For some reason i had never played Unreal. Blake Stone, Wolfenstein 3D, Duke Nukem 3D, Shadow Warrior, Doom 1-2, Quake 1-3, et cetera including Unreal Tournament but not this game. I do remember a bit of the hype about the graphics with the infamous "Can you believe these are real graphics?" magazine cover.

Now i'm going to blow your mind: Unreal came out in the same year as Half-Life. And, oh boy - it does not compare well. Unreal tells a story through logs that are just bits of text without even any narration, in Half-Life you play through the story. In Unreal the levels are generally a straightforward go to place X, press button Y affair. Half-Life has these amazing levels that still hold up with all kinds of challenges. Finally, the combat in Unreal is fairly mundane "dodge the missile" stuff while enemies in Half-Life have more advanced tactics and attacks.

Pretty much everything Unreal does, Half-Life does better - even something as basic as communicating the nature of power ups. But i will say this for Unreal. It worked right away. Sure, not at the right resolution (which left me really confused for a few minutes), but it works in Windows 10. And even with the dated graphics you can still feel the atmosphere, especially when they lights cut out and the red demon attacks you. When that happened i briefly felt a bit of a rush. Epic knew what they were doing (for the most part). But i wouldn't recommend this game to modern-day players, it's just too dated.