Unreal II: The Awakening

When i got it home & installed the 3 discs, i sat with the grin of a chesire cat as the title screens flew by. As the game progresses the lighting effects and textures are amazing, the reflections will just blow you away, and those reflections in the molten metal.......

But graphics do not a good game make.

You receive all your mission briefings from your crew onboard your ship, which again looks amazing. A lot of work has gone into it, all for nothing! You can roam round the ship, open hatches, lockers, btu all you have to do is talk to the bird to get the brief, talk to isaak to learn about your weapons, then jump in your magically dissappearing pod to start the mission.
The missions themselves are short, not really anything new and, well, pretty basic really. The idea of haveing a small squad was wasted IMO, only being able to give them basic commands & if you want to change them you have to go and find them again.
As for the ending, well, I wont tell you, but i felt cheated.

There is no multiplayer option, and i honestly feel that the game has been put together to sell the engine rather than make a decent FPS.

great graphics, pants game. dont buy it, rent it, you'll finish it in a couple of days & save yourself £30!

Down points (and there are many)
1. Whilst some of the levels are nice to look at, they are far too linear and there are many bugs in the scripting. Having worked professionally as a level designer with an Unreal based publication, I can tell you that this really shouldn't be the case, especially considering how long we've waited for the release. I found several times that I got into places that I couldn't get out of, and this is not very professional quality.

2. The story was boring, unoriginal, unconvincing and predicatable. It had a huge anti-climax at the end and left you feeling very unsatisfied. The actions of the "hero" at the end were moraly questionable to say the least.

3. It was WAY too short.

4. Not enough interaction with the aliens.

5. Not enough variety in the theme. In the original Unreal you had villages, alien spaceships, Earth spacecraft, and ancient castles and fantastic temples to look around. In this game it was just Earth tech stuff and a dull alien base.

6. No suspense or atmosphere.

Ultimately this game just didn't have the "wow" factor that the original did and quite frankly it shouldn't have been released until it was ready, bigger and better.

The plus points.

1. Nice graphics.
2. Good sound effects.
3. Slightly better AI
4. Better variety of weapons than the original

All in all, this was the most disappointing game I've ever bought.

Don't believe the Hype!

There are mission interludes whereby you walk around your ship and talk to the crew. The ship can be explored and interacted with in a limited way, but enough to make it feel 'homely' in a virtual sense. In these interludes the other ships occupants can be interacted with if you wish, but it is simple and doesn't turn the game into an RPG as it remains primarily a 3D shooter. I like this touch as it develops the story in a way that makes it interesting without being boring.

The weapons are brilliant, with all having an alternate fire mode. There are even big land based sentry guns and barriers that can be deployed. This in my mind is really cool, being able to manipulate hardware in this manner. The enemies are varied and intelligent, sometimes being truly scary. Teammates sometimes can be ordered to guard certain places in a simple enough manner not to bog the game down into a Ghost Recon style system.

The game's length is a bit of a controversy I can see, but it really didn't matter to me as I have a life and a job. The game was enough without becoming tedious and futile and I actually finished it which is rare for me. The story was great, I can actually remember it as most stories are inconsequential. I was gripped in a way that reminds me of games I've played from the old days. Now that I've finished it I want more, but that's not a consequence of it being too short is it? It's about it being exciting enough to make you want to see it through to the end and beyond.

If you find most modern games to be nothing more than mediocre, then you should buy this game without a doubt.