Unreal was renowned for its AI intelligence. Imagine cacodemons or scrags but every time you fired a rocket or nail barrage their way they matrix dodged out the way and you all but have to switch to the shotgun. This all but forced you to use hitscan weaponry in many instances and it was not fun. Some enemies dodged beyond excess, such as gasbags. They've all been improved (though at least one is still terrible, but I think I nailed the others). Unreal Evolution doesn't drastically change the numbers and encounters, for example I aimed to stay true to the lore so I couldn't add skaarj to the mercenary ship and there's only say a +30% increase in numbers per level on average, but it's enough to really make encounters more dynamic and engaging. This approach is important because it forces you to manage and engage diverse AI intelligence simultaneously, say a skarrj on the ground and a gasbag in the air (complete with new AI behaviors I added also), rather than engaging them one at a time. In Unreal Evolution I aimed to add more diverse encounters, to the point that I had to make infighting between enemy types a randomized chance (like Doom) rather than guaranteed to happen at the first instance of friendly fire. Originally combat was almost always you vs up to say three-four enemies at most in any given moment, and furthermore you typically only fought one enemy type at a time: a group of slith. Reasons which I consciously aimed to address with this mod. Unreal is a definite classic but not on their level for numerous reasons. I really like Unreal Evolution myself and am in a middle of a playthrough, but we can always agree to disagree.Ĭlick to expand.Play vanilla. I suspect you are either a purist who exclusively enjoys playing games in 100% vanilla form, or just hates whatever mods/patches others create for games and always sees the worst of them? Or was there something else in particular you wanted to criticize in Unreal Evolution? I would love to address your constructive criticism. These patches/mods enhance their respective games in a way that leaves all the original atmosphere/goodness intact while only enhancing them in some regards (not to mention bugfixing). However, do not be surprised that many others do. Yet I gather you simply personally do not like these mods. It is only natural for someone who liked the original Unreal to be enthusiastic about a patch/mod that enhances the original game so seamlessly. The enthusiasm of the mentioned reviewer should not come as a surprise and ought not be ridiculed so, as almost any fan of Unreal would prefer using the mod, just like many Deus Ex users prefer the GMDX mod.
Yet the mod is an overall improvement of the original in mostly all regards. I myself have played through vanilla Unreal at least once and fiddled many times since nearly 20 years ago. So to answer your comment, the Unreal Evolution mod for Unreal is enjoyable whether one had played through vanilla Unreal or not. Since Ash is a rather unstable, yet genius character, I had seen it fit to speak on his behalf to any inflamed queries regarding his mods.