on Unreal Gold (no UT, i haven't tried to use Unreal on UT yet and don't know how) and works perfectly, so it runs in ''modern'' hardware. On the other side, i am not using a laptop (which tend to have more problems with older games in my experience) and the OS i use has a decade, which could explain it.

About the game itself, for me I played it one year ago again, and i remember it being good overall, highlighting ambiance (that first part inside the spaceship was godly to me back when i played it on 199x), music and some enemies, but just lacking in the layout side on several parts (too many corridors and linear layout), the brushwork seems more ''squarish'' and ''blockish'' in the base and temple parts than in Quake, and that while the weapons are good for DM, and are nicely designed individually and very well differentiated, as a whole feel like they are a bit weak, maybe because how elusive and powerful half the enemies in this game are, i still don't know. 

Yeah that was a turn-off for a lot of people. I think they attempted to compensate for the (presumably performance-driven) very low enemy count by making all the enemies massive bullet sponges (a bad idea). I never minded the slightly sucky combat because the environment and atmosphere was so incredible to me at the time.

It's also another reason I hate the updated weapon sounds - they made all the guns sound like you're launching Tomahawk missiles at the enemies, but then they still do as much damage as flicking a damp bit of tissue paper at them :p 

After playing some more I noticed the same: The combat in Unreal gets boring due to enemies having too much health.

Also, the enemies have no rhythm and no speed variation. They move around like they're adrift, which looks really bad.

However, I started some DM maps to take a look, and noticed that Unreal had plenty of really impressive effects for its time. Mirrors, portals, lit liquids, really good skyboxes and plenty of refraction effects are very impressive for a 1998 game.

Also, the Nali npc secrets are fun.

When compared to Quake 2, I'd say that Quake 2 aged better due to better enemy programming and a more detailed sp level design. Unreal has more atmosphere, but with a lower level of detailing. 

For me Unreal wins LD-wise because of the way it seamlessly intertwines huge exteriors with interiors, has much better non-linearity and exploration, has a lot more environment themes, and lots of very memorable locations. Q2 just felt like a monotonous grey and orange trudge through a bunch of forgettable space warehouses.

Unreal's not all roses though: many of the sci-fi/spaceship levels in Unreal are tedious mazes of wank.

I agree also that the Unreal enemies kinda suck and are annoying to fight. 

Theres a bunch of well known guys behind of the Return to NaPali though

Willem, M.Worch, Kevlar? to name a few 

New weapons: obnoxious, ugly, oversized screen-filling embarrassments with amateurish and muddy looking skins, that had nothing to do with the art style of the original weapons, and pretty much just duplicated their functionality.

New monsters: annoying, cheap, crap things that took all the aspects that were bad about vanilla Unreal's enemy movement and combat, and made them ten times worse.

Level Design: I actually can't remember if it was good or not, but I think it was the least bad thing about the game. Seems to have included a lot of areas that were cut from the original, and new levels that were similar / made in the same style to the original levels.

I'd be up for trying it again if there's a mod that replaces all the new shit weapons and enemies with ones from vanilla. 

I found my Unreal box. I assume the disk is in it but I didn't check because I also found SiN and I might try to play that instead. I only vaguely remember it. I certainly didn't play it more than once and may never have actually finished it. I do remember stupidly long loading times for saves. Maybe that'll be tolerable on a modern computer with an SSD, or maybe it won't run at all. 

do we need a "1990s - The Golden Age of FPS" thread? 

Unreal 2 getting flak was a typical "they changed it, now it sucks" situation. It was a completely different game compared to the original.

Not saying it was perfect, but it was a decent story-driven FPS with impressive visuals. 

do we need a "1990s - The Golden Age of FPS" thread?

Isn't that what this entire forum is about? 

Q2 just felt like a monotonous grey and orange trudge through a bunch of forgettable space warehouses.

This touches on a remark I made above: you can't have gotten too far through the game if that's the impression you took away.

OK, it's true that the first two units are well-described by what you say, but after that the units become much more varied. 

Doom 3 has a similar problem: technically, the themes are different, but the levels are constructed in such a way that it all feels about the same. 

I will always defend it but ffs pretending it was anything other than utilitarian spaces with lighting that is either gray, orange, occasionally blue, and white maybe once in the mines unit, is just typical mh contrarian trolling.

Even the dedicated "outdoors" level was just a single linear path. Boom what a varied unit! 

This touches on a remark I made above: you can't have gotten too far through the game if that's the impression you took away.

Hehe. I played the game through twice, back to back - first on normal and then on hard. It didn't really matter what the fiction said "this is a jail, this is a sewer, this is a factory, etc etc.", the entire game was just a homogeneous, seamless flow through a series of grey chunky concrete, and concrete-like metal, interior spaces. I don't even remember it having any iconic scene-setting exterior landmarks. (even Quake 1 had plenty of cool castle frontages that stuck in the mind). 

And yes, Doom 3 suffers from the exact same problem.

On that subject, I really cringe when I hear Carmack lamenting about how "random" and "unplanned" Quake 1 was, talking about the mish-mash of themes as if it's a bad thing. Seeing what happens design-wise when they have more of a focus (Quake 2, Doom 3)...yeah I know which id software I prefer. 

I don't even remember it having any iconic scene-setting exterior landmarks

Oh come on, we surely can't be talking about the same game?

http://i64.tinypic.com/11j0irm.jpg

http://i66.tinypic.com/4t7rc9.jpg 

Well, I remember the palace entrance. It's the first thing that pops into my mind whenever I see discussions like this one.

Typically, it's also the last. :) 

The Palace entrance is the obvious one.

The power plant with the explosions going off above the two huge chimneys.

The hangar map with the huge shaft, the Hornet boss in it, the lights going up the shaft, the top doors that close, then out to the Black Hole Generator in the next map.

The train in the Lost Station (it doesn't always have to be outdoors, you see).

All the places with towering architecture and fascist banners. Faces and crossed fists. Opulent carpeting. Brickwork. I could literally go through every map and pull out other examples that are being ignored, but maybe it would be "just typical mh contrarian trolling", eh? 

This is the thing though, and yes you can step through Doom 3 in the same way, and say things like "but Delta Labs is totally different to Recycling" etc, and be correct to a certain extent, but.... the overall impression of the game, the impression that most people come away with, and how they think of the game when they look back on it, is one of overall homogeneity. 

Doom 3 has a similar problem: technically, the themes are different, but the levels are constructed in such a way that it all feels about the same.

There are tons of architectural motifs that are repeated ad nauseum throughout all the maps, which contributes to the sense of everything all blurring together. I swear 90% of the brushes in Doom 3 are pipes, railings, and slatted steps. 

My memories from playing the game in 1997-1998 era:

The cooling facility (and the other waste processing levels) impressed me the most. Probably because it's the stroggified expansion of the wind tunnels theme from quake 1.

The jail level was cool, though it lacked variety. But it did have big heavy stone shapes and oppressive angles that I liked.

The big shaft with the hornet boss was cool/memorable as mentioned above.

The low gravity space level was a cool moment even though I think it was pretty basic architecturally.

And the very first level of the game is pretty memorable since it was the demo and established the iconic quake 2 base theme. 

Have a sense of place that is fairly immersive and makes progression pretty fun imo. Quake lacks this somewhat. 

Quake has less of a sense of "journey" because the levels are more self-contained. I'd never consider quake less immersive than Q2 / D3 tho. 

Feels very "padded" to me, with particular emphasis on the stretch from the Intro map through to Delta 4. After that it does tighten up a lot and we get good variety (but not enough of it) with the excavation site, the caverns, the ancient ruins.

But it could have done without at least 2 maps in each of Alpha and Delta labs, and some of the other areas that are two maps (Communications, Recycling) would have been better as a single map with the fat trimmed.

A bit more outdoors, a bit more Hell, a bit more ancient ruins to expand things out again and IMO it would have been a much more enjoyable experience. 

The first Quake displays the same sympthoms, TBH. It even has the reputation of a game that's entirely brown (although ironically it doesn't have a lot of actual brown).