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All flash and no substance

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 3 / 5
Date: April 22, 2003
Author: Amazon User

Nice visuals (although it would be nice to skip the dialogue scenes - didn't see an option for that), but the story was sparse, the action was very linear (didn't seem to matter what you did, so long as you didn't get killed) and the "non-action" scenes (dialogue on the ship) wasn't that interesting - I tried to interact with the characters, always clicked on them to see if they had any additional information, or something to further character development, but nothing beyond basic interaction. If the game was just to be judged on looks, it's a winner, although the cost sometimes is gameplay (the last scene was very choppy for me, unlike the rest of the game).
To give an example of the linear aspect of the game, there is a section where you have to lay sniper cover for a Marine who is trying to activate the power to your elevator (which you are now stuck on the top of). It seems to not matter how bad you are at protecting him, eventually he'll activate the power anyway. You could probably just ignore him (if I'm bored I'll try this).
The graphics are state of the art, the gameplay is circa 1992...

Another Graphically and Sound outstanding sequel....

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 3 / 5
Date: June 15, 2003
Author: Amazon User

...to a legendary fps. In a sentence, I would be delighted to elaborate unreal 2 as: "A FPS featuring gorgeous graphics but average single-player only game-play." Really, the original Unreal showed that some stock could deciminate the all time ultra 3-D action gaming company called-'ID'. There's two most significant elements I look for in a game, and the two most important elements are Game-Play and Storyline. Sense of depth, adventure, innovative developement of base interactive environment system, and a brilliant well thought out storyline already creates 75% of a amazing game. Why I enjoyed playing the original unreal 50 times more than playing the new Unreal 2 is because it's true revolutionary technological improvements over Quake 2(for the time was beyond unreal to me) binded with a extremely deep depth sense of true game-play adventure and a superb way of representing a brilliant storyline, with a splendid multiplayer mode(mp game-types include cooperative, deathmatch, team-deathmatch, king of the hill, and dark knight op mode or something like that) and a very splendid long amazing single-player mode packing heart-beating 39 levels of a true game tension more than filling up my super-hyped expectations.

Now, Unreal 2 without a doubt is a work of art in the graphics catagory, but isn't nearly as revolutionary as Unreal was in that catagory. The only thing that keeps Unreal 2's sound effects catagory in line is it's support for Dolby Digital In-game sound and EAX 3.0. It has alright techno music, other than that, Unreal 2 is a ordinary game. Or worse. It has kind of neat weapons, OK levels, and no multiplayer. I had high hopes for Unreal 2, as well. It's really too bad, because they thought Unreal 2 would offer the best single player experience ever, when, well, it doesn't.

Unreal 2 has a very thin storyline, that only grows thinner as you progress. Many of the contents it uses are very used, alas, are old crap. The good part is that it's heading for XBOX this november, but will still, unfortunately, remain as a single-player experience only. I think. And Unreal 2's system requirements/recommendations are too high for a game that has came out a few months ago, and it takes a ludicriously long time to load levels, even on state-of-the-art computers.

Graphically, unreal(2) features full support For DX8 special features, such as second generation of hardware t & l, environment bump mapping, pixel shading, stenciling, improved dynamic lightning, detailed light-sourced realistically blurred character-shadows, and more. And has a lot of high resolution textures, some are even 3-D volumetric! And the sky is well done, animations are a little bit over decent. I had unreal 2 installed on a new computer I built specifically for unreal 2, the system specifications basically are:

AMD ATHLON XP 2800+
Two sticks of 384MB PC 2100 DDR-SDRAM memory.
Graphics card-PNY NVIDIA GeForce FX 5800 Ultra/128MB DDR2.

Performance was actually very good, and I enjoyed the visuals experience. Since I'm using the latest NVIDIA 4x.xx detonator drivers, I experienced no visual artifacts, and very good performance, even with highest details at a medium 1024x768 resolution and higher. Though when I enabled all the AA And anisotropic filtering extras, I began to feel the burn: A BIT.

If your a big unreal fan, I guess now or a later would be a good time to give Unreal 2 a shot. But if your not a unreal fan, and a big fps fan, or not at all, screw Unreal 2. I strongly suggest for Unreal fans that you download the Unreal 2 demo, for those who haven't played it, to develop expectations of the game in advance to really fortell if you wish to purchase it or not. All I know is Unreal 2 certainly didn't fill up my hyped up expectatons, and it probabely for youre's either, so.

An ok game.

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 3 / 5
Date: May 11, 2004
Author: Amazon User

I remember reading reviews about how this game was gonna save gaming. Whatever! Great graphics? Yes. Solid Gameplay and control? Yes. Good story? Yes. Multiplay and depth? NO.

The game was too short and no multiplayer (although they have released it free from what I hear on the internet and are selling a newer version of this game with multiplay included), but it is too late for me.

I loved the graphics and enjoyed the characters and the enemies were all very cool, but this game is not even close to saving gaming. That will be the job of Half-Life 2 and Doom 3.

For the price this game is selling at now, it would be a worthy buy.I Payed full price expecting more, and when I found out there was no multiplay, I knew I wasted my money. Oh well. Life goes on.

The best game ever!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 5
Date: February 17, 2003
Author: Amazon User

I don't know what to tell all these people complaining about molasses game play. This game was built with the intentions of sucking the juice right out of a hardcore gamer's top-of-the-line machine, and give people a decent reason to buy a machien like that, other than just impressing yourself over how fast windows loads up. This game is NOT for grandma' machines, and the producers did that on purpose. Taking a step forward, they are. Yes, the game is COSTLY on computer resources, but that's what makes it GREAT if you have them.

After MUCH hoarding of money, I now have a Radeon 9700 PRO, 512 MB RAM, 2.0 GHz processor, 107 GB hard-drive. The game runs smoothly (not surprising) but best of all it has graphics that are UNGODLY and utilize all of that pent-up power for once!

Everyone realises the new Doom will have the same requirements, if not higher, right? Technology is getting better... as games are taking advantage of that, you've got to get off your grandma's machine to use them, unfortunately.

Beauty Without The Brains

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 3 / 5
Date: February 25, 2003
Author: Amazon User

There is no doubt that Unreal II: The Awakening is the current 'best looking game of all time'. It delivers staggering graphics that, while you need a power house of a machine to utilize, sets a new standard by which other games of this genre will be judged. At least until Doom III, (And that's just a retelling of the original Doom's story), is released later this year. Or Halo for the PC, also due out this year from Gearbox. Or Deus Ex- take your pick.

Unreal II builds on the existing mythology established in the first Unreal (and in Return to Na-Pali), it even mentions the Tournaments and Liandri Corporation. Not to mention the three flavors of Skaarj reptile warriors- Big, Bigger and 'Oh my god!'. That aside, it is a totally new game that capitalizes on the Unreal name. However, I doubt very much Unreal II will have the same effect its predecessors will- it is graphically pretty, but isn't that good of a game even though it makes an effort to build a story better than the first ones did, even though, again, they are basically the same. As Terran Colonial Authority Marshall, John Dalton, a former Marine who had been disgraced, you ply the space lanes of the outer rim, 'bringing law to the lawless' in your ship the Atlantis (yawn!), with your crewmates.

First up is the luscious Aida, whose pixelated polygons put Lara Croft to shame, she's basically second in command and gives you all your mission breifings. Aida also complains to you a lot. Next up is Isaak, another washout and drunk- he explains all your weapons and makes modifications to them. Finally is the ship's pilot, Ne'Ban, who is kind of like a little Vorlon, plus he's the only instantly likeable member of the crew and his turns of phrase are amusing. There is some interplay and development between all the characters, but its pretty minor. Unfortunately, it doesn't matter whether you interact with these people or not- if you skip a briefing from Isaak, it's not like you go on a mission without weapons or are unable to figure out what these weapons do.

The missions revolve around obtaining seven pieces of this ancient artifact- while this isn't exactly a new story idea in science fiction or fantasy, it is also not one that is too difficult to make interesting. In Unreal II, however, they don't even try, because while it is a driving goal to obtain the next piece, it really could have been anything- a computer disk, a bag of money or whatever. It ultimately doesn't amount to very much when it is finally revealed what it does. It is of course wanted by everyone in the galaxy.

Plus you can wander around the Atlantis between missions. This is great, but serves no purpose. You can open a few hatches and crawl around in some tunnels- but you can't DO anything to or with anything. You can't press buttons to make things happen, all you can do is look- a little like being in a Louvre. In fact, a lot of the game is like this - except for the things you're allowed to kill, environmental interaction is non-existent.

The story aside, the programmers also dropped some things that were in the original that could have been useful in Unreal II- there are no portable light sources available for you to use- no flares or flashlights. I also suspect that even the story was tacked on and the game itself is just a showcase for Legend's and Digital Extreme's new graphics engine. As well there are numerous other games coming out that use the Unreal II engine, such as Deus Ex II, it will be interesting if they can get more out of it than the originators did. The music is a mixed bag, but no where near the same quality as Unreal or Unreal Tournament. Sound effects are pretty good, but nothing to write home about.

Mission maps are quite large- expansive out door vistas on alien planets that eventually lead indoors in seamless transitions. Texture detail is superb and razor crisp- most things like signs and all but the smallest of computer displays, are readable. The engine is capable of so much detail- from waving grass and trees to flowing water, curves, curves and more curves, and creatures such as fish, birds and land critters that it gives everything a wonderful and very realistic organic look to it. It is often as much as fun to just explore the worlds you're on as it is to start shooting and killing bad guys. Character models, be they humans, Skaarj, mechanized marines, etc. are all first-rate, with highly detailed facial features and expressions.

But the game play just isn't there- I finished the game in less than six hours total time. I got it on a Thursday and finished it that night. I felt let down- there wasn't enough to do, beyond accomplishing goals, the environment doesn't interact well- you can't even blow up trees, though you can kill all the fauna you come across. Here is a game that could have benefitted from Red Faction's Geo-Mod code- it could have made things more interesting. It was also reported that the Unreal Editor that shipped with the game was easier to use than previous versions. I loaded it up and wondered that if by 'easier' they meant 'harder and more complex'.

So basically what we have is a spectacular looking game that delivers awesome visual splendor, but only mediocre game play. This was also one of the three games that I was really looking forward to in 2003, the others being Halo, and the sequel to the greatest game of all time, Homeworld 2. So far I'm zero for three. Unreal isn't a bad game, it's an okay game. It's that really good looking girl you knew in highschool- the one you found out was really shallow once you got to know her.

Lots of hype, great graphics...and nothing else!

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 3 / 5
Date: March 12, 2003
Author: Amazon User

Unreal 2: The Awakening, a game that myself and thousands of other gamers waited anxiously for years to be finally released. The time finally comes that I get my hands on the game and all that I can really say is that...it was NOT worth the wait!

The graphics are awesome, there's no question there...BUT! A ponderous, boring storyline that could've been written by a twelve year old cutting and pasting from old comics coupled with gameplay that reminds me of two dimensional titles off of the old Super Nintendo console rather than something cutting edge make this a real let down...

Legend..! You've put out some great multiplayer games in the past but I'm starting to think you no longer have a clue how to make a great single-player driven title! Get with it!

A Waste of Technology

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 3 / 6
Date: March 30, 2003
Author: Amazon User

I am very impressed with the graphics. The problem with this game is the lack of content. It is a frenzy of mindless carnage--just shoot shoot shoot. Like Serious Sam on steroids. To take a beautiful graphics engine such as this and use it to produce adolescent rubbish is a crime against technology.

An Utter Disappointment

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 3 / 6
Date: October 09, 2003
Author: Amazon User

I bought this game right when it came out for full pop, expecting the rich storyline, innovative gameplay and mindblowing graphics innovations of the first one.

What I got was a poorly written jumble of FPS cliches tied together with a pretty attractive gaming engine. The game felt like it wanted to be Halo without the talented writing and edge of your seat gameplay.

The single replay value I found in the game was the level where you are defending against an onslaught of enemies, and get to plan your defense. That was not only fun and challenging, but offered multiple paths to success. If only the the developers had focused on that sort of gameplay instead of rehashing every bad FPS cliche from all the game of the past 5 years, this might have been a game worthy of the kind of replay the first Unreal has seen (I've played through it over a dozen times, usually when I upgraded my machine).

As it stands Unreal II will fade into the past as not a terrible game (Daikatana stands at the top of that heap, or perhaps its bottom) but as a mediocre game that could have been great.

Excellent game, with superior graphics

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 6
Date: May 19, 2003
Author: Amazon User

UNREAL 2 is a definate buy for all FPS lovers!! With an excellent storyline, sound, and visual effects this game decimates all other FPS games on the market at this time! Like I said before, this is a must buy for all FPS fanatics; if you dont belive me, check out the single player demo, you wont be dissapointed!! HAPPY GAMING :D

Good, and that is about it.

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 2 / 3
Date: July 10, 2003
Author: Amazon User

Well I have finished the game for the third time and feel I know enough to write an informative review. This game can be summed up pretty quickly really. Good, but certainly not great by any stretch of the imagination. For starters the game is just too short. On easy I went through in about 5 and a half hours. (And that wasn't done so quickly by me just running through the levels, and you cannot forward through the cutscenes either.) Visually the game looks awesome. I run it at 1600x1200 on a Radeon 9500 Pro. With anitaliasing and all the shadow effects and their "rag doll" physics engine running this is as good looking a game as I have seen. The flamethrower is a particularly fine example. The wash of flames looks GREAT! The plot is fairly typical. A number of artifacts that must combined for some effect are being uncovered and it is, of course up to you to reunite them. An ancient plotline that never dies in gaming. (Even when something perhaps should be decently allowed to rest, ah well we keep paying money for it, we're going to see it again and again.) Worse yet the plot gets a little whacked later in the game and eventually totally collapses itself in an effort to add some twist and be clever. I'd love to explain why but I would have to include spoilers which should never be in a review no matter how much we'd like to prove our point. It would seem that the gaming industry continues to take bad lessons from Hollywood. Just give em some eye candy and everything else will slide by. Well.......no it doesn't. Thankfully a little more went into than that. The weapons are sweet. (Did I mention the flamethrower?) All of em have an alt fire function as well. Then there are the stupid things that seem to always make their way into games now. Like it won't be more than 5 minutes before you are looking at exaggerated portions of a females anatomy. Are sales really so bad that they require the "sex appeal" angle to sell? No they are not. Then why is this in EVERY GAME I BUY? You are a ranking officer on a TCS Marshals ship, and wear tube tops showing as much cleavage as possible? What kind of ... is that? Yeah just the other day I saw a Prince Georges county policewoman who had cast away her UNIFORM and BODY ARMOR to show off her tattooed midriff and make it easier for someone to shoot her in the heart. Guess the programmers must have graduated from the Air Force academy. And people wonder why more women aren't gamers. The long and the short is this is a decent game with more than it's fair share of flaws conspiring with ignorance ensuring that it has no place among elite games. Enjoyable at times but far less than memorable, and so very far short of the "revolution" this game is hyped as.

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