Unreal Championship 2: The Liandri Conflict

"Bring a knife to a gunfight--and prepare to ROCK."

Wow.

This is the closest thing to a perfect shooter I've seen in years. Perfect setup, nice presentation, excellent visuals and exciting, pulse-pounding gameplay coalesce into a force that will be sure to overwhelm you for days, weeks, maybe even months (if you've got Live, that is.) This game is incredible. The wait was worth it. Anyway, let's stop gushing and get to the review, shall we?

*drool.*

Sorry. Wipe that off your keyboard.

VISUALS-9/10: Easily some of the best visuals on Xbox we've seen in a while--the environments are varied and pretty, the characters are nicely animated and excellently detailed, and the lights and explosions top off the package quite nicely. Weapons are intricately textured, to the point where you can see individual pistons and strands of ammo hanging from the barrel. Metal looks like metal. Stone looks like stone. And, most of the time, this all runs at a buttery 60 frames per second. This game is pure eye candy, although the women are a bit unrealistically proportioned (Hello, Selket x_x)

AUDIO-7/10: If you care about this part of the game (and I don't, really,) then you'll be pleased here with the variety of sounds and clashes and taunts offered. I found the music a little generic, and the fact that yet ANOTHER premier Xbox title doesn't feature custom soundtracks--a feature that was highly touted at Xbox's launch, for pete's sake--is what dragged the score down from a ten.

GAMEPLAY-10 outta freakin 10!: This is what makes me love this game so much. We've all heard about the melee component and your first question is probably "Well, how well does it work against opponents with guns?" This was a delicate thing to pull off, too. It had to be done so that melee was a viable option against ranged weapons, but not to the point that it became unfair to the gunmen (a la Halo 2.) Epic and Midway came through beautifully--you'll be pleased to know that melee is balanced and fair, and works well against almost every opponent except some maniac wielding a flak cannon. The new third-person perspective also adds a nice touch, especially with the melee aspect: people won't be sneaking right up behind you anymore. Now, also, Midway has eliminated weapon superiority, as well. You start with two weapons of your selection along with pistols concurrent to your character's race and, of course, your Melee weapon. This gets rid of "who gets the Redeemer first" wins so prominent in the Unreal PC games. Furthermore, the obvious Mortal Kombat influences prevalent before in the Unreal games is now thrown right in your face; each character has their own unique storylines and adrenaline moves (did I mention that you can now use Adrenaline techniques MUCH more easily?) There's just too many new changes to go over here now--but trust me, they're all for the better. Controls are tight, but require good reflexes to fully take advantage of the wall jumping and dodging. My only complaint is the steep curve upward from Novice (the lowest difficulty level) to Experienced (the second lowest).

PRESENTATION-8/10: This covers how the menus and gameplay is organized. The presentation, for all intents and purposes, works well, but some of the match setups are annoying and make you just want to hang out in Instant Action or on Live. There are plenty of modes included, but once more, there's a glaring hole with no Assualt modes available--easily the most fun feature of Unreal Tournament and UT2k4, in my opinion. The story modes are engaging and long, so you'll be enjoying the single player for quite a while. The menus are easy on the eyes and easier to navigate, so no problems there.

OVERALL-10/10

Pros=Great gameplay, great graphics, lots of story missions for singleplayer
Cons=No assault mode, generic music (no custom soundtracks), sharp difficulty spikes

RENT or BUY? Buy. Trust me. Rent it and you'll be addicted, and end up having to buy it anyway.

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 04/25/05