Unreal 2 Review
Played on:
Windows
When Unreal was released so many years ago, it was a bit of a revolution in art, and the game was pretty damn good to go with it. Since then, Epic has dedicated most of their time into Unreal Tournament games, which focused on multiplayer. But Legend Entertainment has been quietly working on Unreal 2 for a few years now - after a long wait, is this game worth it?
Unreal 2 is a strictly single-player first person shooter with some cool weapons, a decent story, and excellent graphics. There are also a few bits of basic tactics you will need to employ, as you can command troops to specific spots and set up some basic defenses.
The Unreal engine is pretty much the best game engine currently out on the market right now, and Legend has done their best to put it to good use. The indoor maps are chock full of detail and little bits of architecture, while the outdoor environments are lush and expansive. The frame rate is generally pretty consistent, but not terribly great.
The minimum requirements for Unreal 2 are fairly high, and on the minimum system, the game still runs pretty badly (even with all the extras turned off). I would probably consider the "recommended" system to be more of an accurate minimum. To compare, I found that Unreal Tournament 2003 runs quite a bit better than U2, even during intense deathmatches.
At least you're getting a lot of cool graphics and tons of polygons, though; the Unreal engine is a solid piece of work, and despite the slightly disappointing frame rate, the game is still very playable and great to look at.
Unreal 2's controls are very nicely set up; this is one of the first FPS games I've played in a while that doesn't overwhelm you with a million keys to bind. The controls are smooth, and the in-game HUD looks nice and works perfectly. The main character's movement speed leaves a little to be desired; sure, he's wearing a huge set of power armor, but can't they have put some speed boosters or something in there?
You'll have access to a bunch of weapons in the game, almost all of which have some form of alternate firing mode. Switching between guns is pretty simple, as it's almost identical to the tried and true Half-Life system. Climbing down ladders was a bit of a problem for me - that's how you know this is an old school shooter. : )
Unreal 2's graphics are just plain awesome - from the huge outdoor environments to the narrow corridors, it's obvious that Legend took their time to make sure every environment looked clean and awe-inspiring. The enemies you fight aren't so consistently great, though; generally, the more bug-like the enemies are, the uglier they are. The big mutated spiders in this game were not only extremely annoying, but they looked terrible in my opinion. I kind of wish FPS developers would stop trying to shove spiders into almost every game - at least in Unreal 2, you get a gun to throw spiders at the enemies later on.
U2 includes the rag-doll physics code that also is in Unreal Tournament 2003 - this is the system that makes enemy bodies slump to the ground in a somewhat realistic fashion. It generally doesn't get used anywhere near as much as it could be, and I'm actually thankful for that. Little things like this are better done in a subtle way in my opinion, and trying to specifically create a game situation to show it off just cheapens the experience to me. Also, the system isn't perfect yet, especially when enemies get blown into the air with rockets. Sometimes a dead enemy will be hanging horizontally off of a wall at a weird angle, which just looks way off. But I do think it's better to have it in than to leave it out.
The weapons all look pretty cool, and firing them is nice and satisfying. Unreal 2 has the best flamethrower I have ever seen in a game. It's too bad that using it after the stage when you first pick it up is difficult - there isn't enough ammo and smarter enemies will charge you, making the thing hurt you and your enemy.
The cutscenes in the game are generally well done, and the game is paced slow enough early on by using lots of cutscenes and idle time aboard your home ship. The models for your ship mates (Ne'ban, Aida, and Isaak) all look great; each one embraces some form of sci-fi stereotype.
Unreal 2 is a first person shooter mostly in the classic style. It's got a linear, story-driven mode of play as you head to different planets trying to recover strange alien artifacts. There are some decent twists in the plot, although anyone who thinks a little will probably start anticipating them by the end. If you turn the brain off and just keep shooting, though, it's a decent experience - at least the first time through.
The action is fast and furious here, and Legend thankfully refrained from putting too many little puzzles in. I guess it's just a pet peeve when a mostly-action game suddenly makes me actually use my brain for some devious puzzle half-way through. By the way - speaking of the action, here is a tip: try not to die in Unreal 2, because if you do, you will be in for a pretty long load time. The quick save worked alright for me, but the quick load was anything but quick - and that is on a 7200RPM hard drive.
The weapons you will get to use mix together a decent combination of classic guns with a few new experiments. The standard machine gun, shotgun, rocket launcher, pistol, railgun, and grenade launcher are all here, sometimes with multiple types of ammo, some with a very different kind of alt-fire. The more exotic guns are pretty cool, although the last one is a bit disappointing; Basically, it is massively powerful but completely underused - it is only available during the last few minutes of the game.
Most of the game's missions will have you dropping down to some planet, killing a bunch of enemies, and running off with big explosions behind you or some important item in your hands. There are a few missions, though, that put you in a defensive role. You can deploy stationary defenses like force fields and automated gun turrets, which is a refreshing style of play. In some missions you can even give commands to friendly troops, although it could have used some more work. The problem is that you can order a marine to patrol a specific area, but you can't call him back to assist you at a different spot. The whole thing seems a bit silly because they actually communicate to you over headsets - yet there is no way to give them orders other than walking up to them and pressing the use key. That's why I generally would just try and station them all at one choke point.
Some would say that it isn't Unreal unless it has the Skaarj. These guys are about the only major thing from the first game that is seen in U2 as well; despite their popularity with the fans, Legend used the Skaarj very sparingly. You'll fight them a little at the beginning and a little at the end, and the rest of the time you will be fighting enemy troops who have similar weapons as you do. Throw in a few few biological experiments, a robotic alien race, and some stationary turrets to take out, and that's about it. Generally, the enemy AI is pretty smart when out in the open, although tricking them is easy when there are a lot of obstacles around.
I'm not sure why this happens so often, but Unreal 2 is yet another game with a slow, tedious start - it gets better and better as you go, almost in a linear progression. I think that in this case it has something to do with the fact that the main characters don't have any meaning to the player at the beginning, and only after getting through most of the game do you start to actually like them. Plus, the first few hours of play generally serve up annoying, ugly-looking enemies to fight.
All that said, the story in Unreal 2 is better than the average FPS, although the voice acting and script could have used a little more effort. The last bit of the story as well as the ending cutscene were very well paced and unexpected, especially for a testosterone-filled action game. The problem was that I was disappointed in the last several minutes of actual gameplay - my first and last impressions were both bad ones, which doesn't motivate me to want to play it again any time soon.
The biggest complaint I have with Unreal 2 is simply that it is a fairly short game at about 10-12 hours of gameplay, and that there is little to do other than shelve the thing once it's over. There are three difficulty levels to play on, but when there is no co-op mode, it just means more loading and saving - and that is a major hassle with Unreal 2's long loading times.
When it comes down to it, Unreal 2 is perfect for anyone who likes a classic action-oriented shooter. If you love great graphics, this one will likely also get you going; those looking for a boatload of replay value or cooperative multiplayer won't be impressed. It's a sad thing to watch the slow death of co-op gameplay in PC games, as this would have been a great game for some co-op.
When it comes to sound, the most important things for me in a game like this to are satisfying weapon sounds and decent ambience. Legend mostly delivers here, with a good kick for most of the guns and some pretty good explosions. The ambience is usually functional, although not really remarkable. The same goes for the music, which is generally ok but never really inspiring. The music in Unreal 2 isn't bad, but it didn't really inspire me at all. Not too many FPS developers have achieved this kind of music over the years, but considering this game's huge production values, I expected more out of the music.
The voice acting is a bit different, though; for an FPS, Unreal 2 supplies a ton of voice work. Most of it is pretty damn good too, especially the haughty scientist you have to rescue halfway through the game. His verbal battles with your character were hilarious and a great bit of comic relief for the overly serious plot. The other characters on your ship also were done very well, and as I mentioned, the end of the game's story supplies some subtle but great acting. Overall, the voice acting was much more (and better) than I expected.
For anyone who is looking for an old-school action FPS experience with solid production values and lots of explosions, this is your game. If you have a fast enough computer to really enjoy it on and can overlook the short completion time as well as the total lack of multiplayer, then it's a pretty solid title. Players who are searching for a more diverse single-player experience or lots of replayability should look elsewhere.
