Unreal Championship 2: The Liandri Conflict

"A game that deserves far more attention."

Released in April of this year, Unreal Championship 2 really had me hyped up. The beautiful screen shots, movies, and info that came out prior to release had me anticipating like crazy. It's been out for a while now, so how does it hold up now that DLC is out for it?

Story
Stories in FPS games never really have been super amazing or anything, so I'm not rating this. Really, the only genre that should have story rated is an RPG. Anyhow, in the single player, Ascension Rites, you are Anubis, a Nakhti prince. Anubis had quit the last tournament he was in, and was thought a coward. Now years later, with more training under his belt, he has returned to the latest tournament. Selket, his once Anubis' love, until he had left, is now his biggest nemesis in this latest tournament. Blinded by Liandri oppurtunites and becoming empress, Selket will stop at nothing to keep Anubis out.

Eh, not too bad. Onto the real good stuff.

Graphics 10/10
Woah. Are my eyes fooling me? Is this really an Xbox game? This game has quite possibly the best visuals on Xbox, with probably the nicest rendered characters I have ever seen on the system. Everything looks great here. The maps look very nice no matter where you look, be it the background, structures, water effects, pretty much anything, it all looks so good. Definite 10 for the effort, Epic. Beautiful as always.

Sound 10/10
I really can't think of anything wrong with the sound here. The music sounds very awesome as with every Unreal Tournament game. The announcer's voice gives me the feeling of satisfaction when I pop someone's head off. The "taunts" are all nicely voiced and some of them are outright hilarious at times. Sound effects are all great too, all the weapon sound effects suit the weapon pretty perfectly. Didn't really expect any less here, either.

Gameplay 10/10
Oh yes. This is great. There are so many things you can do in this game that never fail to satisfy me. Where do I start? Well, one thing I love to do in this game is literally plow through someone in mid air. You just get a real powerful feeling when you jump up, press B, and go hurling straight through someone with cool light around you. Pulling off headshots in this game is quite tricky, but once you get the hang of it, you always feel very accomplished when you pull one off.

The characters in this game move very fast, smooth, and fluidly too. It's all a very excellently done package, and you really couldn't ask for more. They even released DLC, with cool new characters and maps, all free.

Challenge mode is pretty evil. I'm talking F-Zero GX evil here. If you love a challenge, Challenge mode will more than deliver. Good luck beating all of them, because I haven't, admittedly.

Overall, this is a very good game, but sadly it's not too popular, and being overshadowed by the likes of Halo 2.

Rent or Buy?
Well, this style of game certainly isn't for every single person out there. It's very fast paced compared to most games. I'd say give it a rent, and hopefully that will lead to a purchase. Some "true" Unreal Tournament fans are disappointed by this for some reason, so yeah. Hope to see you online if you do get it.

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 07/25/05