I still remember pulling that big fat Unreal retail box down off of the shelf and rushing home to do the lengthy install. What an amazing game.
Oh yes! I remember it like it was last week. I went to the store with the intention to buy a PC game and I saw that giant poster on the wall. Black background with horizontal stripes made of in-game screenshots and the letters "UNREAL". Below it a pile of cardboard boxes with the same design.
I grabbed one and that picture of Bluff Eversmoking really got me. It looked like some place that could really exist, i was immersed by it alone and couldn't wait to be there.
However, I was a minor and the game was rated mature, so I was quite nervous when I went to pay, as I feared they would ask for my ID, but no, I got through.
Back home I installed and was sent on a journey of adventure and excitement. Man, games used to be pure magic at that time.
I could play it on the lowest settings only, laughable resolution of 320x280. The pixels were giagantic and sometimes, I think the first time in Chizra, I put the setting to maximum, just to see the beauty and it was mind blowing! The game was a picture slide show however, so unfortunately I had to leave that dream and get back to the pixel reality. I dreamed for the day I could play that game on maximum settings.
It was my second PC game (first was MDK) and I wasn't used to the violence. The first time I ripped a Skaarj to pieces with the Flak I had a really bad and guilty feeling, but I got used to it.
To this day, I still play Unreal. My most played game of all times.
The evolution of Unreal for me happened in April 2006. I am a great fan of tactical games like SWAT3, oldschool Rainbow Six and Ghost Recon and above all an Unreal Tournament modification called Infiltration. So a guy hosted an Infiltration 2.9 server where we played through the original Unreal single player and that was an incredible experience. I re-experienced Unreal like I never did before. It was a sheer blast.
Since Infiltration is rather realistic and slow paced, you get to appreciate the details and value yout ingame life. Weapons became much more effective though, 4 bullets of caliber 5.56NATO could kill a Skaarj, but you couldn't dodge and was weak (no ressupply, no healthpacks).
Reason why it was so good is because Unreal really became a survival game, we played in small teams and when we had to cross a river (only knife usable in water) only one was swiming while the rest was covering the area, so untill all were on the other side. Unreal could bo se unpredictable, like a Skaarj would suddenly jump into water from a cliff and we had to fire from all our rifles to save the helpless team mate in the water. We were exploring all places, saw details the fast paced Unreal didn't let me see, appreciated the atmosphere.
Ammunition was limitted, so we would soemtimes sneak past hordes of enemies to continue or to have a better spot.
Playing like this made the world of Unreal bigger and deeper, almost like a sandbox open world game (we played Skaarj Castle for three full nights until completion).
Infiltration (slow paced, realistic) + Unreal (a strange world full of exploration and secrets) is to this day my dream game concept. I would love to see something like this some day. If I will ever get to design a game, this will be it.