# Unreal (1998 video game)

16 Hacker News commenters recommended Unreal (1998 video game) and 4 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 9 of 13 months. It meets the Hacker Approved badge rule.

**Verdict:** Praised for impressive graphics, a full-featured software renderer and responsive mouse. Critics say it ran choppily at 400x300 and performed poorly on some hardware.

## Why people recommend it

- Impressive, gorgeous visuals (4 comments): "Unreal seems to be pretty frictionless for getting something working that looks impressive" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49102893)) "Oh yeah, Unreal was so nice looking." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46598267)) "it was oh my god, this is beautiful" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46598200))
- Full-featured software renderer with colored lighting (3 comments): "Half-Life and Unreal do this better, they support colored lighting in their software mode." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50118518)) "Unreal did use MMX, which allowed it to work in 32-bit color mode with colored lighting" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49326926)) "I was (and still am) amazed at how full-featured the software renderer was." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46632265))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [Quake](https://hackerapproved.com/p/quake.md): 118 recommend
- [Doom by id Software](https://hackerapproved.com/p/doom.md): 102 recommend
- [Unreal Tournament 2004](https://hackerapproved.com/p/unreal-tournament-2004.md): 51 recommend
- [Quake III Arena](https://hackerapproved.com/p/quake-iii-arena.md): 49 recommend
- [Half-Life](https://hackerapproved.com/p/half-life.md): 42 recommend

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "Unreal (1998 video game)", https://hackerapproved.com/p/unreal/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).