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Unreal (video game series)

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The Unreal series is a computer game franchise that began with the original Unreal, a single-player first-person shooter computer game which was published on May 30 1998 by Epic Megagames, now known as Epic Games. It was powered by the Unreal Engine which had been in development for over three years before the game was released. The game was the start of a long running series, and a successful game brand.

File:UnrealIscreen.jpg
Unreal Tournament (capture the flag)

Early development

The Unreal game engine, simply called Unreal Engine, was seen as a major rival to id Software's Quake engine, and the Unreal game itself was considered to be technically superior to the Quake and Quake II titles which were out on the market at the same time. Since Unreal came packaged with its own scripting language called UnrealScript, it soon developed a large community on the Internet which was able to add new mods (short for "modifications") in order to change or enhance gameplay. This feature greatly added to the overall longevity of the product and provided an incentive for new development.

The Skaarj

The Skaarj (pronounced "scar") are an advanced race of aggressive extraterrestrial beings generally living in a highly tribal society, originally introduced in Unreal, but subsequently found in all later games of the series, usually as the antagonists. The Skaarj design seems to have been influenced by alien designs from various other franchises, often having green/yellow/blue skin, tusks of varying lengths, and are generally reptilian in appearance. Although they appear reptilian, they are in fact related by design to insects. Because of their appearance, many of the logs left by deceased crew members in the original Unreal refer to them as "lizard men". Some, but not all, Skaarj are augmented with cybernetic implants.

At the head of any given Skaarj clan is a Queen, similar to the Xenomorph Queen, who lays eggs in which eventually a bug-like creature (a pupa) emerges. These pupae eventually grow into the Skaarj as they are commonly seen. No female Skaarj besides the queen are found in the original Unreal, but no female Nali are found either (except for the mural of goddess Vandora). This may be due to restraints in model counts, lack of Skaarj sex diversity, or what is commonly acceptable in games at the time of release. A female Nali may have been supposed to be included in Unreal Championship 2 as shown by concept art, but wasn't included.

A Skaarj warrior's main weapon is called a Razik, and consists of two (sometimes surgically attached) wrist mounted blades on each hand, similar to a weapon used by the Predators from the Predator franchise. This blade design gave birth to the design of the different variations of the Circle-U logo of the series, and the Skaarj themselves can be considered the series' mascots. The Razik also is able to fire electrically charged shots of energy, which form between the blades, and fire in pairs. Skaarj troopers do without Raziks and rely on projectile based weapons such as the Razorjack. The Skaarj Razik design is also used in the different Unreal game logos.

The Skaarj are highly intelligent, fast, strong, and their clans usually remain solitary, perhaps due to conflicts in code or competition. The clans have shown a significant amount of cooperation in the human/Skaarj wars, however. Most Skaarj consider all other races to be inferior, and that it is the destiny of the Skaarj race to rule over all others. Many races such as the Nali, Krall, and Izarians have been enslaved by the Skaarj, and are technologically inferior. Rivals of the Skaarj include the Mercenaries and humans, who generally have technology on a par with the Skaarj.

As well as the separate clans, the Skaarj Empire was formed with the goal of ruling the universe. After enslaving and destroying a large number of alien species the power hungry Empire moved onto humans. First contact with this Empire came when the New Earth Government attempted to recover the crashed prison vessel, the Vortex Rikers. Over a full year the humans and the Skaarj Empire fought a large number of battles, at areas such as Avalon and eventually Earth itself. This began the "Seven Day Siege" in which the Skaarj fleet surrounded the Earth and attacked. A vast majority of the Earth's population were killed and the NEG struggled to hold the invaders off. Eventually, on the final day, the NEG Commandos assaulted the Skaarj Mothership and destroyed it from the inside. The Skaarj were sent into full retreat and the human race lived to see another day.

Since the human-Skaarj war, the Liandri Corporation experimented with Skaarj/human hybrids in their Grand Tournament (or the Unreal Tournament). In the latest Tournament, actual Skaarj from the deadly Iron Skull Clan have participated, generally holding that they will indeed one day conquer humanity, and the Tournament gives them the opportunity to kill humans in vast numbers (albeit in vain, since Tournament contestants are immediately resurrected upon death) until that day arrives. The Black Fist clan opposes the Iron Skull clan, who are their sworn enemies, and members of Black Fist, Mekkor and Skrilax, are currently enrolled in the Tournament, hoping to battle the Iron Skull. A few Iron Skull members have been in the series since the beginning, such as Dominator and Guardian, and are also fighting in the latest tournament.

The Nali

The Nali are a primitive race, whose home planet was invaded by the Skaarj. They are humanoid creatures, but have four arms (and correspondingly two chests). The Nali are not technologically advanced: they do not possess cars or spaceships, and are wholly unaware of such things as weapons or power-ups. For this reason they store such objects in their urns or barrels, not knowing what to do with them. Most of them live in small, simple houses, although there exist a few castles; Nali buildings are reminiscent of Medieval architecture. In keeping with their backward technology, their main occupation is farming, as seen by the fact that they build sheds for Nali Cows. Many of them are fond of keeping diaries, often describing the arrival of Skaarj on their planet. They have a highly spiritual culture, visiting their ancestoral shrines and building many churches. They are also have extraordinary abilities that could be described as supernatural; several Nali can be seen levitating, turning translucent, and vanishing altogether.

Nali and Nali 'War Cow' models were released in an official free update for the original Unreal Tournament, allowing players to (humorously) take these pacifistic creatures into battle. An audio taunt available to players in the Unreal Tournament series is "You fight like Nali!"

The Izarians

The Izarians had a small empire of their own and enslaved many minor races before they ran into the Skaarj and became slaves themselves. Due to their organic positronic brains, it is debatable as to if they actually mind at all if they are slaves or not.

The Izarians resemble large monkey-like insects, and the Xenomorphs. They are about 5 feet tall, have four arms, two legs, an elongated head with sharp teeth, blue blood, blue skin and areas of their skin that glow a lighter shade of blue.

Their social structure is much like that of an ant or bee hive. They cannot think independently, but their Skaarj masters allow them to hunt in packs against the Terran forces that the Skaarj are at war with. The Izarians, as well as serving the Skaarj as slaves, are also used by the Skaarj in combat as light warriors. They usually hunt in packs of seven or eight with one Skaarj commander, as Skaarj are much stronger, faster and more intelligent than Izarians. The Izarians use weapons called EMP Staffs or Electric Spears. The Skaarj attach crystal EMP restrainers on their slave's Spears so as not to give them anything too powerful.

Recurring characters

The Unreal Tournament series features a small number of notable recurring characters, whose personalities and biographies were chiefly expanded upon from Unreal Tournament 2003 onwards. These include:

  • Xan Kriegor: Presumably human, but permanently encased in cybernetic armour, Xan was the ultimate champion of the original Unreal Tournament, whom the player had to defeat to complete that game's single-player element. Although defeated as champion, he nevertheless returned as a formidable high-ranking foe in Unreal Tournament 2004, and leader of a team of entirely cybernetic fighters. In the original Unreal Tournament his character had its own unique voice set, which included such phrases as "I am the Alpha and the Omega", said in a robotic, distorted voice.
  • Malcolm: In spite of being an ordinary human, Malcolm supplanted Xan as the Tournament champion, and the player must defeat him in Unreal Tournament 2003 in place of Xan. Malcolm appears to be African-American (based on physical appearance and voice), and wears a suit of futuristic green armour. (Although Malcolm appeared in the original Unreal Tournament, he was merely a generic bot/character model.)
  • Brock: Like Malcolm, Brock began as a generic character model in Unreal Tournament. In UT2003 he was introduced as a unique character, and member of Malcolm's team. In UT2004 Brock was the leader of his own team instead. Brock is a white male, sporting silver armour and a haircut with a centre or side parting.
  • Lauren: Another generic model-turned-character. Originally a member of Malcolm's UT2003 team, she joined Brock's team in UT2004. A white female kitted out in silver armour, similar to Brock's.

Corporation Wars

Following the devastating Human/Skaarj Wars (the fictional battle between humans and the Skaarj in the Unreal universe), Earth's cities lay in ruins. When the New Earth Government tried to take control of these cities, they discovered many rebel groups, covertly financed by corporations such as Liandri, Izanagi, and Axon. Pretty soon, a war had started to regain control of the ruined cities, and eventually there was fighting between the corporations as well.

The constant battles caused many casualties, reducing the already small human population. One particular battle, considered to be the boldest act in the Corporation Wars, was when Axon Research Corporation raided Izanagi's facility and retrieved the advanced Plasma Ion Tank being developed there. This subterfuge started a huge chain of events which would make "consensual murder" legal. This also eventually lead to the start of the Tournament.

The Unreal Tournament series

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Unreal Tournament 2003

Epic Games' 1999 follow-up title was called Unreal Tournament and focused mainly on multiplayer action: It was launched in direct competition to id's Quake III Arena. As with the original Unreal, the ease with which players could create and release modifications to the core game was a key factor contributing to Unreal Tournament's longevity. UT improved upon the mod-friendly nature of its predecessor with the inclusion of support for mutators, which allowed users to easily integrate small amounts of code into the core game with a minimal effort, for example to cause players' heads to increase in size with each frag and decrease in size with each death. Players could then simply check a box to enable or disable the mutator. This allowed for fine-tuning of the game experience to a degree not generally possible with traditional full-scale modifications.

Unreal and Unreal Tournament saw sequels released in 2002, entitled Unreal II (developed by Legend Entertainment for the PC and Tantalus Interactive for the Xbox) and Unreal Tournament 2003. Unreal Tournament 2003 had a name change from the expected Unreal Tournament II in order to imitate traditional sports-based video games, where annual releases are typical. Unreal Tournament 2003 dropped the venerable Assault gametype of the original Unreal Tournament, adding the new Bombing Run mode to take its place. The game had a brief period of popularity, but did not enjoy the same level of success as its predecessor.

As part of Epic Games' strategy of porting the Unreal engine to other platforms, Unreal Championship, a sister product to Unreal Tournament 2003, was released in November 2002 for the Xbox.

On February 11 2004, the game demo for Unreal Tournament 2004 was made available for download over the Internet. Within a few hours of its release it had become one of the most popular online games. The full version was made available on March 18 2004 and could be purchased as either six CDs, one DVD, or on two DVDs (containing both the game and an extra disc of bonus content) as part of the "Special Edition" release (which was completely sold-out in a very short space of time - There were only 60,000 copies made for global distribution). It was later released on 13 April 2004, as a DVD Edition containing both of the Special Edition DVDs, but without the metal box covering & headset. It expanded on the team-based theme of its predecessor with the reintroduction of Assault (last seen in Unreal Tournament), the addition of a new gametype called Onslaught, and the inclusion of several futuristic vehicles. The game featured built-in voice-comms and contained over one hundred separate maps, many of which were carried over from Unreal Tournament 2003.

On May 9 2005, Unreal Tournament 2007 was announced. It will use Unreal Engine 3, and is set to be released in 2006.

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Unreal Tournament 2004

Release dates of Unreal titles

PC games

Console games

Mods and mutators

Numerous mods have been made for Unreal games.

Unreal Tournament games also feature "mutators", which allow players to quickly and easily make small changes to the basic gameplay. Such tweaks include alterating rate of fire, increase player speed, or low gravity. Some examples include:

General Unreal-related websites:

Popular Unreal community web sites:

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