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Note to game creators.....3 WAYS TO PISS OFF FANS

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 6 / 7
Date: December 14, 2004
Author: Amazon User

#1. CHEATING YOUR FANS

As you can plainly see, Unreal 2 has nothing to do with Unreal 1. Did they just need the royalties or what?! Let's look at a previous example that attempted to toss a sharp elbow in the stomach's of fans everywhere: Check out Deus ex 1 and 2. The fans were furious; they were lured into a poor imitation of Deus ex's former self. The only people who played Deus ex 2 were the people who had previously played Deus ex 1.....which leads me to my main point....if your going to hand out a different game that does not resemble your first game - you must change the title OR the fans will have to suffer through your shoddy second attempt at cash-flow - and review your game poorly.

#2. LEVEL DESIGN..PLEASE!

The creators of Unreal 2 tried a different approach in this game. For the first two levels it worked great. Then the level design got repetitive.....ironically, the exact opposite of what Unreal 1 had to offer. This is what the fans wanted, along with just the slightest, the smallest, most insincere of efforts to mince a story together - but the creators could not pull this task off.

#3. ENEMY MUST CONFORM WITH BACKGROUND

If you look past the fact that this is not related to Unreal and that the level design is a little uninspired - this still would have made a good "scare" tactic game like Doom 3; the AI is good and so are the guns - in fact, I actually had fun fighting Skaar and the other enemies. Unfortunately, the one thing that seems to remain the same with Unreal 2 is the character animation. The enemies seem all to cartoonish and UNREAL against the background of fantastically rendered scenes. You don't plug in the same animations of Doom 2 with Doom 3 and expect good results, do you? Take a look at the "spiders" in the HELL level on Unreal 2 - pathetic.

Thanks creators, you taught me an important lesson - RESEARCH. Good luck selling Unreal 3...this time I'll check the reviews before you get off so easily.

Incredible

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 5 / 6
Date: March 24, 2003
Author: Amazon User

When I first got this game installed on my new PC, I was thinking, "Well, this will hold me over until Doom III." I was absolutely wrong. Id software better have a storyline this time, because the Unreal II experience was like playing a gnarly sci-fi movie.

The scripting is timed perfectly, the voice overs are entirely appropriate, the characters are lovable, the dialogue is funny. It was seriously like playing a Space Marine in the Alien movies, but better. And let's not forget about the awesomely huge and detailed visuals and the great sound and music. There is also an extensive amount of non-player character interaction. There are many missions where you get to command a squadron of Marines around, fight alongside them, tell the one dressed up in the Tank suit to go to the rear and tell the one with the Shotgun to head up front. You can set up perimeters to defend locations with force barriers, and there is a lot of tactical stuff that gave this game such a nice touch. Oh yeah, the weapons are balanced and way cool, too.

Now, let's not forget the most important part: the content of the story. You and your crew are comprised of Marine Corps rejects - TCA Marshall John Dalton, your character, is a compassionate space cop who regularly disobeys the rules in the name of his own moral convictions, and consequently, has been put out of the Marine Corps for good. you patrol deep space enforcing the law and making sure that the power-hungry multi-planetary corporations aren't up to no good. This is a higly prophetic vision of the future, where big business extends its black arms into the deep regions of the universe where no watching eye can abate its quest for power. But the final betrayal to humanity comes from inside the government itself - it turns out that the power offered by the various alien Artifacts in the game is too much for even the government men to resist.

I've been playing PC games since the late 80's, and it is rare indeed that a game like this comes along - This is one of those games that everyone must have.

Unreal II; Another ho-hum bug hunt ????

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 4 / 4
Date: August 12, 2003
Author: Amazon User

Reviews]

Unreal II: the awakening

Spiders! It's full of spiders!

There's a rule about spiders in games: They are the designer's way of saying: "I give up. I have run out of ideas." Strangely, that feeling permeates all of Unreal II: The Awakening, a game so eagerly anticipated that even the editors at Maximum PC were quivering like hummingbirds as they waited to lay their mitts on a copy. Sadly, now, after having actually played the game, their hummingbird wings have slowed to a dead stop. "We waited for this?" is the question on everyone's lips.

Unreal II has an amazing degree of polish. It's slick, it's gorgeous, and it has one or two breakout moments. But our sustained impression over the course of a meager 12-odd hours of gameplay is one of profound familiarity and undeniable disappointment. Unreal II is not, by any stretch of the imagination, a bad game. It is, however, a crushingly dissatisfying one.

So how can a "not bad game" warrant a mere 6 verdict? The problem lies in a burden of expectations, and while Epic/Legend may cry foul, this burden is the inevitable byproduct of five-odd years of unrelenting hype. The first Unreal was a watershed title. When gamers emerged into that open space, with the waterfall in the distance and the critters hopping about, they entered a new era in gaming. That the rest of Unreal never quite lived up to the first scene's promise-that it resorted to standard run-n-gun clichés-was never that big a problem. It was good, old-school action gaming. It pulled the plow.

Unreal II is sort of like the first game, but without the shock value of the waterfall. We already know how good games can look. But we also expect more from our action games in the wake of many clever, well-scripted titles (quite a few of which were made using the original Unreal engine). The really odd thing about Unreal II is that its meager narrative was created by a team of people with proven track records. The script is by Bob Bates, president of Legend and standard-bearer for the puzzle adventure game. The co-designers are Glen Dahlgren and Mike Verdu, whose Wheel of Time is one of the neglected masterpieces of late-1990s action gaming. It's got more interesting events, people, locations, and content in a single level than you'll find in all of Unreal II.

All of this makes Unreal II dreadfully difficult to evaluate. Nothing in it immediately reeks. Everything looks good. There are plenty of enemies. The pacing is decent. The levels are mostly good, but none stand out as classics. The weapons are almost pathologically generic: pistol, assault rifle, shotgun, rocket launcher, grenade launcher, flame-thrower, big gun, sniper rifle, and shock lance. Seriously: a shock lance? Please. That's just so... 1993. All of these weapons are perfectly functional and effectively animated, but they bring nothing to the table but old memories. Probably the weakest element of the game is the flaccid monster design, which ranges from seen-it (the skarrj) to what-is-it? Plus, there are those spiders. Grrrr.

But perhaps the most catastrophic failing of Unreal II is its almost nonexistent shelf life. Not only is it short, but it has no multiplayer component whatsoever, guaranteeing it a quick trip through Add/Remove Programs once the final curtain falls on the main mission. There are no skirmish levels, no nuthin'. Fracturing the franchise into Unreal and Unreal Tournament may have seemed like a good idea at the time, but removing all multiplay from Unreal II was a fatal error. A game lives on between versions because of multiplayer. Take that away, and a game is DOA. It also leaves you feeling pretty ripped off, since for [item price] you get very little.

For all its beauty and accomplishment, Unreal II is ultimately an empty game, coasting on its reputation rather than expanding the genre. It's enjoyable enough, but it will never be mistaken for a great game.

+ ORIGINALS: Stunning 3D engine. Solid, familiar run-n-gun action.

- SEQUELS: Short play time. Little in it is fresh or interesting. Levels, weapons, and creatures are average-which is unacceptable for a game of this magnitude.

MaximumPC verdict:

6

-BY THOMAS L. MCDONALD

The only thing that's UNREAL is how terrible this game is...

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 6 / 9
Date: June 30, 2004
Author: Amazon User

I have to be honest... I never finished this game. It was horrible. In fact, I'll be bold enough to say it was one of the worst games I've ever seen and played. In a day and age where we have truly innovative shooters such as Halo and Half Life, why, tell me why would someone release this drivel?

First of all, allow me to quash some of the statements that various folks made above: This game is NOT polished. The cookie cutter environments are bland in design and are chock full of those invisible barriers that plague so many FPS games. And the animation is awful; next time you play any game try blinking your eyes really fast while looking at the screen. That's what enemies look like when they move/attack/die in Unreal 2.

I can't stop laughing at the guy above who said "Stop with the complex plots. People want simplicity!" Did you have a hard time following the story, buddy? Don't speak for me or anyone else. I don't want simplicity. I like to play games that don't talk down to me.

In all seriousness, this is one of the most linear, watered down bargain basement action titles that I've ever subjected myself to. What happened to you Atari? I have a suggestion for your new slogan: "Atari. Games For Stupid People."

Can't play at all--crashes three different computers

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 6 / 10
Date: February 21, 2003
Author: Amazon User

Be warned: I can't get past the initial screen on three different high-end computers--the game crashes with no useful information. I've wasted lots of time updating various drivers (and I'm generally knowledgable about PCs). To judge from the included help files, many problems seem to be caused by very aggressive CD copy protection (you're even supposed to update your cd-rom drivers in some cases--what a waste of time!). If I'd known about these problems, I would never have considered purchasing this game.

Nothing like the orignal

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 4 / 5
Date: February 20, 2003
Author: Amazon User

It seems to be a trend in the video game world to make a game that has little or nothing to do with the original. Such is the case with Unreal 2. The original Unreal was an interesting game for a few reasons. In the course of the story you were dumped into an alien environment that was hostile and wondrous at the same time. Nothing was explained to you and you were left to your own devices to figure out the world. It was a story idea that works very well with first person shooters.

Now quiet a few years later we are given Unreal 2. A game that has little or nothing to do with the original. One gets the impression that the developers decided to buy the rights to the name to push an otherwise boring game idea.

Nothing original is done here. The story is boring and totally pointless. This is nothing new in the first person shooter gender but it seems pointless to keep doing things we have all seen before. So like all first person shooters before we look for the innovations. Something that sets the game above the rest of the pack. Playing the game I could not find it. The graphics are quiet nice but the level design only get interesting at the end of the game.

Since this game is a true single player game it's over way too fast and the replay value is pretty much zero.

It's sad to see a original game like Unreal turned into a game that will be totally forgotten in a very short time. It's a shame really because the game is NOT bad but just not as good as it could have been. A different story line, something closer to the original and less goofy.

Seriously Flawed, But Still Very Fun

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 4 / 5
Date: March 11, 2003
Author: Amazon User

This game has been taking a lot of heat lately, and it's understandable. It has a few major problems that keep it from being a great, even revolutionary game. First the cons, then the pros:

Cons: The story is terrible, in my opinion. Very generic, tired character concepts, disapointing ending. Personally, I don't care about the plot of a shooter, I just want to kill things. But some people care. The game is way too short. It'll take you 12 hours tops to beat, tops. And the game is mediocre in certain areas where I expected it to excel. They really hyped the AI, which turned out only slightly better than average, they hyped the "roleplaying" elements and speech system, which are very minimal and leave an extremely linear plot and equally linear levels. Oh well.

Pros: Along with UT2003, the best graphics of any FPS out, hands down. It'll stay that way until Doom 3 comes out, judging by the previews I'm seeing for other games. Beautiful weapon effects, cool enemies, diverse scenery across several different planets. Colorful without going overboard. Exceptional graphics. The weapons are good. A couple of them are worthless, like the spidergun (which replaced the leech gun, which never made it into the final game) and the takkra, which are those floating ball attack drones that you get in only two levels and do almost no damage. But most are cool. Everything has a double trigger. At least a dozen different weapons, plus you can set up drone guns in certain levels. Great sniper rifle, very cool grenade launcher that fires 6 different grenade types. Best flamethrower I've ever seen. Good control except that your character runs a bit slowly because of his power armor. Decent sound. While the game lasts, since it is short, I think it's a blast almost the whole way through. Except this one level where you just kill hordes of giant neon spiders over and over and over again.

I don't have much free time so I don't care that it's short, and the plot doesn't bother me because I expect video game plots to be bad unless they're RPGs, so I loved this game.

Bottom line: I think it's a good buy, but not the revolutionary must-have game that I was expecting.

Why was Unreal1 more fun than Unreal2?

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 3 / 4
Date: April 30, 2003
Author: Amazon User

I regularly buy a new game every two months. I sorely regret this one. This game is very similar to the HalfLife Mod packaged as "GunMan Chronicals". Except that I believe its' authors used quite a bit of imagination so the game did not seem to be a 100% linear path. Not so for Unreal2; quite soon it becomes apparent that there is only one way-out. Only one path exists to advance onward. It wouldn't be so bad if the AI in the game was not such a excellent shot and without any fear of your hero. It looks nice but you can't explore much at all. Vast areas are unclimbable unlike "Jedi Knight2 Jedi Outcast" or "Quake2". Ambiance is so so in Unreal2. Visuals are nice, but there is always something missing I felt in each area. More live bystanders and harmless fauna would have increased the ambiance greatly. Initially empty halls, rooms, and caves left me bored. The slug-outs when the baddies arrived were not unusual compared to other hit games of two years prior. Way too much time and action is spent in human built architecture and not enough in alien built structures. And when your name is UNREAL II it should be unreal unhuman AND unpredictable the second time.

the beauty is only surface-deep

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 3 / 4
Date: February 12, 2003
Author: Amazon User

don't believe the hype. no game could ever be made that would live up to the expectations set for unreal 2, and this is no exception. once you get over the stunning graphics, the fact that this is a very flat, very shallow game hits you. with one path to the end of every mission (which are usually *very* short), and almost non-existant opportunities for strategy, desire to replay this game usually comes solely from wanting to see the excellent graphics again. characters and the environment are finely detailed with high-resolution skins and particles that are actually particles instead of sprites. the lighting engine is one of the best i've seen, and it creates some very enjoyable atmospheres when combined with the high-quality meshes and texture-work. but this all comes at a price. at all but the lowest settings, the framerate is horrible. i have an athlon xp 2000+, 1gb ddr ram, gf3 ti500, and i could only pull off a measly 20-30 fps average at best (800x600 medium settings), with the framerate dropping to 15 with enemies on-screen, and below 10 in some of the larger areas. it runs more like a late-beta instead of an optimized final product. and, just as a random nitpick, only *one* type of particle is interactive in the entire game. the only time you'll get to see smoke scatter as you shoot a rocket through it is when you throw a smoke grenade, which produces ugly clouds of pale urine-colored puffs. when you consider that there are about 9000000 uses of particles in the game, it's pretty disappointing and again makes it seem unpolished. and finally, there's nothing about this game that ties it to the first unreal. i guess the developer forgot about the whole fuel-less spaceship ending of unreal 1 and decided to plunge off into a whole new, undeveloped direction and slap the unreal name on it as a marketing thing. this is *not* a continuation, or even a parallel, therefore it shouldn't be titled as the sequel.

if this game had more levels, more ways to complete a level, longer game-time (took me one evening), a more optimized engine, and a *lot* less bugs (be prepared to welcome General Protection Fault into your home), it might be worth the current cost, but as it stands, it's barely worth half, which could be better spent on Serious Sam 1 or 2. if you're going to buy this game, buy it for the graphics and the hope that the community will make some killer mission packs. otherwise, don't bother.

Slow and boring

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 3 / 4
Date: February 23, 2003
Author: Amazon User

Having just upgraded my PC (AMD Athlon 2100+, Geforce 4 128 Mb) I was looking forward to turning up all the game specs to the maximum. Bad idea; even after turning everything to medium and playing at a meagre 1024x768 the game still has a framerate too slow for comfort and seems to skip a beat every 2 to 3 seconds.

Worst than the video performance however was the game itself. Other reviewers have already said a lot (all of it true) about the silly and predictable story and the total lack of originality. One of the things that also really infuriated me however was the endless wait for scene loads (count on one minute wait for every five minutes of gameplay). Particularly in difficult scenes were you get killed a number of times before you are able to finish them (hey, these things happen) it becomes extremely frustrating to again have to wait for the game to load the scene ...

Overall a frustrating and strongly dissapointing experience. Think twice (do I have the system resources? do I have the patience?) before you buy this game!

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