Unreal (series)

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Unreal is a series of first-person shooter video games developed by Epic Games. The series is also known for its exhibition of the Unreal Engine that powers the games and is available for other developers to license. As a result of Epic's focus on the engine technology, much of the creative workload such as map design has traditionally been outsourced to other studios, namely Digital Extremes. Legend Entertainment was brought in for the first game's expansion pack and its sequel, Unreal II.

Publishing rights for the series have changed hands several times. GT Interactive was the original publisher, and a series of acquisitions and corporate restructurings eventually led to Infogrames and then Atari inheriting the relationship. However, during the production of Unreal Tournament 2004 there was a financial dispute between Epic and Atari, culminating in the gold master being held hostage in exchange for milestone and royalty payments. After dealing with that episode, Epic elected to take the publishing rights elsewhere for future titles and eventually settled on a deal with Midway Games.

The Unreal logo
The Unreal logo

Contents

[edit] Games in the series

[edit] Anthologies

  • Totally Unreal (2000) contains Unreal, Return to Na Pali, and Unreal Tournament, along with content patches and community mods that were previously released for free download.
  • Unreal Anthology (2006) contains Unreal Gold, Unreal Tournament, Unreal II, Unreal Tournament 2004, and a bonus soundtrack CD.[1] However, missing from Unreal Tournament are the improved S3TC textures which came with the original release of the game. As well, the internet connectivity of Unreal in this collection is isolated by having a different master server than the original game.

[edit] Tournament and Championship spin-offs

Unreal Tournament was launched in direct competition to Quake III Arena, and was similarly focused on multiplayer action. UT improved upon the mod-friendly nature of its predecessor with the inclusion of support for "mutators", which allowed users to selectively insert game code modifications without the need for a total conversion. Small mods, such as ones adding weapons or power-ups, could be seamlessly combined according to the player's desires. Players could then use a simple dialog box to enable or disable the mutator.

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. As part of Epic Games' strategy of porting the Unreal engine to other platforms, UT 2003 was ported to the Xbox as Unreal Championship, with several gameplay changes intended to make the game more appealing to console audiences. Taking that idea further, Unreal Championship 2 was created exclusively for the Xbox, and includes gameplay elements not seen in any other Unreal games, for example an emphasis on melee weapons and the encouraged use of third-person perspective.

[edit] Gameplay

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[edit] Weapons

The Unreal series features a large selection of weapons. One of the hallmarks of the series is that every weapon has a secondary fire mode or function.

  • Bio-Rifle, a weapon that shoots greenish gobs of toxic waste in an arcing manner. If these gobs do not hit a target, they will stick to whatever surface they land on (including walls and ceiling) and then explode after a certain amount of time, injuring anyone caught too close. One of the most infamous weapons in the game, it requires practice to use effectively but is superb for defense and ambushing. The primary fire mode releases a succession of the globs, while secondary mode combines several globs (up to eight units of ammo) into a very large one, which is released when the player releases the fire button.
  • Enforcer, a semi-automatic pistol and, under normal (non-mutated) circumstances, one of two weapons the player spawns with. The player can dual wield Enforcers if they happen to find a second one. Secondary fire tilts the Enforcer sideways for greater rate of fire at the cost of lesser accuracy.
  • Flak Cannon, a classic UT weapon whose primary fire is functionally similar to a shotgun, though the metal shrapnel can bounce off walls. The secondary fire is an arcing contact detonated shell.
  • Impact Hammer: According to Unreal universe lore this pneumatic crushing device was originally used as a miner's tunneling tool, though today it serves as the other default weapon (besides the Enforcer) which all players start with. Besides smashing opponents, it can also be used to do hammer jumps, which involves using the Impact Hammer to propel the player, as well as deflect or reflect projectiles away or back at its source.
  • Minigun, a classic machine gun, its ammunition contains a tracer bullet every few rounds for aiming precision. Like the Enforcer, its secondary fire trades accuracy for a higher rate of fire.
  • Pulse Gun: a futuristic counterpart to the Minigun, it fires a stream of green plasma bolts. These bolts do not travel very fast and can be difficult to hit opponents with at close range. Fortunately, secondary fire produces a stream of plasma energy which the player can easily land on opponents. This stream consumes the weapon's ammo clips at double the rate, and produces half damage.
  • Redeemer: A portable thermonuclear missile launcher. The Redeemer's missile causes a gigantic explosion, the shockwave of which vaporizes players instantly. The secondary fire launches a guided nuclear warhead which the user can pilot remotely, via an onboard camera. While guiding the missile, the user can see only the missile's point-of-view, and is thus unable to see what happens to his/her player.
  • Ripper: this weapon that fires disc-shaped razor blades that can ricochet off of any surface, making them deadly in small or enclosed areas—including the player, who is not immune to his/her own shots. The secondary fire fires explosive blades that detonate upon impacting the first surface they hit. This weapon, like the sniper rifle, is capable of instant decapitation (a "head shot") if a blade strikes the neck of a player. Headshots are difficult to land, but circumvent any type of armor the victim is wearing (with the exception of personal shield belts, which project a forcefield around the entire player).
  • Eightball Gun:The eightball gun was the precusor to the rocket launcher (below), and had rounded cannister shapped ammunition which could be loaded into the gun one at a time, up to a total of eight rounds. This weapon could be fired in multiple ways including a grouping of rockets in a wide spread, as a number of grenades which would bounce off surfaces once before exploding on impact, or as a grouping rockets in a tight formation, by holding the fire button and pressing another button before releasing the fire button to release the rockets in a close spiraling group. This weapon later became the rocket launcher, and lost its ability to function as a grenade launcher.
  • Rocket Launcher. A bulky weapon with target locking capability, the rocket launcher is used heavily in UT. With a large splash radius the rockets can also injure the user as well, making this weapon most effective at medium range—the rockets are too slow to be effective at long range. If the player is able to keep their target inside the reticle long enough, the rockets can "lock on" and, when fired, will track the target, which makes them somewhat more useful at long ranges. The secondary fire tosses rockets in the form of timed grenades, allowing for close quartered ambushing. Either firing mode allows the player to hold down the fire button and load up to 6 rockets for simultaneous launch, which occurs immediately after the last rocket is loaded.
  • Shock Rifle, A instant hit weapon, this fires a concentrated beam of energy which is effective at both long and short ranges. It not only inflicts damage but also impart significant kinetic energy impact, often resulting in the target being blown back some distance. The Shock Rifle's alternate fire releases a slower-moving ball of plasma, called a "shock core". The third firing option is called the "Shock Combo". This is achieved by first shooting a slow-moving shock core, then shooting it with a shock bolt, resulting in a significant explosion which consumes extra ammo.
  • Sniper Rifle, A high-power, semi-automatic, instant hit rifle, the secondary fire of which activates the sniper scope which zooms up to 8.3x magnification, allowing the player to see enemies from a very long distance. A bullet striking the skull results in instant death, regardless of the target's current health or armor (as with the Ripper, the only exception to this is the personal shield belt, which projects a forcefield around the entire player). 'Sniper Arena,' a mutator in which the sniper rifle is the only weapon available, is one of the default mods for Unreal Tournament.
  • Translocator, A personal teleporting device, see translocator section below.

Additionally there are two other weapons which are not used in the standard maps but are available through standard mutators and can be placed in custom maps.

  • Chainsaw, available through the chainsaw melee (where it replaces the impact hammer) and chainsaw arena (where it is the only weapon) mutators the chainsaw is a melee weapon. The primary fire does massive damage, and the secondary fire is a wide arcing swing that can instantly decapitate an enemy but leaves the player vulnerable to attack.
  • Enhanced shock rifle, available through the instagib mutator. Similar in appearance to the shock rifle but with only one firing mode, no splash damage and an extremely high damage this weapon will kill in one shot but only with a perfect hit.

[edit] Setting

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Following the devastating Human/Skaarj Wars (the fictional battle between humans and the Skaarj in the Unreal universe), Earth's cities lay in ruins. When the New Earth Government tried to take control of these cities, they discovered many rebel groups, covertly financed by corporations such as Liandri, Izanagi, and Axon. Pretty soon, a war had started to regain control of the ruined cities, and eventually there was fighting between the corporations as well.

The constant battles caused many casualties, reducing the already small human population. One particular battle, considered to be the boldest act in the Corporation Wars, was when Axon Research Corporation raided Izanagi's facility and retrieved the advanced Plasma Ion Tank being developed there. This subterfuge started a huge chain of events which would make "consensual murder" legal. This also eventually lead to the start of the Tournament.

[edit] Unreal engine

The Unreal game engine, simply called Unreal 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.

[edit] Modding

Unreal Tournament games allow for a wide range of gameplay modifications that the games refer to as "mutators" or "mods" (the latter usually implying a total conversion). Mutators tend to make only small changes to gameplay, including, but not limited to, new weapons and power-ups. Mods are larger changes that may include new game types and possibly specially designed maps for the new game types. Servers can be configured to automatically distribute mod files to clients who don't have them.

Well-known mods for UT include InfiltrationMod, Tactical Ops, and Red Orchestra: Combined Arms.

[edit] References

  1. ^ N/A: A History of Unreal Music - VGMdb

[edit] External links

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Unreal franchise
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