I’ve played most of the tournaments (not the newest). They’re all solid, IMO, but I’m a firm Unreal/Na Pali fan. Which I’ve made obvious before xD in another conversation with you and several others. I did try Unreal 2, since it was on sale and I completely agree: they totally fucked up everything that made the first game great, and didn’t really add much to the story.
I liked Unreal 2 
Playing it years before I played the first game (which was great) probably helped…
Unreal Tournament 2004 was my favourite of the UT games I’ve played (UT99, 2k4, 3)
Unreal 2 was fun, so were all the games really (yes even UT3, as barebones as it was), but what REALLY made Unreal and Unreal Tournament special was the atmosphere which I don’t think Epic has really caught on to yet. Needs moar 1990s future stuff, Alien Isolation style. Also ancient temples and dark, gritty, SHARP graphics. Not cartoon world or blobby muscle balls rolling around in a burry bloom-fuzz land.
I just felt that Unreal 2 wasn’t nearly as solid of a game as the original. But it had its ups, like an actual compass/ objective tracker, story (which unreal didn’t lack, it just didn’t portray in a way that was easy to discern without added reading…which isn’t bad, I loved it) and there were a few gameplay elements I liked. It just didn’t live up to my inner Unreal fanboy.
I enjoyed Unreal 2, though I vastly prefer Unreal 1.
I actually find I love Unreal 1 and Metroid Prime for similar reasons.
I note that there is not a lot of narrative in either.
Yeah it’s mostly visual/environmental storytelling, which I love, as well as that whole “decide your own level of immersion” thing too.
Like, one of the small details is with the sunspire, how you can see it in the skybox from the very beginning of the game and as you progress through the maps it keeps getting bigger, acting as a sort of landmark of your progress and it also had the added effect the first time through if you noticed it of making you anticipate arriving at it.
And em they ACTUALLY have you arrive at it xD
One thing at I didn’t like about Unreal was the lack of friendly NPC’s. You had the Nali, but all the humans were dead the entire time. If they re-made it, that’s the only thing I’d want differently: friendly AI that could help you fight. Or even a co-op that is actually supported on it.
I’d rather have just co-op even
Maybe have a handful of friendly NPCs, but I like how lonely the game is and the only friendly NPCs not speaking english adds to that IMO.
I also liked stuff like that in other games, like having all the npcs speak russian in STALKER save for essential plot details.
I just want to be able to kill the native (and non native) population that is threatening my character with the help of other people xD even if the Nali were able to wield some sort of weapon, that’d suffice enough for NPC partners for me.
NPC combat allies are almost always badly implemented in video games, so I’d in general just rather they not be there. Co-Op’s all good though.
I thought the NPC’s in the Half-Life series were pretty well implemented. I think that certain NPC’s though, like Alyx, are better implemented than others. However, that’s because that particular character is supposed to be with you through more difficult situations. For NPC’s in a remade Unreal, they would need to only be a temporary thing really. Co-Op would be my first choice though, before any NPC partners.
Could an Unreal remake/reboot work well with a more open-worldly aspect? Say, keep the story and progression linear but make the level design bigger and more seamless, with a more developed exploration side.
or gears of war-esque
You know…it could work. I mean, the levels are pretty expansive anyways.
Didn’t CliffyB say he wanted to do something like that for Unreal when he was still at Epic?
I thought Unreal would have really been amazing if it had a scan visor mechanic like Metroid Prime.
I guess the universal translator kinda did the same thing, minus scanning enemies and such.
One of the great things about Unreal is that you always felt at a disadvantage to the enemies, but not so much that you couldn’t overcome them. You never became overpowered, but you were never too underpowered to win any confrontation. It walked a fine line of challenging and fun. I just played it for the second time a few months ago (I played it in 2001 and then lost the disk to a friend…) and loved it all over again. That game was awesome.