Some background: Prisoner 849 is rescued from the drifting shuttlecraft after recently escaping the hell of the planet surface by the UMS Bodega Bay, an Earth ship whose occupants decide to use your knowledge of the planet to aide them in their mission to recover some important data from the Prometheus which recently crashed on its surface. With my test system, I was playing in 1280x1024 resolution and getting 35 FPS average with every available bell and whistle maxed out-quite serviceable. Folks, graphics wise, it doesnвЂ™t get any better! The total experience isnвЂ™t cheap though, requiring an up-to-date system to really shine through. Seriously though, the intense feeling of immersion one gets as they roam through increasingly strange environments, fighting to survive while gaping in awe at your surroundings and marveling at the effect of the positional 3D sound, is unique to the Unreal series. I wandered awestruck in the Velora Temple map for many hours, examining the minute details lovingly rendered by the graphic designers-sort of like H.P. Make room Unreal-aholics, because youвЂ™ll have to snag this beauty for another dose of lavishly rendered scenes of foreboding alien architecture. *Dan Harnett is the PR Sorcerer at GT Interactive - I love that guy.THE BEST! I cannot say enough about the wonderfully rich environments in Unreal, and Return to Na Pali is as good as the original. Why do you think this review is so short?! Jeesh. We even set up the mulitplayer goodness around the office. With 14 new single player maps and new enemies, Return to Na Pali is a worthy pack purchase that all Unreal fans should get. That's one thing that separates Unreal from a lot of the other FPSs out ther, is the level design, and these new deathmatch only maps compliment that strength. It's open, tons of winding stairways and eveyone dies - it's great. The 'Stomp' level happens to be one of my personal favs. GT has also added six new multiplayer deathmatch maps for all kinds of gaming goodness. There's nothing more hilarious than taunting an enemy with a handgun and leading him to a littered hallway filled with grenades. These two weapons alone add so much to the multiplayer part of the game. The rocket launcher fires a smart missile which gamers can manually guide to its target, while the grenade launcher has a remote option that lets gamers launch grenades and detonate them from a safe distance. But I would like to talk about the secondary firing features on some of the new weapons. I'll try not too bore you too much with all the weapons' functions, 'cause I'm sure you all know how an assault rifle, grenade launcher and rocket launcher work. I know, great story, but where's the added value you ask? Well first off, GT Interactive has added three new weapons: the grenade launcher, rocket launcher and. without dying by the claws, or missiles, of the many creatures that inhabit the Na Pali world. Assuming that you take the mission, your goal is to rescue the weapons research logs from the wreckage of the cruise ship, Prometheus. Only this time around, you get picked up by a salvage ship, and you have two choices: either die a slow death, or take up a mission. Return to Na Pali puts you back under the rags of an escapee.

Will Unreal Mission Pack: Return to Na Pali bring Unreal back into your gaming digestive track? Yep. It would be unfair if I included Unreal in that pile of games that now gather dust, but I have to admit, I haven't been playing it as much since the release of Half-Life, Thief. I mean, there are a ton of them, and you can't help but to play them for a couple of weeks, with a few exceptions of course, and then have them mysteriously vanish to the back of your video game library. Especially when it's for a first person shooter. How come everyone around here in the office always cringes when a mission pack comes in? What a shame.

Return to na pali