Unreal II: The Awakening

The Good
First and foremost, the graphics. The quality of the artwork is superb, lovingly crafted and easily surpasses that of the original Unreal, which was more of a mixed bag bar the skyboxes and the lens flares. The static mesh detailing ranged from OK to excellent, and the architecture was one of the best for its day. A great deal of variety of different environments and worlds also means you'll never get bored of looking at this baby.

And the variety of weapons on offer is certainly worth writing home about. After all, you get a grenade launcher with several varieties of grenade to use as the situation requires, and the sniper rifle is one of the best you'll ever find in a first person shooter. The rocket launcher packs a punch, and the spider gun is worth checking out for curiosity's sake, but otherwise I wouldn't bother using it as a primary weapon.

The Bad
The extremely linear gameplay and the ever so short maps. Most of the map is dedicated to environmental detail, which is a waste, and means that multiple maps are required for the one 'level', requiring frequent map loading, which is a pain in the bum itself, as even on modern machines things take forever to load. As a result of these seemingly short maps, the player moves at a snail's pace. Grrrr!!! ADHD is not compatible with this game, sadly.

Also, the game is somewhat unreliable, even with the latest patch, and has crashed several times on me, much to my frustration. The programmers who worked at the now defunct Legend should be summoned and shot for their blatant negligence, because this is one of the least reliable games out there.

And don't get me started on those flippin' cut scenes. It's not so bad when you're playing the game for the first time, but if you want to play it again you have no choice but to sit through them. Very annoying. The people who made this game didn't think this one through. If they ever made a patch fixing this (fat chance now, I might add) as well as the bugs, I may just forgive them.

The Bottom Line
It is worth playing, but only just. Had they made the game more stable and included an option to skip those darned cut scenes, I could quite easily overlook the linear, multi-mapped levels and the loading times that seem to take decades.

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.

The Good
No doubt, Unreal 2 is a cinematic experience then standard 08/15 game, this includes a:

1.) Breathtaking Scenery with beautiful textures and models. 2.) Very suitable music and soundeffects. 3.) Interesting characters, with an amazing voiceacting and witty dialogues (english version). 4.) Great variety of weapons. 5.) For non FPS-Freaks (like me) it has a moderate difficult which makes it less frustrating and more fun to play.

The Bad
It has it flaws, no doubt, I seen follows:

Major weaknesses:

1.) I think for FPS-Freaks this is way to easy, and when there is no challenge, there is bore. 2.) Mainstory is really thin, but even then they managed to put some cliches into it.

Minor weaknesses:

1.) Moving around in the spaceship was pretty useless, in that case cutscenes would have been more than sufficient. 2.) I would like to choose for myself which weapons I take to a mission. 3.) Took sometimes ages to load. 4.) It was short, but on the other hand not too short for me.

The Bottom Line
Unreal 2 is a very eyecandy Singleplayer FPS, for everyone who likes SF and a little action. For me, who usually plays RGP, Strategy or Adventures it was a neat alternation. For its cheap price today its no loss except you are a hardcore FPS Player, then be aware for an easy and short trip.

Footnote: I was surprised to see C64 Graphic Legend Hugh "Last Ninja" Riley worked on that title. Most of artist/musicians/coder of that time are gone or do something completely different the industry.