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> Graphically more primitive than Doom in most ways

They didn't use a raycasting engine, though - the maps were full 3D (and so were some of the environment pieces - benches and the ankhs come to mind). Because of hardware limitations, your viewport was limited to about 1/4 of the screen...

In a lot of ways, they were technologically superior to the Doom engine - except they were slow. The same engine ended up being reused for System Shock (and 2, if I remember correctly).



System Shock 2 did not use the same engine - they licensed Looking Glass Studios' engine used in Thief: The Dark Project. There's a great post mortem for this game here: http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/131813/postmortem_irra...


Ah, you're right. Same studio, but Looking Glass abandoned the UU/UU2 engine for System Shock.


To be fair, Doom did not use raycasting either, but yes, the underworld games were significantly more advanced at the time.


Agreed. What's even more staggering is that Ultima Underworld 1 was actually released before Wolfenstein 3D, the predecessor to Doom! (March vs May 1992). Doom only came out December 1993.


> The same engine ended up being reused for System Shock (and 2, if I remember correctly).

Quite a legacy, there, too. Wonderful games.




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