Physical copies?

Much like you, I neither played nor owned Unreal when it came out. In fact, I didn’t even know about it. I wasn’t much of a gamer, and especially back in the 1990s, you were only aware of new games coming out if you actively sought out that information.

Come the early 2000s, I felt I had outgrown FPS games a bit after my disappointment with both Quake 2 and Half Life. I enjoyed little self-contained levels, like what Doom and Quake were built upon, but these newer FPS games had abandoned that formula.

So the first time I played Unreal was about 10 years ago, after someone’s recommendation – maybe @Tijn or @rnlf, I can’t recall right now. Before that point I had only ever seen a few screenshots of it.

I purchased a CD jewel case of Unreal from ebay at that time, but I didn’t know how old it was, nor what edition it was. There was no manual, and the CD cover slip is blank on the reverse, which in my experience sometimes indicates that the CD was part of a collection, not a standalone release.

I’ve never been much of game collector either. These cardboard boxed copies never did much for me, although they do make more sense if there are manuals, reference cards, maps or other trinkets, to keep everything together. I suppose they were nicer to receive as gifts too. But I find them just too bulky for the most part, and cardboard isn’t the nicest material to treasure in the long term.

@dr_st Yeah, I also wasn’t really into collecting and often discarded boxes to keep only the jewel cases and CDs. I did get Unreal at release in the big box and enjoyed it thoroughly back in the day. It was quite impressive since Half Life hadn’t come out, and even when HL was out, Unreal still felt more visually detailed and expansive.

After going through a purging season I had almost none of my original game discs. A few years back I found Unreal Gold at a thrift shop and snagged it for the chance to play the expansion. That’s what I’ve been using to (re)play the base game and the add-on for this quarter.

@sorceress curious that you disliked Q2 and HL’s serial levels, because I strongly disliked the disjointed and narrative-free nature of levels in older games. Can you say why you enjoyed the more self-contained maps of yore?

Collecting the cardboard still strikes me as odd today, yet I’ve come around to appreciating maintenance of older hardware–when previously it felt like a waste of time. So perhaps I’ll come to appreciate game boxes someday. I’m already keeping Lego boxes in the (misguided?) hope that’ll help retain the value of those sets.

@Watchful For example, in Doom 2, I feel like I can jump into any map I fancy playing at that time, without seeing it as part of anything bigger. It feels like a collection of 30-ish short single-level games, rather than one big sprawling thing. The self-contained maps naturally break the game down into small chunks, which each have clear beginnings and ends.

I feel the same way about most TV shows – I like where I can watch episodes independently of the others. Contrast with those which are serialised, where you have to watch them in sequence otherwise the story doesn’t make sense, and leaves things unresolved at the end.

I suspect I’m a bit of an ‘arcade’ person at heart, such that I prefer shorter games that I can dive into quickly. Narrative/continuity only blurs the beginnings and ends. I often enjoy approaching a map creatively as well, such as trying to complete it without taking a single hit, or using only rockets (via idfa), or something like that. 🙂

Half Life also felt more cinematic. Like the introduction where you enter the lab is quite long and is without much action. As novel as that was, it’s not the experience I want to have with games. Quite a few areas in Half Life are without much FPS action, and just have you moving stuff around, or climbing in/out of things. Doom and Quake for the most part offered more compact and streamlined experiences, in comparison.

Solid points @sorceress! I don’t rewatch or replay much. Though it makes sense that more discrete levels would suit a drop in and out kind of play. That also really fits multi-player well since it’s hard to get folks to commit to coop a long narrative game.