Unreal II: The Awakening

"Unreal 2 should have simply stayed put on the PC."

The story behind the Unreal series is one of the most remarkable tales of success in the history of videogame development, and one that any first-person shooter fan from the past ten years has likely heard. It's all been rehashed a thousand times – how the one-man project that would eventually become the first Unreal began its life in programmer Tim Sweeney's parents' garage, before evolving into one of the most iconic and recognizable shooter franchises in the industry today. Since that original game's release in May of 1998, numerous titles have been issued forth from Sweeney's Epic Games development studio bearing the Unreal name. Most of these newer games fell under the umbrella of Unreal Tournament – an extremely popular, multiplayer-focused variant on the original Unreal's quickly paced gameplay.

Epic Games did not forget their roots, though; in the early 2000s, they assisted series newcomer Legend Entertainment in the development of a true sequel, dubbed Unreal 2: The Awakening, which saw launch in early 2003. While this game was universally praised for its impressive graphics and smooth gameplay, it received mostly average reviews, due to its short campaign length and complete lack of multiplayer support. A free ‘eXpanded MultiPlayer' (XMP) patch was released later that year to add in multiplayer support, but by then several other games (including Epic's own Unreal Tournament 2003) had stolen most of the title's thunder.

During Unreal 2's early existence, a new generation of home consoles had begun to gain solid footing in the consumer landscape. Perhaps sensing an opportunity to earn a bit more of a return on their investment, publisher Atari decided to port Unreal 2 over to Microsoft's fledgling XBox system, alongside the now-complete XMP multiplayer mode. This version of the game reached store shelves in 2004; unfortunately for Unreal fans, though, the rigors of translation from PC to console – as well as the year's difference from the PC edition's launch – have rendered Unreal 2 on the XBox little more than a curiosity for shooter diehards.

Visuals:

Unreal 2 was one of the best-looking games of 2003, hands-down. Every characteristic of the visuals was quite stunning, from the environments and animation to the effects. By contrast, Unreal 2 on the XBox looks downright bad. You can see some of that impressive PC game's heritage peek through at times, but for the most part, this version is not indicative of how the game originally looked.

The first thing you'll notice as you play is how washed-out everything looks. On the PC, everything in the game's world looked good – the outdoor levels felt vibrant and alive, while the indoor areas offered a fair sense of foreboding. None of that feel was captured in the translation to the XBox, however, and what's left is simply bland. It doesn't help that many of the high-resolution textures featured on PC have become so blurry that you'll feel like wiping off your TV screen.

Even if you were to disregard the nondescript overall look, though, Unreal 2's graphics still would be extremely poor. Why? You may never see another game that feels as slow and choppy as Unreal 2 on XBox. NPC animations will skip frames frequently, and at times when there are no logical reasons for them to do so; seemingly to add insult to injury, the frame rate is occasionally unstable as well. Everything feels flat and uninspiring anyway, almost as thought it was built of 2D sprites. Even the weaponry looks and feels boring, with the notable exception of anything involving fire.

Without question, this game looks its best during the handful of cutscenes that play between missions. All of the character models still animate robotically, and the colors and textures are as hideous as ever, but at least they don't suffer from frame rate problems.

On the whole, the best that can be said about the visuals in Unreal 2 is that they're not always completely dreadful. Then again, when you consider that this is a port of one of the better-looking PC games of its time, that fact is both disheartening and somewhat infuriating.

Score: 4/10

Sound:

Luckily for XBox owners, the sound components of Unreal 2 have managed to make their way onto the XBox relatively intact. To be certain, the audio presentation was never excellent to begin with, but it's always at the very least competent.

The brunt of the noise you'll hear as you play through the game will be that which emanates from both your and your foes' weapons. In keeping with Unreal tradition, these effects are all appropriately over-the-top, and they all sound approximately as you would expect them to. Most of the environmental clamor feels about right as well, although it tends to have a difficult time penetrating the cacophony of weaponry.

In perhaps the biggest surprise this game has to offer, almost all of the voice acting is actually very good. The script is utter refuse, but most of the voice actors do a good job of salvaging whatever emotion they can from the train wreck that they're performing. Enemy chatter is particularly interesting, as you'll hear a steady stream of threats from your human foes as you progress through each level.

There is very little music to speak of as you play through the game – or, if there is, it's extremely forgettable. You will occasionally catch the score in the background, and it does a decent job of corresponding with the action on screen, but it's all so generic that it could just as easily be gone entirely.

While Unreal 2's aesthetics were just plain bad, the game's sound is average, and in some aspects even above average.

Score: 7/10

Gameplay:

Boring – that's the most efficient and precise way to describe the gameplay in Unreal 2's campaign mode. Every aspect – the feel of the gunplay, the game's lackadaisical A.I., the generally repetitive and generic mission structure – is so utterly disinteresting that it will make any experienced shooter fan cringe.

On the surface, the game's huge arsenal of weaponry seems like a really interesting and potentially cool set of toys. You've got all sorts of stuff in there, from a grenade launcher to a shock rifle, and even a flamethrower. The problem with them, though, is that they all feel somewhat lackluster in use. They just don't manage to capture the feel of using such powerful armaments as well as some other games – although they certainly aren't helped much by the terrible graphics.

Part of the problem also lies in the game's mission design. There are a bunch of good ideas present, like commanding a handful of friendlies in defending an area from an onslaught of enemy soldiers, or rescuing a cowardly scientist from an overrun research facility. Most of the time, though, you'll be moving from A to B to C on a linear path, killing any enemies that get in your way, until you reach the end of the area. Even when you're involved in a situation that might be somewhat interesting, like the above mentioned scenarios, you'll probably just end up running around and killing everything again. It's just not fun, no matter how you spin it.

Further dampening any enjoyment that could be had is the artificial intelligence for the game's enemy characters. It's not that they act all that foolishly, because they don't – you'll see soldiers run to cover as you approach, and they'll even attempt to engage you at ranges that are appropriate to the weapon they're using. They just don't do anything else. If an enemy isn't shooting or attacking you, it's just going to stand around until it can, almost as if you've ceased to exist by leaving its sight. That definitely doesn't help the game feel like any more than a shooting gallery.

You'll barely ever need to leave your foes' sights on the default difficulty, too, as the game is not terribly challenging. It gets to be more of a test as you increase the setting to Hard, but it's still nothing that an average shooter fan can't beat. The game does penalize dying quite harshly – although not so much due to any facet of the game's design as to some long load times that you'll have to sit through to get back to your most recent checkpoint. Moreover, the game is extremely short – experienced players will be able to beat it in one sitting, while it shouldn't take less practiced players more than ten hours to finish.

Unreal 2's gameplay is tedious and repetitive. It's got so little going for it that most shooter fans will have a hard time gutting out the paltry six to ten hours it should take to complete.

Score: 4/10

Story:

Stop me if you've heard this before – you're a lone soldier, armed to the teeth with all manner of weaponry, who is tasked with fighting through a small army of enemies to protect the universe. Unreal 2 puts you in the shoes of John Dalton, a demoted former marine who gets to handle the above during the course of the game, thanks to a handful of ancient artifacts he's tasked with retrieving.

Needless to say, the narrative isn't very interesting, despite the candid performances by the actors involved. You'll get to know your ship's overly generic ragtag crew, and you'll have to deal with a leftover from the original Unreal in the Skaarj, but there's absolutely no reason for you to remember or care about the plot one bit.

Score: 4/10

Features/Modes:

Unreal 2 comes fully equipped with the XMP multiplayer mode, playable via XBox Live or system link. This mode is where gamers should hope to derive any enjoyment that they can from this mess of a game, as it can be an interesting diversion. Outside of XMP, the game offers split-screen cooperative play for those who want to torture a friend with this game, and Normal and Hard difficulty settings to play on.

The XMP multiplayer suite offers a decent amount of value to anyone who bothers to purchase this game, but anyone looking for worthwhile single-player gameplay will find little in this package.

Score: 7/10

Online Play:

Whether played over XBox Live or against a few friends on local systems, the XMP portion of Unreal 2 manages to hold its own in the pantheon of multiplayer Unreal gameplay. It's not the most original thing you'll ever play, but it handles well enough to draw some enjoyment from it.

XMP features only one multiplayer mode, which feels like a cross between capture the flag and king of the hill. The goal is to collect artifacts from the other team's base and return them to your own, until one team has all four that are available. You can also control spawn points and generators to assist your team in gaining an edge over your enemy, and there are a handful of vehicles and different character classes to toy around with as well.

When you can get a full game running, XMP can be pretty entertaining. The game's individual scoring system rewards points in lieu of keeping statistics, which helps to encourage teamwork amongst your allies. If you get an intelligent group of people together, the type of seesaw battles that result can be lots of fun to take part in.

It's unfortunate, then, that XMP faces a number of significant problems. Much like the single-player game, the frame rate takes a dive when the action on screen gets hectic, and this can get very frustrating. Lag is also a pervasive problem, which leads most game hosts to limit the capacity in their games significantly below the maximum of twelve players. It's difficult enough to find people to play against in the first place, given how terrible this game is outside of multiplayer. Possibly the biggest insult, though, is the fact that there are only four unique maps available for play in XMP – a staggeringly low number, considering that this game began life on the mod-friendly PC.

Multiplayer gameplay via XMP is most gamers' only hope for finding any lasting value in Unreal 2. Regardless, it's still nowhere near as good as the PC original, which is a shame.

Score: 6/10

Total Score:

Unreal 2: The Awakening is a bad game on the XBox. It was decent on PC, and so it may have seemed a good bet to work out on a console; nonetheless, the lamentable reality is that the effort behind the translation was clearly not what it needed to be. So, how will Unreal 2 be remembered by XBox owners? Quite simply put, this game is one that should have stayed on the PC, where it was merely average.

Only the most diehard or bored of FPS fans should even consider trying Unreal 2 on the XBox. Everyone else should find something – anything – else to do, since odds are good that whatever else you may think of would be a much more meaningful expenditure of your time.

Score: 4/10 (not an average)

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Reviewer's Score: 4/10, Originally Posted: 05/07/07