Unreal II: The Awakening
Description official descriptions
Some years after the Strider Wars, humanity has resumed its expansion into space. On the rough frontier, it falls to the Terran Colonial Authority to maintain peace and order among the outlying colonies and outposts. TCA Marshal John Dalton and the crew of his ship, the Atlantis, patrol this dangerous sector of space when several distress calls lead to the discovery of alien artifacts with unique properties. Soon, the hunt for these artifacts is on between several alien factions as well as human corporations and their mercenary forces, with the TCA and their allies caught in the middle.
The first-person shooter Unreal II, while a sequel to Unreal, has no direct connection to the first game except being set in the same universe (with the Skaarj from Unreal and the Liandri Corporation from Unreal Tournament being major enemy factions). The player controls John Dalton through a dozen missions, taking place in such locations as the dense jungle of a tropical planet, a research facility on a frozen moon, the insides of a planet-sized living organism, the home world of an insectoid machine civilization, as well as a huge starship.
The weapon arsenal consists of more than a dozen guns. Standard types include pistols, an assault rifle, shotgun, and sniper rifle. Some heavier ones are a flame thrower, as well as rocket and grenade launchers, with the grenade launcher being able to use six different ammunition types, including fragmentation, EMP and smoke grenades. Available in later missions are weapons adapted from alien technologies. These include various energy guns, a biological weapon that creates living spiders that attack enemies, and an autonomous floating orb that either seeks out and attacks enemies or circles around the player in point defense. As in other Unreal titles, each weapon has two different firing modes.
Missions are usually of the run-and-gun type, but there are exceptions. Several levels include defense assignments where either a position must be held for a certain time or a character be kept alive. These levels usually include additional tools such as energy barriers and automated turrets that can be placed by the player in any location. Sometimes, AI-controlled characters will be there to help out the player as well. In that case they can be given orders on which sector to defend or patrol, for example.
The story of the game is told through a variety of means: besides in-engine cutscenes, there is a lot of radio chatter during a mission; in fact, it's not unusual for mission objectives to completely change due to story developments. Between missions, Dalton can wander freely about the Atlantis and chat with his crew, going into their personal backstories as well as more details about the main plot.
Spellings
- 虚幻II:觉醒 - Simplified Chinese spelling
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Credits (Windows version)
227 People (207 developers, 20 thanks) · View all
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[ full credits ] |
Reviews
Critics
Average score: 79% (based on 43 ratings)
Players
Average score: 3.3 out of 5 (based on 108 ratings with 12 reviews)
The Good
I liked the graphics and the huge in depth spaces.
Cool weapons
Mysterious environment
The Bad
I didn't like the story behind this game.
The game is too short.
The Bottom Line
Unreal 2 is a sci-fi first person shooter like most others. But, if you have a strong pc, something like 256MB memory with at least GeForce 4 you will enjoy a blasting eye graphics.
The main disappointment for me is the story behind this game. It wasn't an interesting adventure like Unreal 1 and the game is too short.
I don't know but Unreal 1 was a mystery shrouded game, but if you haven't played it you will like Unreal 2.
Windows · by Shalom Raz (55) · 2003
Eye Candy (Gameplay Sold Separately)
The Good
Sure, looks count. When a game is as pretty as Unreal II, you forgive it a lot. I plodded on to the end merely to see one more beautiful alien planet. Occasionally, this visual splendor almost becomes compelling. When a planet infested by a huge spongy organism erupts in angry green spouts of acid, it's a money-shot moment, even if the effects are all decorative and irrelevant to gameplay. I also liked - gasp! - the story. If you persevere until the end, you're in for a satisfying conclusion. Rarely do game narratives rise above the level of idiocy; this one, after plenty of dross, finally does. Nice voice acting, too.
The Bad
Everything else is terrible.
Let's start with player movement. There are two speeds: creeping and crawling. Seriously cramping the range of available tactics, this hobbled mobility reduces fighting to a series of repetitive pot-shots. Mind, enemies aren't slow. Only you are.
Although level design is pretty, it's also painfully linear. The highly-skilled designers have created the illusion of broad, expansive landscapes. But it's all superficial, as they've squandered the graphics engine's power by making you stick to a narrow path no more divergent than, say, the one in ten-year old Quake. Frustratingly, you even come across features in the landscape that you can climb or jump in some areas, but not in others.
Enemy AI? Forget it. Enemy character design? Pfffft. The tiresome Skaarj are back doing their goofy somersaults, joined by (shock!) spiders, (amazing!) weird aliens, and (omigod!) humans in armor. This colorless, uninspired work is instantly forgettable. You never feel menaced - annoyed, maybe. Partly that's also the fault of the designers having no sense of rhythm, drama, or pacing; long stretches of the game are inexplicably unpopulated. And when they do bump into something successful - for instance, using friendly AI soldiers to protect you - they quickly drop the idea. You can lead a game designer to green alien acid pools, apparently, but you can't make him drink.
While I appreciated the finale, the story is filled with cliches borrowed from more successful games and movies. Expect no originality. Five minutes into the game you're given to understand that celebrated female military heroes in the future will dress like Hooters chicks, and it's mostly downhill (or downbra, you might say) from there.
The Bottom Line
With the commercial and critical failure of Unreal II, this great-looking game can be picked up for a song (I paid $10). Though highly polished, it's about as dull as it is beautiful. This is corporate design in all its safe, cliched, derivative, formulaic glory, with a heavy dosage of hack work substituting for creativity: step right up and be relieved of your imagination.
Windows · by Richard Cramden (6) · 2003
Under-rated FPS and a decent Coda for the Legend developers.
The Good
This game is set in the Unreal universe, but has little to do with the original Unreal game.
Legend Entertainment has always included a good story in their games. Unreal II is no exception. You meet interesting characters, competently acted by skilled performers. The storyline is original in the sense that it completely borrows from a plethora of movies and computer games. I saw elements from Aliens, Anachronox, Half-Life, Starship Troopers, and numerous others. It’s a B movie scripting, but its good B movie scripting. Any fan of Sci Fi would probably enjoy this game on that level. The ending was actually a surprise. The script and game play worked well together.
The environments are breathtakingly beautiful and a good way of showing off your DirectX 9 compliant video card. The sound is equally well done. No drops in audio, and a consistently clear sound even when there is chaos all over the place. The rat-tat-tat of the machine gun was satisfying and the missile launcher throom had a thrilling roar to it. The models were really well done and fascinating to watch. I admit that I found a single contradiction slightly disturbing. Aida is the mandatory scantily clad tomboy. She looks like a young woman but sounds like lunch lady Doris from the Simpsons.
The main character, Dalton, does more than shoot aliens. He talks with the crew and interacts with them on a personal level. Aida and the Engineer have a sorted past that they are hoping to rectify by serving with Dalton. Also on board is a pilot of distant origins named Ne'ban. One of the running gags of the game is Ne'ban's mis-use of the English language. In one scene, Ne'ban yells out "Intercourse!" in a fit of frustration.
Aida is the tactical officer and worried mother figure to Dalton. Shockingly enough, they aren't romantically involved. She and the engineer have an ongoing disenchantment with each other that Dalton helps to work out.
The game levels were very well designed and spooky. Instead of throwing enemies at you non-stop, they let you wander around and get ambushed. A few levels required you to wait and defend until a certain a certain goal was achieved. While not a new convention, they were well done and designed to maximize tension as you heard your fellow soldiers return fire and scream when injured. The enemies always have a signature sound indicating an impeding attack. This builds anticipation as you look around for it.
The diversity of weapons and their resulting effects were spectacular. Causing great death and destruction. Watching your enemies go down in a ball of flame has never been so gratifying in recent memory.
And there is at least one scene that is laugh out loud funny. Play it if you're curious.
The Bad
All the guns have similiar levels of destruction. It’s also pretty short. You can wander around and attack enemies without a response until the script triggers it.
This game is LINEAR. No options of game play. Very few opportunities for tactical game play. I found myself able to kill a few monsters by lobbing a missile while they walked to a set point in a script.
While the Skaarj are back and hard to kill, they are the only returning characters I could remember from the original. Nai aren't there. Very little mention of anything from the original.
With the exception of the ending theme, I thought the music was obnoxious and relied too heavily on worn out synth themes and rhythm patterns. If there ever was a game that I wish had a jukebox feature, this one is it.
The Bottom Line
A light fare FPS with gorgeous graphics, a good story and great sound. Its way under-rated for entertainment value.
Windows · by Scott Monster (986) · 2004
Trivia
German version
In the German version, all blood and gore effects were removed. Also some corpses in the levels were replaced or removed. The later released Special Edition is not affected.
John Dalton
The main character's last name, Dalton, was based on Scott Dalton, one of Unreal II's game designers. The developers tried to avoid the name collision for a while, but in the end "Dalton" just seemed to work best for the game and was used in the final product.
Multiplayer and delisting
A patch to this game adds multiplayer, vehicles and new weapons. It is called Expanded Multiplayer or Unreal II XMP.
The game's original online master servers were shut down on 31 May 2014 alongside other GameSpy servers. Unlike with the Unreal Tournament spin-off series, Epic Games would not host their own master server for Unreal II (despite the 2022 shutdown notice erroneously referring to it).
Like other games in the series, Unreal II was delisted from Steam on 14 December 2022 and GOG.com on 23 December 2022.
References
- Coincidence... or not? The player character, sometimes appreviated as "U2", is named John Dalton. In the late 1980's, the Irish rock group U2 would sometimes dress up as a country western band and open for their own shows. The name of the group?: The Dalton Brothers.
- An NPC in the tutorial area muses about getting himself two flags and conducting a some kind of tournament. An obvious reference to the Unreal Tournament series of games.
Seagoat
The Seagoat, the alien, bunny-like pet that shows up on the player's ship during mid-game, was created very early on in development and originally thought to be a huge, bovine creature that could inhabit one of the alien worlds in the game. During development, the name "Seagoat" started to stick for the creature, and it was greatly reduced in size and given the role of cute, slightly weird pet.
Voice acting
Even though all other voices for the game were performed by professional actors, Ne'Ban, the ship's alien pilot, is voiced by one of the developers (Grant Roberts).
Awards
- GameStar (Germany)
- Issue 04/2009 - One of the "10 Most Terrible Sequels" ( It is a good game in its own right but forgettable and far from being as groundbreaking as Unreal. The technical potential goes to waste because the player mostly walks through illogical and linear levels instead of being outdoors.)
- PC Powerplay (Germany)
- Issue 03/2005 - #6 Biggest Disappointment
Information also contributed by Matthias Worch, St. Martyne and STU2
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Related Sites +
-
Something Awful review
A humorous review on Something Awful (Windows version) -
The Official Unreal II Expanded Multiplayer Resource
Maps, mods, videos, tips, art, screenshots, and editing information -
Unreal II - The Awakening
The official Unreal 2 website.
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Contributors to this Entry
Game added by Riley Beckham.
Xbox added by Kartanym.
Additional contributors: KSlayer, Unicorn Lynx, Rebelteen, Sciere, Patrick Bregger, Plok.
Game added February 9, 2003. Last modified November 24, 2024.