Unreal series
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The Unreal series is a computer game franchise that began with the original Unreal, a single-player first-person shooter computer game which was published on Memorial Day 1998 by Epic Games. It was powered by the Unreal engine which had been in development for over three years before the game was released. The game was the start of a long running series, and a successful game brand.
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Early development
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 mods (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.
The Skaarj
The Skaarj (pronounced "scar") are a race of agressive alien beings originally introducted in Unreal, but subsequently found in all later games of the series, usually as the antagonists. The Skaarj design seems to have been influenced by alien designs from various other franchises. At the head of the Skaarj race is a Queen, similar to the Xenomorph Queen. A Skaarj's main weapon is called a Razik, and consists of wrist mounted blades, similar to the ones the Yautja from the Predator franchise. This blade design gave birth to the design of the different variations of the Circle-U logo of the series, and the Skaarj themselves can be considered the series' mascots.
The Unreal Tournament series
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Epic Games' 1999 follow-up title was called Unreal Tournament and focused mainly on multiplayer action: It was launched in direct competition to id's Quake III Arena. As with the original Unreal, the ease with which players could create and release modifications to the core game was a key factor contributing to Unreal Tournament's longevity. UT improved upon the mod-friendly nature of its predecessor with the inclusion of support for mutators, which allowed users to easily integrate small amounts of code into the core game with a minimal effort, for example to cause players' heads to increase in size with each frag and decrease in size with each death. Players could then simply check a box to enable or disable the mutator. This allowed for fine-tuning of the game experience to a degree not generally possible with traditional full-scale modifications.
Unreal and Unreal Tournament saw sequels released in 2002, entitled Unreal II (developed by Legend Entertainment for the PC and Tantalus Interactive for the Xbox) and Unreal Tournament 2003. Unreal Tournament 2003 had a name change from the expected Unreal Tournament II in order to imitate traditional sports-based video games, where annual releases are typical. Unreal Tournament 2003 dropped the venerable Assault gametype of the original Unreal Tournament, adding the new Bombing Run mode to take its place. The game had a brief period of popularity, but did not enjoy the same level of success as its predecessor.
As part of Epic Games' strategy of porting the Unreal engine to other platforms, Unreal Championship, a sister product to Unreal Tournament 2003, was released in November 2002 for the Xbox.
On February 11, 2004, the demo for Unreal Tournament 2004 was made available for download over the Internet. Within a few hours of its release it had become one of the most popular online games. The full version was made available on March 18, 2004 and could be purchased as either six CDs, one DVD, or on two DVDs (containing both the game and an extra disk of bonus content) as part of the "Special Edition" release (which was completely sold-out in a very short space of time - There were only 60,000 copies made for global distribution). It was later released on 13 April, 2004, as a DVD Edition containing both of the Special Edition DVDs, but without the metal box covering & headset. It expanded on the team-based theme of its predecessor with the reintroduction of Assault (last seen in Unreal Tournament), the addition of a new gametype called Onslaught, and the inclusion of several futuristic vehicles. The game featured built-in voice-comms and contained over one hundred separate maps, many of which were carried over from Unreal Tournament 2003.
On May 9, 2005, Unreal Tournament 2007 was announced (http://www.gamespot.com/news/2005/05/09/news_6123942.html). It will use the Unreal 3 engine and is set to be released in 2006.
Release dates of Unreal titles
PC games
- Unreal — May 25, 1998
- Unreal Tournament — November 26, 1999
- Unreal Tournament 2003 — October 1, 2002
- Unreal II: The Awakening — February 4, 2003
- Unreal Tournament 2004 — March 18, 2004
- Unreal Tournament 2004 DVD Edition — April 13, 2004
- Unreal Tournament 2004 Editor's Choice Edition — September 21, 2004
- Unreal Tournament 2007 — 2006
Console games
- Unreal Tournament (Dreamcast) — March 14, 2001
- Unreal Tournament (PlayStation 2) — October 26, 2000
- Unreal Championship (Xbox) — November 15, 2002
- Unreal II: The Awakening (Xbox) — February 10, 2004
- Unreal Championship 2: The Liandri Conflict (Xbox) — February 8, 2005
Mods and mutators
Numerous mods have been made for Unreal games.
Unreal Tournament games also feature "mutators", which allow players to quickly and easily make small changes to the basic gameplay. Such tweaks include alterating rate of fire, increase player speed, or low gravity.
- Infiltration (realism mod featuring modern day military weapons and scenarios) - UT - [1] (http://infiltration.sentrystudios.net/)
- Red Orchestra (total conversion) - UT2k3, UT2k4
- Jailbreak (gametype modification) - UT, UT2k3, UT2k4 - [2] (http://www.planetjailbreak.com/)
External links
General Unreal-related websites:
- Official Unreal website (http://www.unreal.com/)
- unrealwiki (http://wiki.beyondunreal.com/wiki/Home_Page)
- The official Unreal Developer Network (http://udn.epicgames.com) documenting the Unreal engine
- Online community Unreal engine documentation (http://wiki.beyondunreal.com/)
- LevelDesigner.com, popular Unreal modding web site (http://www.leveldesigner.com/)
- Official Unreal Tournament website (http://www.unrealtournament.com)
Popular Unreal community web sites:
- PlanetUnreal (http://www.planetunreal.com/)
- BeyondUnreal (http://www.beyondunreal.com/)
- Unreal Ops (http://www.unrealops.com/)
- Unreal Playground (http://www.unrealplayground.com/)
- Unreal Sector (http://www.unrealsector.com/)