Customer Reviews

Unreal II: The Awakening (Xbox)

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(9)

 

 

Unreal II: The Awakening's combat and overall polish isn't anywhere near Halo, or Rainbow Six 3 for that matter, but that doesn't stop it from being fun anyway. The graphics are good and it does everything well enough, but just not great. As you progress in the game it gives you a chance to get into the storyline more and the characters start to grow on you. The personalities and dialogue of some of the characters is funny and adds to the game and the story gives a sense of purpose in the missions.

Unreal II is a good looking game with tough looking combat suits on the marines and nice weapons with unique twists in terms of capability. There are quite a few weapons and sometimes in the middle of a firefight it's hard to cycle through them in time to find the right one before the enemy rushes you, but that's ok since you get used to sticking to the one with the most ammo or the one best suited to that particular environment. The environments themselves look good even down to the individual grassblades. The levels are also designed well and aren't overly big which is a plus. The missions you have to accomplish are straightforward without being predictable or boring and are explained to you in a pre-mission briefing by one of your crewmates on the ship.

Along with the unique weapons, I liked that the planets have their own alien-animal lifeforms that will attack you if you walk near them or mess with them, and also that you have the capability in some instances to direct other soldiers to defend assigned areas. Some of these marines are heavily armored - they look like human-sized mechs and shake the ground when they walk. There are good ideas throughout the game that make it better than it might seem at first and the character's personality traits, motivations, and dialogue help to bring the whole thing to life.

As far as sci-fi FPS games go, Unreal II is much better than say Mace Griffin: Bounty Hunter for instance, but it still can't compare to the pure all-out fun of Metal Arms (I know it's a 3PS not FPS). Still, if you already have Rainbow Six and Metal Arms, I'd get Unreal II at least just to hold you over until Doom3, Half Life2, and of course Halo2 come out. It's turned out to be a good game so far and I look forward to finishing it.

I like the game. Its not up to Halo standards, but its a fun FPS. Unfortunately, I found bugs (not the kind you kill in the game). It freezes sometimes, doesn't always load right and occassional video dropout.

Having said that...I doubt seriously anyone will read this review who isn't already sold on the game. Have fun.

I have been playing the Unreal series since I was about 6 years old and I remember buying this game with my dad and we had played it for hours. Now I have gotten it on the Xbox and I love it...PLUS IT HAS CO-OP! Co-Op for me is like the greatest thing other than the online multiplayer. If you played the first Unreal on the PC and liked it (you better have...lol) then you will love this one. Sure it isn't exactly from the first one's universe but there are many things that will remind you of it. One of the greatest battles was the Boss that was like a huge spider with tiny spiders everywhere. That one took forever (but in a good way)! Very fun and I hope to see you online!

Great game for the casual gamer. Good graphics, lots of great weapons and not too hard. Some games of this type can be very frustrating for people that are not hard core gamers. This game is great because it's a blast to kick but!

Every review I read had something to do with Halo. Just forget about that. Unreal has been out before halo evan began so how can it be ripping off of Halo. They do have similaritys, but Unreal II is more like the orginal Unreal that came out in the 90's. So my question is how can it be ripping off Halo, maybe Halo is ripping off Unreal. And further more a rip off of a good game is still a good game.

Now onto the review. This takes place in space, (sounds kinda like Halo I have to admit) and you have to go investigate some distress call from earth. When you get there everyone has been killed except for one surviver, he managed to get a valuable peice of somethin somethin and the aliens are going on a rampage. The game gos on but I don't want to spoil it for you just incase you want to get it.

The graphics are decent, some nice lighting, cool weapons designed for alien killing goodness. The load times are suprisingly long, but there is stuff on screen to read that keeps you interesested. The moltiplayer is probably the best part of the game. Overall its a fun game and it only cost about ten bucks, so if you want a change of the average first person shooter give it a shot.

I've read a lot of negative reviews on this site for this product, and feel I need to address a few things in fairness. This game was designed for (at the time) high-end PCs. This is very clearly a port, and as such the graphics did indeed take a hit. That being said, this doesn't affect gameplay whatsoever. The dialogue in the cut-scenes was originally meant to be optional depending on who you spoke to in the removed "free-roaming" mode, and what you said to them. It makes the conversations feel very awkward and long. The variety in environments is nice, and the difficulty felt appropriate to the situations. None of the missions were boring, and some showed a real spark of creativity. If you played "Mace Griffin" or any of the "007" titles, you have a good idea what to expect. I would recommend this title for around $10.00. It would get a better score if the fact that it is a port wasn't so glaringly obvious. For 360 owners, this title is NOT backwards compatable.

Miserable game that uses atrocious checkpoint type saves since the designers apparently lack the imagination it takes to make the game challenging otherwise. This is even worse than most games that use checkpoints due to lack of creativity in that it can set you back very far in your progress. Beyond that, there are several other aspects that make this game pretty crummy:

The story and characters are almost like something from one of those made for tv sci-fi movies. There is the sensitive, but tough main character - the hot, almost super hero type chick in a sexy outfit with a bad attitude - an alien companion who is there just so that there is an alien companion - and the weeny little mechanic that shows that he can still contribute despite being a spineless geek.

The enemies are much less impressive than most other games of this type and seem to run around wildly sometimes for no other purpose than to be a rapidly moving target. And I don't mean this in the tactical way either. They just run back and forth like idiots.

Although there are gobs of weapons, none of them are really impressive except for maybe the grenade launcher. And when playing games like this on a console, too many weapons can sometimes become a pain.

I have not tried the online game for this, and from what I understand, that is all most Unreal games are worth in the first place. What makes the single player even more disappointing is that a lot of the things available for the online game are not available such as vehicles and even the ability to run.

The upshot is, unless you want it for the online game or you really like doing the same thing over and over again via brainless checkpoint saves, avoid this game.

Okay so yeah it's not Halo, but it still is a pretty fun first person shooter. I won't go into that, but I will go into the online stuff.

This is one of the first games that uses XBOX live as more of a strategic type of shooter game. You have to choose between 3 different classes of person (ranger, gunner, tech) who all have different strengths and weaknesses. Then, as a team, you have to work to strategically control different points on the map ranging from generators to turrets to deploy points.

I liked this because it put some kind of map based, almost starcrafish strategy into a multiplayer, real time first person shooter game.

If you get some guys of equal skill together who uses their different skills and weapons etc., this online part of Unreal 2 can be a lot of fun.

I bought this game for the Xbox about a month ago, and have regretted it. Unreal II doesn't have much going for it. The graphics are average.

What it doesn't have going for it: Load time 1/10, Levels 4/10, AI 4/10, Online 2/10, Cutscne/Briefing 3/10, Replay 1/10.
The load times for this game are ridiculously long. The levels are all very simple and plain - I beat the game in under an hour on the hardest difficulty (not including load times). The enemy AI isn't very smart or hard to beat - they run at you and shoot at you with slow moving energy blasts half the time. The online play which was supposed to be good is actually very bad - I played this game online for about 20 minutes before I couldn't handle it anymore. The problem with the cutscenes and briefing is that one person may be talking to you and the game has multiple short segments for that person creating a terrible break between speech and graphics. The replay factor on this game is the worst of any game I have ever played. I can't even bring myself to play it again and I usually beat games at least 5 times before I get bored of it.

What it has going for it: Weapons 6/10
The weapons are the only thing that makes this game worth 2 stars. The weapons are all pretty basic and easy to use with the exception of the 6 type grenade launcher (who needs 6 different grenades on the same weapon?).

The Computer version isn't any better. The requirements are so steep that if you can run it on your computer, you are better off getting Doom 3. The gameplay is exactly the same as the Xbox I have heard.

Warning: this game is not for kids!

Unreal 2 for the Xbox is a first person shooter (FPS) game. You play a space marine named John Dalton. You travel with your small crew of bounty hunters to different planets securing alien artifacts. The alien artifacts are believed to be parts of a super weapon. Everyone wants the weapon, including power hungry
aliens. Unreal 2 is very similar to the famous game "Halo", but it lacks the intensity and polish of, Halo. They even included some levels where you fight alongside space marines, but the A.I. is not very impressive. Everything in this game is just average. I felt bored in many of the levels because they required too much walking in an empty world and no action taking place. The voice acting is terrible. The actors sound like amatures reading the script.

Pros:
+good controls
+average graphics
+average sound effects
+lots of weapons
+long game

Cons:
-Halo rip-off
-long loading times
-no co-op gameplay
-too much walking
-severly scripted
-lacks excitement
-retarded voice-acting
-John Dalton sounds like a dork