There was this whole subplot where you are chasing in the footsteps of another human female by reading her diary entries. You eventually find her corpse near the hydroelectric lift at bluff eversmoking. That hit me hard when I played this in 1999. I haven't played unreal since and still remember that moment.

It can't be overstated how awesome that shining reflective floor was back in the day.

Civvie's experience with Unreal was my experience with Halo. Stepping onto the ringworld after a level of gray hallways. Assault On The Control Room being a vast and expansive level with lore and everything good about the game. I know he doesn't like Halo but man, took me back.

The box of this game was covered in one giant high res in-game screenshot, that's how good it looked at the time.

RIP Civvie, his final episode before the Clown Room claimed him. (An hour long, we're spoiled)

"Former metaverse voice of reason John Carmack" I'm glad you're keeping the recurring Carmack bit up to date and topical

“Putting a giant spider in your game is almost as stock as putting a sewer in.” (Resident Evil 2’s sewer spiders sweat profusely)

Just one thing about the 8-ball: you can "ball" it, having your rockets grouped in a ball, instead of spreaded out. Press both primary and secondary for it.

I'll never forget playing Unreal using the invisibility power-up and getting closer to a group of enemies that were all next to each other only to find out... they were playing dice. What a game.

I appreciate Civvie's rant about Epic killing what was it's flag ship shooter. I couldn't have said it better. Rip Unreal.

Civvie's rant in the beginning only hits harder now that Valve pushed out a great 25th anniversary for Half-Life 1. That game was just about as abandoned by Valve as Unreal 1 was by Epic, yet it's clear that only one of those companies understands the value in holding onto their roots despite their current size and business model.

There is something about the esthetic and athmosphere of the first Unreal Engine that continues to fascinate me to this day. I used to have term for it "Unreal feeling". It is something that I have never experienced with any other game, only Unreal and the first Unreal Tournament.

Way back in high school some madlad installed the original Unreal Tournament into the school's directory. We had LAN matches over the school network in computer lab. It was pretty dope.

45:48 "Sneak by, go downstairs, hit the lights, make a barricade to slow them down." Unreal is an Immersive Sim

Actually on the ISV Kraan's upper decks, the game spawns exactly 20 Skaarj. There's a log entry that mentions that the crew killed 40 but 20 remains. I tested this by literally killing all of them and counting. It actually spawns exactly 20. Which is a pain to fight through (literally had no ammo left by the end) but at least they're honest. Also the stone titan - you don't' have to kill him, just hop on his throne. Once you do, the bridge goes up and you can DROP IT from the OTHER SIDE while the stone titan is on it.

"They can crawl around if you blow their legs off, but otherwise, nah, they're useless." I love the implication that it is their sole function to have their legs blown off.

Civvie is one of the few KZfaqrs that I actively wait for new content. It's always such high quality and always a joy to watch.

The OST is a legit banger and I still listen to it regularly

I love the fact that every level starts with the level designer's name alongside the level's name.

51:09 You are correct, a lot of the levels in Return To Na Pali were from the Beta version of Unreal, content that never made it to the finished release. Though I have these beta versions, and the Return To Na Pali versions of the levels have definitely been cleaned up and some a good bit different (see Spire Valley which was originally a hub map). A lot of levels in Return To Na Pali are original though to this expansion, Nevec (one of my all time favorite levels with a bangin soundtrack), Glathriel village 1 and 2, all the Prometheus Crashsite levels, etc. I'm surprised they didn't use more from the Beta, there were a LOT of levels cut. The Beta version of Unreal was twice if not 3x as long, it's crazy how much there used to be and how much got scrapped (I imagine so it all fit on one CD back then lol).

Even though they are not the main focus, I always enjoy the prison skits

The whole section about the delisting of Unreal really hit hard How far the mighty have fallen and this video has more respect and does more for Unreal than Epic have in many, many years

This is hands down the best and most accurate unreal tribute on KZfaq. You killed it. As a lifelong Unreal mega fan, thank you so much for this. I absolutely loved it. ❤️❤️❤️

Having never played the single player games, I never understood the "You fight like Nali" taunt from UT2k4 but now, suddenly, I do.

"...it's called unreal because it is." Actual chills!!

God, this music , sounds and this weapon switching animation just screams STYLE. What a great game. I wish Nightdive gave this their treatment

I remember asking Ross Scott if he'd cover Unreal and he told me he probably wouldn't. Thanks Civvie. I love Unreal's whole vibe.

i truly miss the blending of sci-fi and fantasy elements found in this era of games

Skaarj are still my favourite enemies in all of video games, absolutely awesome design and smart AI. Thank you for this video, great editing. I remember how I was in mindblown at that time by Unreal's graphics, was reading all the notes, I was so immersed into that world. Great time to begin my gaming life.

Something I noticed while watching was that the Automag actually makes clicking noises when fired with low ammo, like how a real pistol might. That’s a nice touch, even games today don’t get that detail right, I like it.

Flak cannon is, without question, the best feeling shotgun in video game history.

There's a cool extra feature to the Eightball, too. If you tap the alternate fire while you are charging the primary fire, it will fire the rockets in a circle instead of a line, concentrating the fire. Absolutely deletes almost anything it hits.

1:13:50 That might be the worst, scariest, most threatening sentence ever uttered. You could feel Civvie's heart sink in the pause for effect.

That Alexander Brandon soundtrack immediately transports me back in time.

I remember coming out of a building in Unreal, approaching some random cliffside, looking up at the skybox and actually getting a moment of mild vertigo. I'd never experienced a game so wide-open before.

My first exposure to Unreal was Tournament in 99. Still have it on a thumb drive and jam it once in a while. A masterpiece of multi-player. Fast, chaotic, satisfying gibbage!

Ah yessss 98 was an amazing year. I remember playing Half life and Unreal at the same lan parties back then. It was crazy how different they played. Looking back I wish Unreal had won out and we had more games like it.

15:16 That Skaarj encounter actually got me, made me feel a bit nervous.

Seeing Vandora unlocked a very specific memory from my childhood.

I think I have seen the most beautiful intro anyone ever made to Unreal. Almost tears. Congratulations!

I finally played through this game last year and was completely blown away by it. I feel your pain in the sad fact that it is forgotten entirely, now with Epic killing it off by delisting it on stores. The enemy AI for the Skaarj made them one of the most frustrating set of enemies I've ever faced in an FPS game. It's the Berserker Skaarj that gave me the most fits. There's a blue one in the Darkening level in a cramped hallway that is a serious pain. I loved how the story was told through the translator logs. By the time you reach the crashed IVS-Kran ship, you start finding logs about a human named Kira who was kidnapped by Skaarj. You end up finding her prison cell in Buff Eversmoking and follow a trail thinking you might find another survivor to link up with. You eventually find her body in the tower.

I remember when this came out. Seeing this for the first rendered in a gaming store blew my mind.

Feels so weird hearing the Unreal Gold weapon sounds and knowing the weapons sounded different in the base game.

I remember how revolutionary the ai felt and how stunning was to get out of the ship at the beginning... incredible gem of a game

This fictional universe stuck in my brain since childhood. Epic music, insane alien environments, everything felt truly sci-fi. Still thinking about it to this day.

That's one of your best intro segments ever. You put real passion and work into this "shitpost youtube review show", and it's not only evident; it's _appreciated._

Walking outside for the first time in this game was one of those game milestone moments you can't appreciate unless you experienced it at the time: the 3D environment of Doom, the tram ride in Half Life, the "seamless" transition to pre-rendered cutscenes in Final Fantasy 7, experiencing Grand Theft Auto 3 in 2001.

The Unreal rocket noise is almost as iconic as the Quake grenade sound.

The flak cannon is so badass that it's not a shotgun: It's a grenade launcher that shreds its grenades to create a spread of shrapnel that ricochets. This thing in close quarters was literally a slap chop.

"I don't support child labor... children are SHIT at their jobs." I'm a parent and this made me laugh a little too hard. Love you Civvie. XD

Hearing Civvie talk about the flak cannon activated old core memories and now I understand why I like shotguns in games so much.

He did it! HE DID IT!!!! UNREAL 1!!!! Been waiting for this one, was just watching Unreal Redux level-making stream yesterday. The hype is Unreal all over again.

32:54 Just wanted to point out there is a message log at the begining of the level indicating 17 skaarj still alive which is exactly how many eventually spawn in the area before the electric fence.

Man, I love youtubers like you, with passion for what they do and a big sense of comunity, Im pretty sure most people here watch all your videos, you are one of my favorite youtubers and I hope this channel keeps getting bigger and that you never lose your sense of humor!

Fairly sure the Eightball is responsible for 80% of my tinnitus

Goddammit Civvie, you made me cry by the 7th minute mark from a mixture of nostalgia and agreement with your statement. Keep up the good work and keep spreading the good word on Unreal and other dying game franchises.

Using that Snatch clip when talking about the Flak Cannon is *excellent* taste, primo flavor, absolutely divine~

I absolutely loved this game when it came out. I can't even count how many years I played this game. It was definitely my favorite fps in my 20s. 🤘

21:17 I should note that outside of the (sniper) Rifle and the Razorjack, none of the weapons in Unreal deal extra damage on headshots. Decapitation kills with any other gun are purely a neat visual effect. You can also see this in Unreal Tournament, where Enforcer shots to the head do not deal any headshot damage, but decapitate on a kill shot.

Unreal will never die as there are some who are still working on projects such as Krull0r's insanely good remake. I also hope to keep the classic unreal going as part of a large project I am working on myself.

There is a full fan-made remaster being made at the moment. It's called Unreal Redux. There is a KZfaq channel and a website for it which any fans of this game should check out!

Fun fact Civvie - the Rifle first-person model has a scope, but the model animations that show the scope deploying are unused. You can just see the front end of the metal scope tube most visibly under the wooden forestock at 38:20 with the rifle recoiling.

I'm glad you covered this game, you absolutely did it justice, the only other thing I'd mention is Kira from the logs. I have fond memories of the entire Unreal series (yes, even Unreal 2), and I replayed through Unreal 1 and Return to Na Pali recently, and while it did feel long, samey and tedious, the music and the atmosphere and how alive and detailed the world still left me in awe. The sheer imagination and soul that went into this project to create a completely alien world is breathtaking. The only other world that even comes close to this level of worldbuilding is TES 3: Morrowind.

A fun, slightly useful fact about the Eightball Gun: If you hold down the primary, then the secondary (Or vice versa) then release whichever you held first, it keeps your shots in a much tighter hexagonal spread.

It's Unreal how much effort Civvie put into this video.

Love Unreal so much, grew up with this at around 8 years old and the UDK was a big outlet for me creatively making cracked out maps and mods to host on my own server with people regularly coming in to play.

RIP Unreal. That laugh you gave when you figured out the speed boost on the conveyor belts was great, pure joy. Thanks for another great one, Civvie.

I still vividly remember the very first Skaarj encounters, forever burned into my memory as was the soundtrack! Fun fact: The events of Unreal are acknowledged in Unreal Championship 2. A Skaarj contestant expresses anger of the death of their queen, and when asked why the Skaarj attacked humans, he points out it wasn't personal, the Skaarj just like hunting lesser species. They also rounded up another Nali to slaughter them repeatedly as a sport.

No matter how advanced game engines get, UE1 will always looks amazing to me.

I was in AWE when I first left the prison ship thingy and the music starts to fade in as you approach the waterfall....holyyyy shit amazing times!

@23:20 "Always double tap the Skar!" (words to live by)

The OST has no right to be that good, i still listen to it now, just really captures you.

Hey Civvie did you know that if you kill crucified Nali in a distance in mountains in Bluff Eversmoking a thunder will come from the sky and give you super health? Also, you can get ASMD in secret way earlier ;) I love you man, thank you for covering this underrated gem.

Still got my original copies of Unreal Gold and Unreal Tournament, 2003, and 2004. Great video, keep reminding people Unreal exist even if Epic doesn't want to acknowledge it.

Hey Civvie, I just wanted you to know, remember when your Half-Life 1 video sold me on that game? Well, you did it again, I just beat Unreal a few hours ago, thanks for telling me about the 227j patch, the HUD scaling was really useful and having beeg numbers on the screen felt nice, you're like the boomer uncle I wish I had.

43:36 Quake Zombie moans will always give me chills. "Thou canst not kill that which doth not live, but you _can_ blast it into chunky kibble"

Funfact: The "Gina" model shares the same face as the Nali goddess Vandora. She's also the model most commonly featured in unreal promotional material. Meaning she's most likely the "canon" prisoner 849.

I can’t believe how many neurons in my brain activated hearing the weapon sounds. So many good memories playing this and unreal tournament with friends

Unreal felt special to me back then because it was the first 3d FPS I played that had large, open areas, giant monsters to kill, friendly NPCs and physics based weapons like those shuriken that bounce off walls. That was a lot of innovation in one single game.

you know when the civvie video is over an hour long, it's gonna be a good one.

i LIVED in this game for what felt like forever as a child.... So much fun. I never played return to napali. TY for showcasing this! i have something i need to play now lol~

I went back to play this game a year ago and despite all the games we have today, nothing gives me that "awe" I still get from Unreal.

No ones gonna read this, but the little predator guys were the most feared enemy in monster hunt maps in UT99. Map creators would put a swarm of 100s of these guys with massive amounts of health and damage to insta kill you as a way not to stray off the beaten path. They are so extremely aggressive sometimes their AI was put other enemies as final bosses, I remember hating fighting a queen that is so aggressive with a massive health pool. The modding community for 99 was so insane I miss it so much, a core part of my childhood.

It's a really good game. Thanks to the amazing color-palette and the lightening used it kinda holds up to this day in terms of visuals. It had also the benefits for giving the player this "unreal" vibe, of something being far away. Something alien, but also magical. I haven't seen any other video game or franchise recreating this atmosphere. It's like this dark Scfi-Fi, sprinkled in with a bit of something mystical or magical, but not really imitating the 80's pulp fiction. The music is like the big icing on the cake. That and having things like Skaarj as your enemies. I shat myself when I first encountered them. It's nice having fast, agile, aggressive and hard-hitting enemies as your opponent. Made the journey to get off the planet much more frightening and real in a sense of an accomplishment. Edit: I also want to thanks Civvie for his introduction rant. I felt that. Unreal blew my mind as a kid. Unreal Tournament is something that gets to this day slapped on potato office PCs to test if our local network runs. That and AoEII. I don't get why it needs to be delisted instead of just shutting down it's servers? It kinda hurts.

The sound of those rockets loading brings back some great memories of Unreal Tournament

40:19 I love how these two Krall do a synchronized hop 15 feet straight up in the air to greet you.

Unreal + Return to Na Pali is gotta be one of the most underrated games I've ever heard about. I can't tell how many times i won that Game. I used to play it with my dad, sitting by his side so we could solve the different puzzles. I remember the first time he won it. To me it was such a milestone. But it was not bc of nostalgia, i replayed it several times, i can't understand how it's not recognized as much as Doom, Quake or Half Life. It is such masterpiece.

Great video! Fortunately, the community is keeping the Unreal and Unreal Tournament games alive (Unreal, UT99, UT2004 and UT4 Alpha) even after Epic's Master Servers are shut down. Just remember to update to the latest patch :)

Thank you to Katie or whoever puts these subtitles in Civvie’s videos- I can watch them in class without needing headphones. Keep up the good work!

God, I loved this game when it first came out! Escaping the claustrophobic prison ship and suddenly being in a huge valley, with birds flying overhead, and little rabbity things hopping around! And the glorious music! It blew my mind. So glad that it is getting quite a lot of retrospective attention recently - it seemed almost forgotten about for a very long time.

i teared up. this was my first and favourite fps

30:58 yeah, its an enemy wave event, so after killing the first Skaarj, it triggers one at a time to spawn until you kill them all, for the grate to open. Whether that first Skaarj triggers the alarm or not unfortunately doesn't matter =P Woulda been a fun little easter egg that if you killed that first Skaarj before he triggered the alarm, the rest wouldn't spawn and you could go on your merry way.

The Return to Na Pali guy sounding like an 18 year old never ceases to crack me up.

I remember being obsessed with Unreal 1 (aka Old Unreal) back when I was a kid. I still play through this game every year or two. Unreal 1 was what got me into story writing, then into making maps (in UT2004), and finally infected me with love for tracker music. Thanks for bringing back the memories Civvie!

Unreal is legitimately one of my favorite games of all time. Lost count of how many times I've played it.

I have never in my life heard Na Pali pronounced Napoli before today. Now i need to go play some Unreal. Thanks Civvie

15:19 I remember my very first time experiencing this with my best friend in 98. We had the lights off and the gradual blackout of the tunnel was terrifying along with the screams of the prisoners in the Prologue ship level. This game knew how to build tension.

Ah yes, the classic machinegun that has two fire modes: full auto and fuller auto.

17:40 "Lookit this man; he's just trying to reach inner peace..." Love that quote. Hope your time in the clownroom wasn't to deslating civve. :C

God. The nostalgia is unreal. I remember playing this being blown away by the crazy environments and life forms you run into.