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Unreal Official GW Press Strategy Guide - Oddities (Comparison With Released Unreal)

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Gamesharder
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Posts: 133
Joined: Wed Feb 19, 2014 7:09 pm

Unreal Official GW Press Strategy Guide - Oddities (Comparison With Released Unreal)

Post by Gamesharder »

The official Unreal strategy guide book by Craig Wessel was based on a pre-release version of Unreal. Image
It was published by GW Press in 1998, a month or two before the initial release of Unreal,
And the book features unique elements, some which are never seen or heard before about maps and enemies.


If you want to take a look at it: https://archive.org/details/unreal-guide

In this post I'm going to go through most of the odd and different things that's in this book and do some comparison.

Maps:

Vortex Rikers:
  • the lift area at the end had a button instead of a rotating switch like in the retail game
GW Press Version:
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Release Version:
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February Beta Version:
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NyLeve's Falls:
  • seems like there was no vegetation on the map yet, no plants or trees
    (though it's unseen on the pictures, a beta version, earlier than the GW Press one had plants and trees on the mountains and ground areas)
GW Press Version:
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Release Version:
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  • the three way waterfall from said earlier beta was gone already
GW Press Version:
Image

Release Version:
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  • the Warlord (b)eating the corpse near the cliffs was still there
Image

  • the author mentions a Slith on this map, but it was probably a mistake and it was actually just a Tentacle
Image


Chizra - Nali Water God Temple:
  • according to the guide, there was supposed to be a Translator at the entrance, next to the Automag
Image


Ceremonial Chambers:
  • there was no lava room yet with the Eightball, and the room before that was still in beta version (except for some textures)
GW Press Version:
Image

Release Version:
Image

February Beta Version:
Image


Harobed Village:
  • according to the guide, in the underground cave which leads to the bottom of the well, there were supposed to be planks which the player would had to shoot to obtain the Super Health
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  • even at the start of Harobed it mentions that the well has a Super Health in it, but in the retail you aren't able to see it since it's so far down
Image

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So the planks must had been higher so the player could see it from the village and also, there's actually a leftover ButtonMarker at the well that is speculated to have something to do with this cut puzzle

Image


Temple Of Vandora:
  • you were able to get the Razorjack here on this map first instead on ISV Kran 4
Image


ISV Deck 1:
  • there were Skaarj Gunners instead of Officers on the map
Image
  • the author mentions a "Invulnerability powerup" where the Invisibility pickup is located in the acid pool
    (this is most likely a mistake, since Craig Wessel made a lot of strategy guides for many different games, and he probably switched it up with something else accidentally)
Image


Spire Village:
  • in the retail game, a brush was added to the mountain side as a last minute addition, but it wasn't in the GW Press or the February Beta version
GW Press Version:
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Release Version:
Image

February Beta Version:
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It looks more similar to the February Beta version
(also, maybe it's just me but the hill even looks higher up a bit)

As you can see, even the last version of Spire Village was saved with the mountain side as the active brush
Image

The Sun Spire:
  • the opening entry about the level calls the Pupae as “Nali Pupae” as existing enemies on the map
Image
  • also, a lot of textures were different all over the map (mostly walls and floors)

Sky Caves:
  • in this version all the weapons were placed at the start which usually meant for testing purposes for the devs in coop and such
    (except for the Rifle, because the player would get the weapon here first anyway)
Image
  • instead of the two Skaarj Officers, there were Kralls guarding the door to Sky Town and a Skaarj Berserker
Image


Sky Town:
  • according to the guide, there was supposed to be a Minigun and an Automag right behind the staircase as you exit it at the start
Image

Also, as you see the author says Nali Priest here, but he calls almost every Nali in the book a Nali Priest

  • in the house before you open the gates had less decorations
GW Press Version:
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Release Version:
Image


Outpost 3J:
  • according to the guide, at the start, there were supposed the be big, rotating fans in the pipe on the way up to the fortress which the player had to shoot in order to progress (another cut puzzle)
Image
  • there were two Skaarj in the church near the altar, instead of Kralls
Image


Bluff Eversmoking:
  • at the top of the tower, there was a Minigun next to Kira’s corpse
Image

Which makes this the second cut Minigun pickup from the game, because in the retail version, you can only find a Minigun on Sun Spire and on Mothership Lab (from a Skaarj Trooper)


Serpent Canyon:
  • the author mentions that some Devil Fish might jump out of the water into your boat (this might had been a scripted event/sequence, but I think it was just an actual lucky fish that got into the boat lol)
Image
  • at the boat docks there was a Nali Ghost, and he would lead you to his tombstone
Image

No idea why did they cut this out either. Only Bluff has Ghost Nalis, and the epitaph even says his name

Image


Mothership Lab:
  • at the start, the guide says the panel that displays a hologram depicts the ship the player is on, but it is false, since the player already seen the mothership on Demon Crater
Image

The hologram on Mothership Lab:
Image


Mothership Core:
  • this level was supposed to have a Skaarj Sniper
Image

This would had been the first appearance of Skaarj with Rifles, but they were cut from the release game


Queen:
  • entering the arena, the player had to kill two Skaarj first, once they are dead, Pupae would start spawning all over the room, and after they are dead as well, the Queen would show up
Image

Image
  • the description doesn’t mention the rotating mover up in the arena (which is seen on beta screenshots), but the lifts were in this version that you could take to access the upper level/platform
Low quality picture of the beta Queen map, but you can see the advanced mover up in the sky which had an unknown purpose, and notice the square movers (the lifts) on the left and right side on the upper left corner
Image

And in this PC Gamer beta preview video you can see a Skaarj Lord and a Skaarj Trooper with a Dispersion Pistol



DM Maps:
  • a different version of “SkyDM” was in this version, namely as “Sky 14”.
    We only have SkyDM7, SkyDM11 and SkyDM12 versions of this map
Image


Misc/Anything Else:
  • strangely, there's no entry about the ISV Kran 4 map
Image

Image

No mentions, nothing. Like it was cut from this version or the author forgot to make a description about it.

  • little mistake, the Flak Cannon is called as "Cannon" here
Image

  • the jump boots had 3 to 5 charges (I guess the one with 5 jumps was meant for Spire Village to search all the attics)
Image

  • some enemies have their beta skins on them in some pictures
ImageImage

I guess this was the "transition version" between the beta and retail skins for the game as some where done and some weren't yet.
(you can also see some enemies with their beta skins on map pictures)

  • the Cave Manta had a (probably glitched) black texture, but it was still saved in this version
Image

  • there's an entry about the cut Squid enemy at the bestiary section, which was still in this version at least
Image

  • the Queen entry mentions that her projectile attack was homing, and also that the player should use their “high end” weapons, such as the Quad Shot (which is another mistake, because there’s no entry about the Quadshot in the guide. The author seems to mistake the Flak Cannon with the Quadshot numerous times)
Image
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Leo T_C_K
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Posts: 3660
Joined: Sat Aug 27, 2005 6:24 pm

Re: Unreal Official GW Press Strategy Guide - Oddities (Comparison With Released Unreal)

Post by Leo T_C_K »

Btw Elsinore (if you want to talk about dm maps) had no secret with the minigun acording to the screenshot in the guide and some texture differences.

Also it was probably just a month before the last worked on release version (which was like 18th/19th may despite actual release date being later and the first patch on that day).

As for the queen, I think this version didn't have the homing projectile but some earlier version did possibly from late 1997 (with the impaler looking projectiles). I did interview the actual author a while back and he told me he had like almost every revision of Unreal, Epic would keep sending him discs and delaying the release date and he would need to rewrite the guide each time. This is why some errors happened. I can't imagine what it must have been like each time they sent a new version. There were even some strategy guides released and pulled back quickly like that version we didn't see yet, the unofficial one from the same guys as the "lost episodes of doom" publishing/writing.
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