Unreal for PlayStation

[mdmx]

Unreal was announced for PlayStation. I can remember that I had read about it in a PlayStation magazine. Later it was cancelled due to unknown reasons.

Unfortunately I never saw any screenshots :( Did the conversion of the game ever started or was it just a rumour?

[Taemos]

I seriously doubt the Playstation could've done anything with Unreal. As I recall, they had a hell of a time getting Quake/Quake II to run on it. Unreal is a monster compared to those two.

I did read somewhere that it was supposed to be released for the Dreamcast or PS2. I don't remember where, though.

[Paulo]

Its out on the Dreamcast.

[cahaz]

unreal tournament is out on ps2 and dreamcast, but not unreal.

Unreal was suposed to be a 64dd tittle too.

[joehax]

Half-Life made it to the dreamcast too :D

off topic i know :p

[Claysion]

There still are a few fan made servers to play unreal and quake III online on dreamcast.

[Benedict_Arnold]

Sometimes companies just announce titles that really aren't in the works, especially when they aren't supported by actual screenshots. Giants was supposedly 50% complete for the PlayStation but when I contacted the developer, they told me that was total BS. At the time US Official PlayStation Magazine printed that article, the developer was still working on the PC version, plus they never owned a PSX dev kit, plus when they ported it to the PS2 they admitted the PS2 barely had enough power to do it.

[mdmx]

Sometimes companies just announce titles that really aren't in the works, especially when they aren't supported by actual screenshots. Giants was supposedly 50% complete for the PlayStation but when I contacted the developer, they told me that was total BS. At the time US Official PlayStation Magazine printed that article, the developer was still working on the PC version, plus they never owned a PSX dev kit, plus when they ported it to the PS2 they admitted the PS2 barely had enough power to do it.


Giants for the PS1? unbelievable. I saw the PS2 version, it doesn't look very well. They also announced Messiah and Black & White for the old PSX. These games are too complex for the Playstation1.

But Unreal could be possible. Look at Quake II, Delta Force or the two MoH games.

[Taemos]

Not to throw this too far off-topic, but I know I saw screenshots of Black and White on the Playstation. They were extremely ugly...

As for Quake II, I don't know how they made that happen. It looks horrible, but as I recall it didn't play that badly (I owned the game for about a week).

As I see it, Unreal would've been possible on the Playstation 2, but most certainly not on the Playstation.

[mdmx]

I think Quake II looks very nice on the good old psx. ok, not as good as the pc version ;-)

But that's a problem with all 1st person shooters on every video game system.

[madhatter256]

Well if you guys doubted the PSX could handle Unreal 1 engine, then keep in mind that a studio was able to port the whole Quake2 engine onto the PSX. So, if they were able to do that, then maybe the unreal was possible.

[ASSEMbler]

I can see unreal, but it's not going to be the exact engine. No more than quake 2 was.

[sonik]

I see a video of Unreal PS1 in Cyber Net (program in SuperStation channel here in Brazil).
They say it was running on a real PS1.
As far as I can remember, the graphics are ok and the frame-rate was fast.

[Greatsaintlouis]

Well if you guys doubted the PSX could handle Unreal 1 engine, then keep in mind that a studio was able to port the whole Quake2 engine onto the PSX. So, if they were able to do that, then maybe the unreal was possible.
The thing is, though, that the Unreal engine is a LOT heftier than Quake 2, and there was still a lot of work that had to be done in scaling back Quake 2 for the PSX and N64, including a lot of the engine having to be flat-out rewritten for the machines. The colored lighting effects were exclusive to the console versions, and ended up looking really, REALLY good. The Unreal engine was a lot closer in power and performance to Quake 3 than Quake 2 - no mean feat, to be able to compete with Carmack for 2 games while running the same engine.

[Sally]

I seem to remember thinking back in the day that unreal would be running on a modified Duke Nukem engine... I don't know if that's right or not, as i don't remember why i think that.

[Greatsaintlouis]

Duke Nukem 3D, Shadow Warrior, and Blood were the only commercial games as far as I know (may have been 1 or 2 more, I can remember) that ran on the Build engine. Build was essentially a slightly modified Doom engine: It could handle things like sloped terrain and floors above floors, but all of the ingame enemies and items were still sprites. The Unreal Engine (as far as I know, that's its name) was developed by Epic exclusively for the original Unreal and featured all sorts of fancy effects the Build engine could only dream of - colored lighting in software rendering, lens flares, volumetric fog, true sloped surfaces, and a ton of other things I can't list from memory.

[ASSEMbler]

It was probably unreal in name only. No more than URBZ on ds was close to the pc version.

[Funkstar De Luxe]

I don't see the problems here. Like Assembler said, it's not the PC game running on the PSX. Jesus, you could convert Unreal Tournament 2004 to the Gameboy if you wanted.

[Taemos]

I seem to remember thinking back in the day that unreal would be running on a modified Duke Nukem engine... I don't know if that's right or not, as i don't remember why i think that.

If anything, I think it looked a lot like the Quake engine. That's what I think when I look at early Unreal screenshots, anyway. I'm pretty sure they built their engine from the scratch.

As a side note: The final game was gorgeous. http://www.assemblergames.com/forums/images/smilies/icon_biggrin.gif Now if only I could find a decent Glide wrapper to use with it...

[AntiPasta]

Duke Nukem 3D, Shadow Warrior, and Blood were the only commercial games as far as I know (may have been 1 or 2 more, I can remember) that ran on the Build engine.

Hmm, come to think of it, didn't good ole' Dark Forces also run on some sort of BUILDesque engine?

And BUILD is VERY different from Unreal-like engines. Basically, BUILD is 2D (or 2.5D) just like Doom, but instead of X & Y you have X & Z (i.e., the terrain is flat, no floors can be 'above' each other - I know, Duke 3D could do this, but it was a very nasty hackjob)

[sonik]

Hmm, come to think of it, didn't good ole' Dark Forces also run on some sort of BUILDesque engine?

Dark Forces don't use BUILD. It run on "Jedi Engine" (something betwen Doom and Build).

I recommend this site for info on the Build Engine:
http://advsys.net/ken/

OFF-TOPIC: Take a look at this voxel engine: http://advsys.net/ken/voxlap.htm

[AntiPasta]

Oh, good old Ken Silverman - now THERE's someone who's really 1337 :nod:
Try his voxel house where you can shoot holes in the walls and stuff... totally amazing!

[Greatsaintlouis]

To 'build' (pardon the pun) on what sonik said: The illustrious Dark Forces used Lucasarts' own Jedi3D engine. As mentioned before, this was fairly similar to Build, but wasn't such a bastard of a resource hog, and if I recall right, it actually had support for floors-above-floors without resorting to the scary hacks of the likes of Duke 3D or Doom 64.

[AntiPasta]

And not to mention cool-looking 3D models of stuff like ships!

[f2bnp]

Bump!
Guess it was actually on the works.Take a lookie here:
http://www.unseen64.net/2009/06/03/unreal-psx-cancelled/

This is awesome!

[Druid II]

Bump!
Guess it was actually on the works.Take a lookie here:
http://www.unseen64.net/2009/06/03/unreal-psx-cancelled/

This is awesome!
There is absolutely no way that this is real ps1 footage.

[Segafreak_NL]

Seems hard to believe indeed..

[iamaduck]

There is absolutely no way that this is real ps1 footage.

They seem to imply that they're the PS1 levels played through the PC version.

[f2bnp]

Why not?The resolution in these screens looks exactly like the one used in PS1 games and there is a lot of pixelation.The video must be from the levels running on the PC.Read the whole text.

[Barc0de]

I was under the impression that having an FPU was an integral part of any REAL Unreal Engine.

This is why Unreal was started not as a PC project back in the day, but for the 64DD. The PSX could have any first person shooter with unreal assets named unreal, but that don't me it a feat ;)

[f2bnp]

I downloaded the packs and used the instructions.I've been trying to load the levels using the console with no luck.Anyone knows how to load them?Btw I have Unreal Gold the one with the updated engine from Unreal Tournament if that matters.

Nevermind I changed the NPScript and it worked.

[Segafreak_NL]

Why not?The resolution in these screens looks exactly like the one used in PS1 games and there is a lot of pixelation.The video must be from the levels running on the PC.Read the whole text.

Ah, right. That makes sense. The lightning seemed too advanced for PSX to maintain a playable framerate.

[Carnivol]

Old thread is old.

But I see a lot of people have mentioned all sorts of things, so I'll just add 2 cent too:

1: A lot of ports of games carry the same name and even identical looks as their counterpart, but aren't really running on the same engine (Duke Nukem 3D, anyone?)

2: The PS1 holds a lot of impressive titles. People have already mentioned Quake II (which was, although choppy, running in hi-res, iirc, more or less sported the exact same looks as the PC version, just with more load points spread out across the levels), there's Forsaken (which also ran in hi-res, which sported some impressive light effects and nice framerate, iirc) and let's not forget the streaming Soul Reaver (which I also seem to recall running in hi-res, streaming stuff, so no loading, and is quite possibly one of... if not THE best looking PS1 game) and there's also Dark Forces (with its simple Doom-like map system, sported some incredibly huge and somewhat "rich" levels)

Doing something based closely on Unreal and/or assets from it probably wouldn't be impossible. Though, it might've been impressive. Also, didn't know Giants was planned for PS1 (knew about Black & White, though.)

[skavenger216]

There was also a N64 version in the works, i cant recall the exact issue but an old issue of Nintendo Power had a little article and screenies in the Pak Watch section of that issue. On a side note, i think the PS1 could have handled Unreal.

[PhreQuencYViii]

I remember this. I think I have an OPM talking about it and Giants and Black and White.

[Rawit]

I was under the impression that having an FPU was an integral part of any REAL Unreal Engine.

This is why Unreal was started not as a PC project back in the day, but for the 64DD. The PSX could have any first person shooter with unreal assets named unreal, but that don't me it a feat ;)
The development of Unreal started on the 486 platform :nod:, I ever had a demo cd with Epic Pinball on it, that contained screenshots of "Unreal", saying it would be available soon :110: .

[Druid II]

Why not?The resolution in these screens looks exactly like the one used in PS1 games and there is a lot of pixelation.

A ps1 game with that high polycount would have either low viewdistance, or horrible crappy textures, or a very low framerate (or all of the above).

The lack of texture disortion is a dead giveaway that its not ps1. Heck, I think I can see bumpmapping there.

Yeah, I understand that these are psx levels running on the pc version, just thought I'd point this out.

[Taucias]

I seriously doubt the Playstation could've done anything with Unreal. As I recall, they had a hell of a time getting Quake/Quake II to run on it. Unreal is a monster compared to those two.

I did read somewhere that it was supposed to be released for the Dreamcast or PS2. I don't remember where, though.

The Quake thing was not really true, it's just the right developer didn't get their hands on it, like Doom on the Saturn.

Quake 2 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QYc5TC2QwAE on the PS does not look that different from the Unreal trailer to me.