Back in the heady days of PC gaming in the late 1990s, the first person shooter came of age. Games like Jedi Knight, Half-Life, Shogo, and Unreal represented a turning point from the age of Doom's basic, no-frills FPS action, with fully 3D graphics and actual attempts at atmosphere and story. Of these, it was Unreal that, for many, represented the technological forefront of graphics tech at the time. Unreal was one of the first games that combined hi-res graphics with larger, more open environments that actually sort of resembled realistic graphics. The original Unreal (and its expansion, Return to Na-Pali) was an expansive single-player shooter with a decent multiplayer component. Its first sequel, Unreal Tournament, however, was completely focused on competitive multiplayer, although it featured bots for offline players to battle in solo matches. A few years later, Epic released Unreal Tournament 2003, which debuted the new Unreal Engine 2 graphics engine. It was quite a leap in terms of graphics, and as a result, greater diversity in environment and atmospherics were possible. UT 2003 was followed by Unreal 2, the full-fledged sequel to the single player original Unreal. While it boasted great atmosphere and graphics, in a post-Halo gaming world, it struggled to successfully compete. Criticized for an anemic storyline that was barely linked to the original Unreal, a shallower, shorter experience than the original, and an inability to truly keep up with the innovations that had take hold in the FPS world, Unreal II was viewed as more a tech demo than anything. Unreal Tournament 2004, on the other hand, returned to Unreal's multiplayer side with great success. Boasting all the content from UT 2003, plus new maps, game types, and the introduction of vehicles, UT 2004 is regarded by many as the high point of the series. Unreal Tournament 3, released in 2007, may be far better looking, but for the majority of Unreal fans, it never got better than UT 2004.
Unreal Anthology compiles Unreal, the Return to Na-Pali expansion, Unreal Tournament, Unreal 2, and Unreal Tournament 2004 onto a single DVD (UT 2003 isn't included as its content was included in UT2004). While there are some pieces of free add-on content from UT 2004 not included, and the Unreal 2 multiplayer XMP add-on is not included, you can download the UT 2004 content fairly easily (search for "Unreal Tournament 2004" and "Mega Bonus Pack", as well as the Windows XP Extras pack). You will need to also locate the Unreal Anthology Patch Tool Setup file, so that you can easily use mods and user-created maps.
This brings me to my next, very important point: while Unreal Anthology is already a great deal with the included content, to truly get the most out of it, you'll need a high-speed internet connection and access to sites where you can download user-created UT2004 maps and mods. Despite what conventional wisdom may indicate, UT2004 can be a great experience for a solo player; it's just that having a huge array of maps and custom characters is what will keep it from becoming boring to the offline player. Once you've grabbed the user-created maps/mods, and extracted them, get yourself a big, ol' flash drive, and save the maps folder to it so you don't have to go through all that work again if you have to get a new computer. When I finally upgraded to Windows 7, it was just easier to copy the all the content folders, and merge them with my installed Anthology folders on the new computer, than individually unzip everything again. Using Windows 7 Pro Edition, I haven't had any compatibility issues yet, running it in XP Service Pack 3 compatibility settings.
The games themselves are entertaining, and recall an era when graphical advances actually helped gameplay, rather than leading to "dumbing it down" and feature shrinkage. The original Unreal may feel a bit long in the tooth, but it still holds up as a solid shooter. And while Unreal 2 was criticized for its long load times, and relatively standard gameplay, on today's computers, it can run pretty well fully maxed-out, and the gameplay isn't really bad at all. In fact, the atmospheric feel of the Unreal universe is conveyed well here. As for Unreal Tournament 2004, as I said above, with countless maps available, and an emphasis on ridiculously fast, adrenaline-focused action, it's a great experience online or offline. The sprawling Onslaught maps allow some rather ridiculous amounts of chaos to unfold, while fast-paced Deathmatch or Capture the Flag arenas tighten up the action for instant gratification ultra-violence thrills. Also of note are the Assault maps, which while underrepresented compared to other game types, provide an interesting change-up with specific objectives reminiscent of single-player based games. If there's a "weak sister" in this collection, it's the original Unreal Tournament. It's not that it's a bad game; it's more the fact that while the other 3 games each fill a specific niche here (old school single-player FPS, slick 2000s high-production value single-player FPS, and massive, multi-mode competitive FPS), UT99 doesn't really offer much that UT2004 can't already provide.
At its current price as of the original writing of this review, Unreal Anthology is an absolute steal for the number of hours you'll get out of it. However, you'll need that online bandwidth to fully access all the great content out there, that will complete this collection. That being said, I give Unreal Anthology a top tier recommendation. (As an aside, Unreal Tournament 3 is relatively cheap these days as well, and makes a good companion piece for this collection. While it doesn't quite match up to UT 2004, with the user-created maps, it's not shabby at all.)
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