I've become a little fed up with id Software's domination of the first-person shooter market. Other than perhaps Duke Nukem 3D and Jedi Knight, there haven't been many titles that are even in the same league as both Quakes-and none could compete with id's technical savvy. Enter (finally) Epic MegaGames and Digital Extremes' much-hyped, much-anticipated, and oft-slipped Unreal.

It offers a better single-player experience than Quake or Quake II and is powered by one helluva serious 3D engine. Unreal is hands-down the most unique-looking shooter to come along in an extremely long time-if not ever. The environments are vast, varied, lush, and breathtaking. The textures are much larger and more detailed, colorful, and varied than those in Quake II, resulting in a much more interesting exploratory experience as you delve through the variety of levels-from dark, dank caves to huge outdoor settings with kaleidoscopes of bright colors.

The special effects this engine can produce are truly amazing. Water cascades and ripples; lights blend, pulsate, and shimmer realistically. And the reflective surfaces of some of the floors are jaw-dropping. Sure, it's more of a "see what we can do" feature rather than one crucial to Unreal's level design, but it looks pretty. There's also per-pixel fogging in software and 3D acceleration that really lends itself to the atmosphere pervading most of the game. You'll encounter this in the first level as you explore some foggy air-ducts, a game opening that really sets the mood.

The 3D sound-effects are also amazing, particularly if you have an A3D-licensed card. The sounds of monsters' footsteps, engine hums, water dripping, waterfalls, bird cries, and gunshots change dramatically according to your position relative to them. On some of the more cavernous levels, you'll find that sounds echo convincingly. The electronic music, however, pretty much sucks-I recommend you turn it off or throw in your own CD.

Why am I spouting off about Unreal's technical merits before getting into its gameplay? Because Unreal's technology is its most noteworthy element. When you get to the gameplay, Unreal is essentially of the same old find-your-way-to-the-next-level variety-it's just a much more beautiful journey.

You're cast as a prisoner aboard a prison-transport ship that crashes on a mysterious planet. You awaken amid the ship's rubble bruised, battered, and confused. Your first task is to find some medical attention, then find a way out of the ship, and eventually find a way off the planet.

It seems other ships have crashed on this planet as well, and a race of aliens known as the Skaarj have taken it upon themselves to reign supreme. Together with a host of alien baddies, the Skaarj are up to something-which includes the subjugation of the planet's native residents, the Nali.

As you progress, you'll spend most of your time roaming through spaceships and Nali gothic temples and villages. During your journeys, you'll discover more information about the Skaarj and what they're doing, the planet you're on, and the Nali via your handy-dandy Universal Translator (never leave home without one).

You'll also find various weapons-10 in all-with which to combat the Skaarj and their minions. Each weapon has a secondary-fire feature that's usually more powerful than the primary firing method but takes more time or ammo. For example, the primary-fire trigger on the 8-Ball Launcher fires standard rockets-up to six at a time depending on how long you hold the trigger. Its secondary-fire option launches grenades. Your standard weapon is the Dispersion pistol, and there are five power-ups that make it substantially more deadly.

The weapons are fairly well balanced and interesting in single-play, but Unreal's monsters are even better. Where Quake II tries to overwhelm you with numbers, Unreal tries to overwhelm you with quality-there are fewer enemies, but they're more detailed and tougher to kill. There's been much hype around Steven Polge coding the AI (he created the Quake Reaper Bot), and the team claimed that fighting them would be like fighting human players. Well, not quite. But the Skaarj (and variants) do duck, strafe, roll, dodge, flank, and fire better than any enemy AI seen before in a shooter. They also patrol levels rather than staying put in the same spot. The Skaarj and their variants are by far the most interesting. The rest don't pose much of a challenge-not even the massive Titan, who is awe-inspiring but not that difficult to defeat.

Unreal doesn't redefine the genre, but it does have a look and atmosphere all its own, resulting in a compelling single-player experience. And it definitely has its great moments, like the tense one in Dark Arena when four doors slightly obscured by fog start opening. Emerging from behind one is a gargantuan Titan, slamming the ground to send you flying, then hurling massive boulders at you. A few levels later, the Skaarj drop down from the Terran ship's ceiling vents in numbers, intensifying that "me alone vs. the aliens" feeling. Other moments are equally impressive but more subtle: emerging from a claustrophobic hallway into an expansive, gorgeous Nali world with birds flying overhead and rabbits hopping around; the mooing of the Nali "cows"; the transporter portals on the Skaarj mothership.

Better story exposition and development (the ending was incredibly cliché and the game's final confrontation lame), more scripted events, and more unique things to do would have elevated the game into truly unreal status.

So would more attention to multiplay. Games run smoothly on a LAN, but not over the Internet. Few servers were up at the time of this writing, and playing on them was a lagfest of shameful proportions. Hopefully this'll be improved in coming months via patches. It must, or Unreal will remain an also-ran in the world of online gaming.

The weapons are also serious underachievers in multiplay-it seems to take forever to kill your target. In addition to standard deathmatch multiplayer support, you get teamplay, King of the Hill, and co-op play, and there's the option to play with and against bots-and they're pretty challenging. If it weren't for these customizable bots (which can be included in deathmatches), Unreal would be a complete bust in the multiplayer department.

Another boon: the game includes an unsupported beta version of the Unreal Level Editor (a full, retail version will be sold separately). This is by far the easiest 3D-level design tool I've encountered, once you patch to get it running. No doubt it'll spawn a healthy online community-provided Epic can iron out the game's Internet bugs.

Unreal's biggest hurdle by far is its meaty system requirements-this game had my P200 MMX machine with 64MB of RAM and a Canopus 6MB Voodoo accelerator gasping for breath like no other shooter before. Dropping to 512-by-380 res (the max for a 4MB Voodoo card) and low-detail textures helped, but it still didn't play completely smoothly.

If your PC has the muscle, you'll get a lot of enjoyment out of Unreal. It isn't the Second Coming, but it's pretty damn good.