Unreal Mac Review (1998)

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From the archive: this review first ran on the Mac Gaming Alliance (MGA), the Mac games site that lived here on DimensionZ in the late 1990s. It was published September 1998 and is reproduced as originally written, with the original screenshots (click to enlarge). More in the Mac Gaming Alliance archive.

Unreal, it came out on the PC months ago, set the PC world afire. Now it is out on the Mac, will it do the same? Easy this, of course it will, Unreal is simply the best 1st person shooter ever to appear on any platform. Sure it has some faults. This is the first and only game I have ever made a point to explore everything possible on my first time through. Even without a 3D card the game is stunning, absolutely stunning. It is the best looking game ever.

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Gameplay

The gameplay is linear and gets fairly repetitive after a while. Kill and hunt for buttons/levers/switches, but then again every game of this type basically boils down to these elements. The AI for the monsters is the best I have seen, they run around, hide and retreat when being pummelled in a one on one. Some of are even bright enough to engage in pretty impressive ambushes and pincer movements. The weaponry on the other hand, looks good but is a bit underpowered. Unreal has a candidate for most useless weapon in a game, the ASMD. Never depend on it, it is pretty useless. There also no, huge nasty weapon, pocket nuke variety. The RezorJack and the Eightball are the most useful and my favourites.

Unreal seems to me to have more replay value that most games of this ilk. There is suppose to be a Marathon TC for it soon, so the engine will be going for a long time methinks. Another reason that the game will be played over and over again is the fly cheat, this function allows you to fly around the level and see it in all its finery. Well worth it.

I am unable to play multiplayer because of a rubbish internet connection and few people I know have computers able to handle the monster that is Unreal.

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Graphics and Sound/Interface/Difficulty

Well there is not much one can say about either, other than wow. Nothing I have ever seen in any genre of game comes close to this. Nothing. There are places where things bleed into each other but that is rare. The music and visuals combine for an amazing ambience with is really apt to drag you in and leave you there. The interface is incredibly good and allows an amazing amount of feedback. While the mouse/keyboard combination is tricky to get used to, once it is mastered it provides incredible game play. Unreal will be a major time suck, even as a solo game.

The game is not hard to play once you master the controls and know what to look for. The lighting even on the brightest of settings can be hard to deal with at first. Underwater and dark areas are also hard on the eyes. The biggest frustration is jumping up on ledges and the like. One has to perfectly aligned is some cases, this can be a tad annoying. The fly function solves this when you get really bogged down. A two button mouse or joystick would help when it comes to secondary fire, which is control on the keyboard. I have actually been too lazy to find a better more suitable key.

Bugs

There are a few annoying ones. Two of the levels I have played, so far, have areas where loading/saving causes the game to crash. Oddly enough this is only an isolated problem. There is some lagging in some of the more crowded rooms as well. This still occurs despite the fact that I am giving the game 96 RAM to run with.

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Conclusion

Unreal is, well, unreal. It is an amazing game that has no competitors on the Mac. Its big problem is the fact that it requires so much powerful hardware. You cannot play this game is an reasonable fashion on anything less than a G3 with more than 96 RAM. The requirements are almost obscene. Saying that, Mark Adams and company have done a cracking job with this port. It was done quickly and well.

So basically if you really want to enjoy this game here is what you do: 1. Buy a G3 2. Get as much RAM as you can afford (96+) 3. Get a 3d Card 4. Get a cable modem or a ISDN line 5. get some rich friends who can get all of the above as well.

Find a copy

Unreal has been out of print for years, but used copies of the original Mac release still turn up, and some classics have been re-released for modern systems. Search for Unreal on Amazon.

Ratings use the MGA’s original 1–5 apple scale. Prices, system requirements and web links in this review are from the time it was written.