Silicon Fusion >> Reviews >> Unreal II: The Awakening

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Review:

9th May 2004:
Unreal II: The Awakening
Patrol and police the outer reaches of space in this FPS from Atari, but will it awaken anything new in the genre?
Posted by John Grothier - Xbox - UK and Europe

Eight long years have passed since the Strider Wars ended, and Earth once again pushes into space. While the central government grows ever weaker, funding the exploration and exploitation of new planets still goes on. In Unreal II: The Awakening players take control of John Dalton, a Marshal in the Terran Colonial Authority. The TCA are responsible for policing and patrolling the outer reaches of space. Now your predictable existence is shattered by a mysterious, chilling distress call, which of course you must investigate.

Unreal II: The Awakening was released on the PC over a year ago, and now finally makes its way on to the Xbox. This first person shooter will see players take on the role of Marshal John Dalton in 12 varied missions, which include indoor and outdoor locations. As the story unfolds, you will see Dalton hunt for seven alien artefacts, which hold great power. This FPS includes the usual hunt and destroy missions that usually end up with a satisfying boss fight, while others will involve defending your bases with your team of marines - usually helped by manning a turret. Thankfully Dalton and his team have access to some devastating weapons, each of which has a primary and secondary fire function. Indeed, the weapons are probably the strongest aspect in the game, and trying out your huge arsenal on some quite average computer AI can be quite satisfying. From the standard pistol, grenade launcher, flamethrower, there are even alien weapons that can be recovered, so mercifully there are many entertaining ways to dispatch your foes.

Unreal II comes with two difficulty levels, normal and hard. If you, like we did, play the game in normal mode you will breeze through the entire game - probably without dying once. The game is ridiculously easy in normal mode, and even if you are new to the FPS we recommend playing on the hard difficulty setting. As well as the main campaign the Xbox version comes with the XMA multiplayer mode that was released for PC owners as a free downloadable patch. Up to 12 players can shoot it out on Xbox Live or by system link. Xbox Live options are plentiful, with players being able to finely tune the type of game they want to play. Like the clasic capture the flag, teams start off with two artefacts each, and must try to gain control of the other two artefacts to win the game, while taking potshots at the enemy. There are three character classes to choose from, the Tech - who can repair armour and hack electrical equipment. The Gunner - who can re-supply other teammates with much needed ammo, and the Ranger who has the ability to heal. Each character has their owns strengths and weakness, and also their own personal arsenal of weapons to choose from. There are also some different vehicles and turrets to use in multiplayer, but these are clumsy and ultimately poorly designed.

The graphics in Unreal II: The Awakening are not up to the standard that we should come to expect for the Xbox. The game was release on the PC over a year ago, but the spectacular graphics and lighting effects there were so impressive then are nowhere to be seen on the Xbox version. The game also has some very blurry textures and some extremely jerky animation, which spoil the overall effect of the game significantly. But the game does feature some nice looking particle effects, and one or two of the levels to stand out from the other blander looking missions. The PAL conversion of the game is however, particularly well done with the game fitting on the television screen without the need for any unsightly black bars. Unreal II's sound is above average, although some of the characters conversation can get lost in the soundtrack, which is a shame because while you are playing other characters chatter can become very important to help complete the mission. Unreal's surround sound works well, and thankfully there is quite a lot of humour to be found in the soundtrack.

Overall Unreal II: The Awakening is an average first person shooter that benefits somewhat from the XMA mode on Xbox Live. Its still a long wait until Halo 2 is finally with us, but even that does not make up for the disappointment of Unreal II - that fails to awaken anything new in the genre.

John Grothier

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Review Summary:

You are John Dalton, an ex-Marine assigned to patrol the edge of human space. Average first person shooter with added XMA multiplayer on Xbox Live for up to 12 players online or system link. The huge arsenal of weapons does not make up for this poor port of the PC original that suffers from jerky animation and blurry textures.

Related Games:

Unreal II: The Awakening
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