halo that kicked it all off.
That's because all those reviewers get it wrong, including this one (good video but a lot of disagreements on Unreal). The industry didn't try to copy Halo, but Halo 2. And that's a MAJOR difference.
As someone who isn't an expert in this genre, I found this deep dive interesting and it shows a real transition/split from what came before and after Halo. Though I think HL2 and that era of Valve games do an incredible job of giving us Halo-style memorable experiences with more Unreal-like shooting. Not to mention actual good writing!
If you'll excuse the pedantry... criticising a game's enemies for being a chore to kill while showing clips of you consistently aiming centre mass, despite head-shots and decapitation animations being a major feature... eh. I mean, that advanced AI was supposed to encourage you to be as quick on your feet as them; to dodge, to go for headshots and be highly selective in weapon usage (to make good use of the alt fire that every weapon has).
Unreal Tournament 2004 is my personal favorite. While Unreal Tournament 99 was more of a competitor to Quake 3, I believe Quake 3 had better gameplay, while Unreal Tournament 99 offered more variety. It had more levels, weapons, alternative fire options on weapons, mutators, and numerous options to customize your gameplay.
Halo 1 critiques are so copy-paste. You say the backtracking consists of less interesting versions of what we've seen. I'd argue while familiar, they do well to stand out. Two betrayals starts strong with a banshee under cover of night and transitions toward a 2 faction fight in open ground. Keyes takes you back through the ship and down into the coolant which becomes a tight corridor against oppressing enemies. The Maw shows the POA after the crash and crawling with flood. The cherry on top is the warthog run. Halo CE us a self contained story. It didn't need to be an overwhelming spectacle of vistas.
That's fair about the Maw, but I always liked Assault on the Control Room more than Two Betrayals, and same for Keyes with Truth and Reconciliation. I don't think Two Betrayals does enough to stand out other than the flood, and I would've liked to see the woody environment from "Halo" make a return instead. Thanks for watching.
You couldn't have made Halo sound worse at the begining lol. I loved playing through Reach recently but the rest of the games feel like a downgrade. Otherwise I'm more of a UT guy but yeah, Unreal was old school already when it came out. It's mostly just much prettier looking Quake 1.
10:44 - 11:11 lmao git gud the thing about halo's ai is that it breaks as soon as you kill the leader of a pack. unreal's ai is relentless but if you have good aim and know how to use each weapon in a given situation, you can blast through them fairly. it just takes effort and understanding, unlike halo's "rock paper scissors" gameplay. also, the flood in halo ce are the most boring enemies in any fps i've ever played. "oh no, better get ma shotgun!" "oh no better blow up the fat one's from a distance!" "oh no the little ones do... nothing?" the flood levels suck.
can't stand Halo and Cod for what they've done to FPS genre, their audience I mean, even though I like ODST and early cod games up to waw. It was always obvious to me that Unreal had some sort of influece on Halo (especially at the time)
With all due respect, it becomes quite obvious that you have a bias towards Halo. Not only that, you're comparing two games that released at a difference of three years between them- which is a big deal if you understand the implications of Moore's law. The world of Unreal is much more lived in and atmospheric than that of Halo. And the primary difference between the two games is the fact that where Halo experiments with a safer side of sci-fi (that being their focus on technology), Unreal takes a larger risk on the creative side. Where Halo can be compared to other shooters in the genre- and even competes with them on occasion. Unreal stands in a category of its own. And while the game can be compared to Quake, those comparisons fall flat when the atmosphere is factored in. Unreal provoked a sense of wonder and amazement by leveraging mythical Alien temples, but Quake's focus was more on disturbing the player in the Lovecraftian horror setting. With all of that being said, I believe that Unreal and Quake is a much more appropriate and fruitful comparison than comparing Unreal with Halo.
I feel like saying that halo hurt fps games is a bit of a totally fucking braindead take, I think blaming the poor use of mechanics it pioneered is about as unfair as blaming any game that came before it for pioneering mechanics that halo borrowed. Great video otherwise
