The mother ship, a massive behemoth of scrap steel patched and riveted together, fires you out of your drone ship. Your vision goes red, and billions of lines of code, diagnostics, and information flashes across your display. Your drone docks into the starport. The mission is simple: Kill everything. The gameplay is tight, fast, and maniacal. The controls and the platforming are extremely tight, leaving almost no room for error. Unlike other "hard" games, you are fully in control at all times. To offset some of the enemies' small appearances, they emote clearly with bright symbols and exclamation points to point out their position. All of the weapons, from the starting shotgun to the instagibbing railgun, feel incredibly satisfying to use. The game loves to screw with you at some points, but it's easy to hop right back into the action again, and is more hilarious than frustrating when it does happen. For replay value, there are collectibles, more difficulty modes, and even some hidden levels to unlock. If there are some complaints to make, I can think of two. One, in a very heated gunfight, the levels sometimes blend together too much and become a bit of a muddy mess, making it difficult to distinguish background from platform, meaning the split second spent trying to study the level can mean death. Two, the maximum ammo for the weapons is pretty limited, and again, in the middle of combat, it can be a bit jarring to suddenly switch from a machine-gun to a grenade launcher. Those are small complaints that are not game-breaking at all, but only slight nuisances. Overall, if you are a fan of dark industrial levels and frenzied shooters, this is an excellent, excellent game to play. There are few games out there today that can get your blood pumping like Butcher can.
I'll be honest, I've never played Unreal until a few months ago. It was always something I put off and never really was interested in, something I recognized as an excellent game in the FPS genre and a well-deserved classic. Eventually it came on sale, and for only $2, I decided, why not give it a try? I'll be honest and get the bad out of the way, the story is lackluster and generic, the graphics are dated by today's standards, and compared to what many would call its competitor Half-Life, there is little to no plot development. So what makes this game so good? The atmosphere. The rich, decadent atmosphere. The graphics may be dated and a few levels and objects may seem ugly, but the lush alien environments are not by any means less beautiful. Everything has aged wonderfully. Even today in the age of massive skyboxes and epic rolling landscapes, when I exited the starting ship and gazed at the new world before me, I was awestruck. Accenting the amazing architecture and level design of Unreal is a beautiful, moody, tracker-inspired soundtrack that lavishly accentuates the level's atmosphere. The sound design is gorgeous and well-designed, with weapons feeling explosively powerful, wildlife calling in the distance, and natives speaking in ancient tongues. Did you like Another World's atmosphere, but was frustrated by its repetitive and outright painful gameplay? Did you like Half-Life's gameplay, but wanted more exploration? Did you like Myst's feeling of beautiful desolation in a strange and mythical world, but with easier to solve puzzles? Unreal is perfect for you.
