Unreal 2: The Awakening

by Atari

Product Details

• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B00005Y4Q1
• Product Dimensions: 7.5 x 5.2 x 1.2 inches ; 5 ounces
• Media: CD-ROM
• Release Date: February 4, 2003
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (145 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #28,869 in Video Games (See Top 100 in Video Games)
• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes

Product Description

Amazon.com Review

Unreal II: The Awakening returns to the fascinating futuristic setting of Unreal, first visited in 1998. Since then we've had to content ourselves with the excellent Unreal Tournament multiplayer combat series. For this first true sequel Epic Games hired Legend Entertainment, who made a name for themselves with the Unreal: Return to Na Pali expansion pack and the woefully underrated Wheel of Time game (based on the books by Robert Jordan). The result is fun and frantic, if a bit too short-lived.

Unreal II's best feature is its lush graphics engine. It's state of the art. All the locations, which range from bizarre alien worlds to those based on the film Alien, exude dynamic realism. Human and alien characters are well-animated and rendered, but have a cartoonish exaggeration that clashes with the realism of the architecture. The designers were undoubtedly shooting for a comic-book look, which explains why the women look like blow-up dolls with bare midriffs and the men have hulking muscles. The monsters, too, ripple with strength and menace. This style will please some, but is less effective than the more realistic styles employed by similar titles--although at least the art direction is consistent throughout the game.

Unreal cast you as a prisoner who--through both good and bad luck--was freed from confinement, but marooned on an alien world. He goes on to become a sort of messiah figure to the four-armed natives, while other, scarier, natives want to kill him. It ends with a cliffhanger that this game does nothing to resolve. Now, you play as a new character who works for the Terran Colonial Authority. You're a space marshal on the ship Atlantis. You and your buxom partner, who looks more like an exotic dancer than a police woman, have to solve problems in a game only tenuously connected with the original Unreal.

Core gameplay and mission design are good, but uninspired. Legend has taken a conservative, almost minimalist approach. They've made a solid shooter that takes full advantage of Epic's state-of-the-art graphics engine, but did nothing to set the shooter apart from the crowd. One hopes that Unreal II: The Awakening awakens Epic to the fact that Unreal is a genuinely interesting franchise that deserves more. --Andrew S. Bub

Pros:

• Gorgeous graphics
• Decent gameplay

Cons:

• Amateurish if consistent art design
• Too short

Product Description

You are John Dalton, an ex-Marine assigned to patrol the edge of human space as a Marshal for the Terran Colonia Authority. Unexpectedly, your monotonous life is shattered by a chilling distress signal, plunging you into an adventure beyond belief.

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

22 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Unreal II is a major disappointment :(, October 1, 2003

By 

Mark (PA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Unreal 2: The Awakening (CD-ROM)

Okay, first of all, I've got to say that I love the graphics in the game, but that is probably its only redeeming quality as far as I'm concerned. I have listed my multiple beefs with Unreal II as follows...
1.) Storyline has nothing to do with the end of the first Unreal.

2.) John Dalton (your character) moves waayyyy too slow. It's almost like he tiptoes his way into battle.

3.) There are only about 8 or 9 levels altogether. The first Unreal had 39 levels (not including the intro and ending sequences).

4.) What happened to the rest of the enemies of Unreal 1? Most of the enemies in Unreal II are human (boring). I want my Krall, my Titan, my SkaarjGunner, my Brute, my Gasbag, my Devilfish, my SkaarjGunner, My SkaarjBerserker, my SkaarjWarrior, my Skaarj....

5.) TOO MUCH BABYSITTING - I hate waiting for other characters in a game while they sit around doing their thing.

6.) There was no "Boss" which took about 70 or 80 rockets to kill, like in the first Unreal. Where's the sense of accomplishment?

7.) Where are my powerups? Why is that such a bad thing?

8.) Why did they even use the name, "Unreal" with this game? So there were a couple of Skaarj from the first game and the dispersion pistol (which cannot be upgraded - bummer) was available. Big deal. There is little resemblance to the original game. I know that the makers of the game wanted Unreal to "evolve" and to give it a different storyline, but they didn't have to ruin the game like this.

9.) You cannot skip the cinematics. Why can't you just hit the mouse button if you don't want to wait for people to finish talking? And why do you have to wait for Aida to take her sweet time to waltz from one computer to another? Why can't you just skip the debriefings altogether? Boy, what action this game has!

Bottom line: If it weren't for the excellent graphics, I wouldn't even give this game 1 star. Here's to all the newest games with all your polygons and polident and whatever else it is that makes great graphics. I think I'll stick to the original Unreal which has been out for almost 6 years now, thank you very much.

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars pretty, yet mediocre game., February 13, 2003

By 

The Future is Ours - See all my reviews

This review is from: Unreal 2: The Awakening (CD-ROM)

as expected, Unreal 2 has some pretty nice graphics and environs. each world is nicely done and filled with ambient wildlife, great lighting, colors, textures, all that stuff.

unfortunately, Unreal 2 is anything but. gameplay is very uninspired and trite. it's more of the same: move linearly from point to point, blow up a few baddies, press a switch, go to another point, get blocked from main route, find some alternate route, kick more butt, ad infinitum. occasionally, you'll need to protect a scientist or fight with a couple of marines, but those moments are rare. the only refreshing feature is the use of turrets and laser shields. a few times, you will need to strategically place them to defend your position from overwhelming enemies. unfortunately, their usefulness is limited and you will find yourself out on the field doing much of the work.

one of the things i enjoyed about this game is weapon selection. sound effects are nicely done and you can feel a noticeable punch when you fire. there's no useless weapons--each weapon is ideal for a given situation and there are two firing modes. you've got a gun that shoots spiders(?); sniper gun with a scope that really zooms up close; grenade launcher with several different types of grenades; powerful shotgun that has an alternate firing mode that blasts your enemies on fire; and finally, my favorite, the ultimate weapon that fires mini-blackholes and sucks in your opponents.

you are taken from mission to mission on different planets in your small space cruiser. this could have been a nice touch, but it's poorly implemented. the ship is merely used as a device for useless briefings and conversations with your three crewpeople that move the story along. like the story, the conversations are linear as well and frequently consist of 1) yes 2) no. there are no conversation chains; just a number for each 'tell me about' subject. much more could have been done with the ship. for instance, it seems as if the whole galaxy is after these relics that you are collecting and (anyone notice?) for some reason the ship is never in any danger while you freely roam the galaxy. some space battles or anything other than the usual FPS faire would have been nice.

watch a few cheesy science fiction movies or games and you'll see where Unreal 2 gets its plot. as suggested earlier, you need to recover all 7 pieces of some ancient powerful artifact. regarding your mission, there's hints of a conspiracy and things are not what they seem. come on! don't insult our intelligence here. hasn't this sci-fi theme been played out enough already?

AI is about the same as in Unreal. player movement is very slow (must be the power armor) and it's hard to dodge the highly accurate fire from your enemies. you spend lots of time running behind cover instead of jumping around and running circles around your opponents.

no multiplayer. these days, this is inexcusable. of course, in the future, they'll probably sell a multi-player add-on for 30 bucks. sigh.

game looks beautiful and runs smoothly at a nice framerate on my mid-high end system (P4 2000, Geforce 4600). though, i've heard some people have had problems with it crashing.

music is not bad, but not memorable either.

finally, the worst thing about this game is that an average player can complete this in 1-2 days. with no multiplayer, there's no replay value other than the next difficulty setting, but what fun is that when the missions are all the same? if you really want this game, you should rent it, wait until it hits the bargain bin or get it through other means.

overall, a true FPS fan will enjoy Unreal 2 for a few days. players who enjoy this genre but are looking for something new or something unreal will be very disappointed; this is just by-the-book FPS.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars An OK game but, not groundbreaking, February 14, 2003

By 

Anthony Dake "eosix" (Patchogue, NY) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Unreal 2: The Awakening (CD-ROM)

I will make this fairly short. I liked the first Unreal alot. It was revolutionary for it's time with graphics not seen before... If you had the best hardware to turn everything up. Unreal had great lighting, creepy atmosphere, great view distance, and a multi-layer sky that moved very nicely. Many cool games have come out since with some great ones like 'Return To Castle Wolfenstein.' Now we have Unreal 2 and with the improvements in graphics these days, along with much faster Pc's and Video cards I was hoping for U2 to have the character of the first game. I just didn't see the same character in U2. The graphics are good but, compared to recent games like RTCW or even the latest Unreal Tournament, I didn't like how generic the game looked. Like I said, U1 was quite a step forward when it came out. U2 just seems plain in comparison. Gameplay is pretty good but, there are many other FPS games I enjoyed more. So U2 was OK but, I was a little disappointed