Developer: Leo(T.C.K.) & co.

Status: Developing / Episode 1 Part 1 released!




Synopsis: A bounty hunter hired by Inuit Corporation is sent to Na Pali to find the wreck of the Vortex Rikers and recover several experimental military AI implants as well as apprehend any prisoners that might still be alive. This leads to the opening of a true Pandora's Box when it's revealed that the dreaded Skaarj aren't the only enemies around.

Features:
- ~30 all-original missions separated into smaller levels
- A new weapon allowing the player to take control over certain enemies
- Storyline related to the official Unreal novels
- New deadly enemies: in-your-head AI opponents, a hostile Nali sect, a remnant of an ancient civilization and more...

Latest News: Demo release imminent. Exact date unknown, but it shouldn't be more than a month now.

Links:
- ModDB
- Project thread @ BUF
- Project thread @ UT99.org
- Nathan Silvers' site (original cancelled project)

Important Notice: This is a rework/remake of a cancelled PlayStation port of Unreal initially developed by Pterodactyl Software, Ltd. Leo(T.C.K.) has recovered almost complete set of maps and is currently bringing them on par with current Unreal versions as well as filling in the blanks with the help of other talented and devoted individuals. Full cast & crew and extended info in comments (in the post below, if you're using the forum to view this).

Downloads:

Episode 1 Part 1:
- UnrealPSX_E1P1.rar
- UnrealPSX_E1P1.zip

POST RESERVED FOR EXTENDED INFORMATION. TO BE CONTINUED.

PM me if you need any professional quality voiceover work. Looking forward to this.

Leo has already stated that no voice acting is planned, he plans to have it text-based, which is a shame IMO, but his decision must be respected.

As long as it stays as faithful to the leaked content as possible I'll be happy. If leaked design doco demands voice acting let it be. If not then leave it out. (Although personally I'd rather no voice acting )

and speaking of unreal novels, does anyone know where I can read them online? I cbf hitting up amazon/ebay.

pumped for this and very happy that it's still active, and with screenshots to top it off there's pretty much nothing to complain about. It'd be sweet if more people could get involved with this. what's the roster look like?

Thing is, the storyline was modified several times according to the design documents (so the lines spoken did as well) and they do not state SPECIFICALLY that voice acting should be in. Granted, we recovered some of the main protagonist's speech, but the acting level and overall quality of this speak against using that. It might've as well been cut. For the PSX FPS Alien: Resurrection for example, no speech was recorded which shocked me (license, companies involved etc). Besides, it's not just the maps that are getting debugging treatment. We're not just staying in place, we're FINALIZING the product and that means refinement -- for example corny Hamlet references are thrown out the window.

If you're gonna start criticizing this move, I'll tell you right now: Leo is a person that no matter what wants to preserve original content. If something IS modified, there's a damn blasted valid reason for that and frankly, I trust him on this. He's not the kind of man that would ruin the feel of the original supplied content just to pursue his own vision. I'm a bit more liberal in this case, but I ain't the boss here. Leo is.

I'll update the reserved post with all relevant info today. Stay tuned.

As for the novels, PM went away.

As a long time follower of the PSX project (going back to when I chatted with eVOLVE about it during our Resident Unreal days) I think preserving the original intentions of the project is the way to go. I don't think anyone in this community, talented as they may be, is in a position to "reinterpret" the will of the original development team. If anything, I would only want to see their vision of it. Or the closest thing to that. Where my reservations come into play is my serious opinion on who ought to be the one or ones filling the blanks. The only people that really know the way these levels were meant to be played were the dev teams and while a lot of content has been recovered, my concern is the translation of what hasn't. Remember in Jurassic Park when they talked about how they could only extract most of the dino DNA from the mosquitos, and on a whim they placed frog data in the missing gaps?

Nice analogy.

Interesting point there, Will. Actually *blanks* are mostly unwritten conversations, lack of certain models (we've received only concept arts or renders), and small bits of maps, almost never entire maps. The only truly missing bit is the introductory Horrordeck and E1L8, but even that horrordeck could be pieced together from various concept maps we've seen -- and at the time of cancellation probably only that was ready. E1L5 is missing only one section probably and this *might* be available in the older versions of the level before it was split to sections -- either R or X build of it. E1L3 got seriously extended, due to the sheer amount of different maps we recovered: it's like Jeff Rubin started the level like 4 times over and we've incorporated these 4 into two UNR files, simply adding a series of challenges before fighting Iris herself, which resulted into the most unique level I've ever bloody seen. E1L6 also has a large section out, but that can be taken from the initial concepts by John Anderson, since they contain a large chunk missing from the latest version. E2L2 doesn't have an ending, but is otherwise mostly ready. E2L4 got somewhat recovered but even here, I see 2-3 unique concepts around -- and they're fitting the number of the rogue AIs taken away so there will be an option to include that in. There's not much missing besides that, it may seem like a long list but is otherwise nothing tragic. Had it not been to the retexturing (which is an important matter due to the fact that applying normal textures makes the maps automatically compatible with their S3TC counterparts if one chooses to have them installed) and the sheer amount of issues on the levels, the work would progress much faster.

So most of the maps have been recovered. When you say recovered, you mean with gameplay elements intact or the just the bare bones .unrs? What I mean is the geometry itself or pathing and enemies? I know new enemies and models were planned but not finished, though normal Unreal enemies were presumably going to be included as well. The reason I ask is because that's a big element to any level.

Most gameplay stuff is in, the implant gun bits aren't in, the special boss enemies aren't in (AI's, J'Rath, angry Nali from Tunnel Vision, Inuit personnel). These are however described in detail inside the design documents so it's just a matter of making these happen.

Ah okay. Wasn't sure how integrated the gameplay was in the levels. Good to know

Bottom left shot looks like it uses some u95 textures!

Because it does -- or actually there's one texture from U95 in, the 'star' one. Due to the sheer amount of concepts ready for E1L3 "Iris Deathmatch" it was retitled to "Iris Challenge" and you only get to fight your future partner in the final segment of E1L3. The rest, namely Nathan Silvers' E1L3, Jeff Rubin's 2 different concepts of E1L3 and several other items were included as stages of that challenge. I won't spoil the surprise for you -- but I can tell you this: the level that was started like 5 times over and had practically zero gameplay was changed into a series of 3 levels that provide the most unique twist ever seen in an Unreal pack and I'm not exagerrating here.

..which basically changes the initial concept. Or even the final concept at that time.
(don't want to be picky here, but it may change the way the level(s) were meant to be)