Below are user reviews of Unreal and on the right are links to professionally written reviews.
The summary of review scores shows the distribution of scores given by the professional reviewers for Unreal.
Column height indicates the number of reviews with a score within the range shown at the bottom of the column.
Higher scores (columns further towards the right) are better.
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User Reviews (1 - 11 of 48)
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This game is BOOOOORING!
1
Rating: 1,
Useful: 0 / 1
Date: November 19, 1998
Author: Amazon User
Nuff said. Go play Doom. It's cheaper, faster and more fun
Definitely lacking atmosphere
2
Rating: 2,
Useful: 0 / 1
Date: June 08, 1999
Author: Amazon User
Do you remember how DOOM had you sitting up all night just to see what was round the next corner ?? Also, that ghostly soundtrack and the eerie lighting ? Then we had Quake, with it's dirty brown palette and Nine inch nails soundtrack. Nearly lost my job over that one - EXCELLENT !!
Then we all ran out and bought Unreal ?? Hmmmm, I found myself aping out of this one after 20 minutes...... Just didn't have that addictiveness to it. From a gameplay standpoint though, the AI in the monsters is top notch (Try the Difficult setting). On a VOODOO board the graphics are just excellent. But, it just doesn't have atmosphere.......
It's a nice try at a very "hit or miss" market but, this one missed more than it hit for me.
Low-quality game for a non-wealthy single player.
2
Rating: 2,
Useful: 0 / 0
Date: February 17, 1999
Author: Amazon User
This game is sooo below the expactations! It's got really nice graphics, rather good sound, but it lacks the most important thing; REAL GAMEPLAY. Unreal is incredibly boring when playing alone, and if you don't own one of the most expensive computers around you can just throw your low-guality game right down the trashcan. But if you're mister wealthyboy go on and buckle up for a quite nice ride in the Online-game store nearest to you.
Beautiful but Boring
2
Rating: 2,
Useful: 0 / 0
Date: April 23, 1999
Author: Amazon User
Yes, the graphics and sounds to this game are unreal, however the gameplay is nowhere near. The puzzles, storyline, and overall gameplay is totally lacking from the "incredible new experience that would redefine the generation." With the four years spent in creating this game, you would think more time would have been spent in gameplay rather than just the grapics engine. Look elsewhere for "unreal" experiences.
OK GAME
2
Rating: 2,
Useful: 0 / 0
Date: February 07, 1999
Author: Amazon User
THE GAME IS FUN, BUT PRETTY MUCH THE SAME AS QUAKE II. GET A VOODOO2 CARD AND SEE WHAT I MEAN BY QUAKE HAVING JUST AS EXCELLENT GRAPHICS. BESIDES, SOMEONE SAID THAT IT IS SO GOOD THAT THEY CAN'T BEAT IT. WELL I DON'T KNOW ABOUT YOU, BUT I DON'T WANT A GAME THAT I CAN'T BEAT! GOOD GAME, BUT NOTHING YOU HAVEN'T SEEN BEFORE.
Unreal was UNREAL...
2
Rating: 2,
Useful: 0 / 3
Date: May 27, 2003
Author: Amazon User
Until now. In 1998, Unreal was absolutely a beatiful masterpeice to behold, that made me drool so badly it made my drool like hoemr simpson at an all you can eat BBQ restraunt, and made R.I.P Quake II to Unreal, it was a graphical god, making incredible splendid use of lens flares and colors with true support from MMX and 3Dnow! intructions supporting processors. Making the best use of Voodoo class 3-D grafic accelerator boards with 3DFX, tagged along with impressive and well designed A.I with an innovative storyline and immerse game-play with well animated environments and realistic environmental reverb and spatial and background 16-bit quailty sound effects with support from A3D sound boards with awesome techno audio and 24-bit color support from grafics cards and upport from Windows 95 to Windows NT platform with both great single player and good multiplayer modes, software rendering support, brilliant character developement, and a variety of nicely paired preferences and designed menus, and more, unreal was the ultimate technological game with great game-play, making John Carmack's Quake II look like nothing. Yet by today's standards, unreal is nothing but a cheesey cheap low system requirements oldskool 3-D game. You'll only be able to find it in bargain bins, unfortunately. Back in 1998, it had an incredible new platform engine for amazing technological achievement. Also including a friendly easy to use fully supported unofficial level and mod editor and creator tool, unreal was not game to get bored of easily. Unless you had a top of the line or near 1998 system, you woudn't get the incredible experience out of unreal that the masters at epic and digital extremes designed unreal to originally specifically offer. I just picked up a copy of unreal, and was not impressed. I spent almost 10 minutes on the game with highest settings with my new Alienware with the latest P4 processor with Windows XP. Sure it looked decent and ran great, but then again, it was not a good experience. Too bad there wasn't a time machine, so I can see what unreal was all legendary and about back then. But that isn't possible, so I'll pass on unreal.
Gorgeous but marred by shallow gameplay
3
Rating: 3,
Useful: 4 / 4
Date: December 29, 2000
Author: Amazon User
It still amazes me how good this game -- now over two and a half years old -- looks. Sure, the top of the line PC stuff is definitely prettier now, mainly due to higher polygon counts. But we have yet to achieve a quantum leap in graphics quality equivalent to what "Unreal" and "Quake 2" accomplished in late '97/early '98 (just compare "Unreal" to the previous year's "Jedi Knight" to see what I mean). To this day the game's textures are flat-out gorgeous, particularly the ones on the "Vortex Rikers," "Terraniux" and "Dark Arena" levels.
That said, the gameplay is pretty weak. I came to "Unreal" after having played "Half-Life" -- still the penultimate single-player first-person-shooter (FPS) experience -- and "Unreal" didn't even come close. I could barely be bothered to play halfway through the game. Only the lure of new graphics ahead kept me playing, but I never finished it. While "Half-Life" keeps you intrigued with lots of in-game scripted moments, a plot containing at least a few twists, and a series of unforgettable sequences that leave you shaking your head saying "That was so cool," "Unreal" just throws endless levels at you. And buttons to push, and levers to throw, and doors to open. Sure, the enemy AI is pretty good (for its time -- "Half Life" put that to shame as well), but the number of different monster-types is pretty low, and there's no context for any of it after the first few levels. The action isn't intense enough to hold interest by itself. To borrow an apt phrase, there's no "there" there.
Still, the atmosphere is amazing, and more than enough to justify buying "Unreal" given its now-low price. Some of the moments are simply breathtaking -- first emerging from the crashed ship into Nyleve's Falls; walking around the outside of the Coliseum in "Dark Arena"; and above all the approach to Terraniux, when the setting suns backlight the huge looming spaceship that dominates the landscape. There is also some fine architecture -- "Dark Arena" and "Sunspire" spring readily to mind -- but remember there is a difference between designing a cool building and creating a really great game level. The music is great too, although sadly not in Redbook format, so you can't just play the tunes off the CD.
Bottom line: if you haven't bought "Unreal," and your system has the appropriate specs, pick it up. It's a piece of gaming history and still pretty darn gorgeous. But don't expect a seminal gaming experience. Expect instead a sublime "it-might-have-been."
great graphics, but ti does have its flaws.
3
Rating: 3,
Useful: 2 / 3
Date: November 17, 1999
Author: Amazon User
Unreal is a good game...Lots of hours of gameplay, good graphics, and nice weapons and enemies renderings. There is some flaws though. Its very dark and easy to get lost in. Also the game levels are more maze like than they are enemy-difficult. over all pretty good though.***
Unreal is fun to play but its day is over.
3
Rating: 3,
Useful: 2 / 2
Date: June 22, 2000
Author: Amazon User
For less than 10 dollars Unreal is fun and worth its cost but for hardcore gun-toting maniacs thrn Unreal Toyrnament is your calling. However if you just want to play a good shooter with nice graphics and to practice skills against an OK AI then Unreal is a good buy.
its ok
3
Rating: 3,
Useful: 2 / 7
Date: June 29, 2000
Author: Amazon User
Well, going into it, I heard that this was SO much better than Quake III arena. I had played that game, and I liked it. So, I gave Unreal a go. After playing for a while, I played Quake III again. Within a few minutes, I quit Quake, uninstalled Unreal, and went back to playing Quake. The difference in the graphics was incredable. All the sharp edges are fine, but I perfer the revolutionaly rounded surfaces. Quake III blew Unreal out of the water graphically. What about the game play? Well, I was kidna dissapointed. Quake III is very intense, the kind of game you get caught up in. I found myself playing Unreal, just to see what it was like. It had no draw whatsoever. I thought the weapons were fairly difficult to use, and were kinda cheesy. For me, it is all Quake III.
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