Unreal II: The Awakening
Description official descriptions
Some years after the Strider Wars, humanity has resumed its expansion into space. On the rough frontier, it falls to the Terran Colonial Authority to maintain peace and order among the outlying colonies and outposts. TCA Marshal John Dalton and the crew of his ship, the Atlantis, patrol this dangerous sector of space when several distress calls lead to the discovery of alien artifacts with unique properties. Soon, the hunt for these artifacts is on between several alien factions as well as human corporations and their mercenary forces, with the TCA and their allies caught in the middle.
The first-person shooter Unreal II, while a sequel to Unreal, has no direct connection to the first game except being set in the same universe (with the Skaarj from Unreal and the Liandri Corporation from Unreal Tournament being major enemy factions). The player controls John Dalton through a dozen missions, taking place in such locations as the dense jungle of a tropical planet, a research facility on a frozen moon, the insides of a planet-sized living organism, the home world of an insectoid machine civilization, as well as a huge starship.
The weapon arsenal consists of more than a dozen guns. Standard types include pistols, an assault rifle, shotgun, and sniper rifle. Some heavier ones are a flame thrower, as well as rocket and grenade launchers, with the grenade launcher being able to use six different ammunition types, including fragmentation, EMP and smoke grenades. Available in later missions are weapons adapted from alien technologies. These include various energy guns, a biological weapon that creates living spiders that attack enemies, and an autonomous floating orb that either seeks out and attacks enemies or circles around the player in point defense. As in other Unreal titles, each weapon has two different firing modes.
Missions are usually of the run-and-gun type, but there are exceptions. Several levels include defense assignments where either a position must be held for a certain time or a character be kept alive. These levels usually include additional tools such as energy barriers and automated turrets that can be placed by the player in any location. Sometimes, AI-controlled characters will be there to help out the player as well. In that case they can be given orders on which sector to defend or patrol, for example.
The story of the game is told through a variety of means: besides in-engine cutscenes, there is a lot of radio chatter during a mission; in fact, it's not unusual for mission objectives to completely change due to story developments. Between missions, Dalton can wander freely about the Atlantis and chat with his crew, going into their personal backstories as well as more details about the main plot.
Spellings
- 虚幻II:觉醒 - Simplified Chinese spelling
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Credits (Windows version)
227 People (207 developers, 20 thanks) · View all
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Reviews
Critics
Average score: 79% (based on 43 ratings)
Players
Average score: 3.3 out of 5 (based on 108 ratings with 12 reviews)
This game is exactly like Jell-O.
The Good
Requisite statement: whoo boy, these are some really nice graphics. All sarcasm aside, they are pretty good, although since the levels themselves are so plain the sharp visuals occasionally fail to impress. One level in particular, set in a laboratory, has this one room, see, that's like, all melted and stuff, and there's this laser, right, and it's like, reflecting off everywhere. And it looks good, and stuff.
The Bad
I think this may be the plainest game I've ever played. It's not outstanding in either direction - not great, not bad, not even really good - it's the digital equivalent of Jell-O. I rushed out and bought "Unreal 2" after having starved myself of FPSes since the mostly excellent "Aliens versus Predator 2." I didn't really know what to expect, since I had not played any incarnation of the "Unreal" franchise before, but I hoped that it would at least be fun in a cliched way.
It's definitely cliched, that's for sure. Normally, I don't slam games for this sin, since most don't aspire to impress with their plots. You know, save the universe, rescue the chick, ad infinitum. However, "Unreal 2" slathers the plot on thick. In between almost every mission, you have to wander in your ship, talking to their teammates and learning about their pasts and why they're so fucked up. They're actually not bad teammates - I especially liked the funky alien pilot. Nevertheless, the story is quite dull, and it's made even more so thanks to the monotonic delivery of the main character. His voice is as flat and boring as the game's weaponry.
Boring plots and linear levels are mostly venial sins for FPSes. Boring weaponry, however, is a truly cardinal crime. "Unreal 2" features some real snorers, starting with the standard issue popgun (lame), then moving on to the standard issue machine gun (oh, it shoots, like, radioactive splinters? Count me in!), complete with the standard issue rocket launcher, grenade launcher, and the now-standard issue flamethrower (which does sport some nifty graphics boy-howdy). We've all seen these weapons countless times before, and they've been done much better. Really, rushing a group of Imps in "Doom" and gutting them with the shotgun still gives me more thrills than coring the enemies in this game with any of its tired weapons. The programmers must have realized just how 1990s their arsenal was, so they attempted to spice it up with "innovations" like the spider gun. Yes, you heard me right, the spider gun. What does the spider gun do, you ask? It shoots a little spray of biomass that produces lots of little lifeforms that swarm onto whoever you aim your cannon at (yeah, it's a little like fucking). What do the little spiders do? They piss off the enemy. I was ecstatic as I watched the bad guy I just shot angrily swat away some spiders before he pulled out his shotgun and corpseified me.
The Bottom Line
A really disappointing don't-bother experience.
Windows · by Lucas Schippers (57) · 2003
The Good
I liked the graphics and the huge in depth spaces.
Cool weapons
Mysterious environment
The Bad
I didn't like the story behind this game.
The game is too short.
The Bottom Line
Unreal 2 is a sci-fi first person shooter like most others. But, if you have a strong pc, something like 256MB memory with at least GeForce 4 you will enjoy a blasting eye graphics.
The main disappointment for me is the story behind this game. It wasn't an interesting adventure like Unreal 1 and the game is too short.
I don't know but Unreal 1 was a mystery shrouded game, but if you haven't played it you will like Unreal 2.
Windows · by Shalom Raz (55) · 2003
The Good
The graphics are nice.
The Bad
The gameplay is BORING.
The actors are BORING.
The music and sound are BORING.
The Bottom Line
Well, well, this is the successor to a game that wanted to revolutionize the genre from within and partially succeeded.
The hype was high on this one, and it got pretty good ratings, but is it really a good game?
Depends on what kind of gamer You are.
The casual gamer will like the easy gameplay, linear level design and not-so-deep
immersion. The games player will like the graphics and soon turn to something else.
The hardcore gamer will probably turn to something else 6 hours later after he played through U2 once.
U2 is very light, it features some great graphics and environments, and it also offers a plot. That's all I can say neutrally.
The plot is boring, the characters are so superficial that the helpless try of giving them depth through conversation is in vain. The hero is quite strange, and hard to identify with. The story is very linear and the enemies You encounter a pretty faceless. The infamous Skarrj appear only rarely, the boss enemies are mostly huge, and the weapons are pretty unimaginative.
Conclusion: nice to see, but it has no identity.
Windows · by Emmanuel Henne (23) · 2003
Trivia
German version
In the German version, all blood and gore effects were removed. Also some corpses in the levels were replaced or removed. The later released Special Edition is not affected.
John Dalton
The main character's last name, Dalton, was based on Scott Dalton, one of Unreal II's game designers. The developers tried to avoid the name collision for a while, but in the end "Dalton" just seemed to work best for the game and was used in the final product.
Multiplayer
A patch to this game adds multiplayer, vehicles and new weapons. It is called Expanded Multiplayer or Unreal II XMP.
References
- Coincidence...or not? The player you control in the game, sometimes appreviated as "U2," is named John Dalton. In the late 80's, the Irish rock group U2 would sometimes dress up as a country western band and open for their own shows. The name of the group?: The Dalton Brothers.
- An NPC in the tutorial area muses about getting himself two flags and conducting a some kind of tournament. An obvious reference to the Unreal Tournament series of games.
Seagoat
The Seagoat, the alien, bunny-like pet that shows up on the player's ship during mid-game, was created very early on in development and originally thought to be a huge, bovine creature that could inhabit one of the alien worlds in the game. During development, the name "Seagoat" started to stick for the creature, and it was greatly reduced in size and given the role of cute, slightly weird pet.
Voice acting
Even though all other voices for the game were performed by professional actors, Ne'Ban, the ship's alien pilot, is voiced by one of the developers (Grant Roberts).
Awards
- GameStar (Germany)
- Issue 04/2009 - One of the "10 Most Terrible Sequels" ( It is a good game in its own right but forgettable and far from being as groundbreaking as Unreal. The technical potential goes to waste because the player mostly walks through illogical and linear levels instead of being outdoors.)
- PC Powerplay (Germany)
- Issue 03/2005 - #6 Biggest Disappointment
Information also contributed by Matthias Worch, St. Martyne and STU2
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Related Sites +
-
Something Awful review
A humorous review on Something Awful (Windows version) -
The Official Unreal II Expanded Multiplayer Resource
Maps, mods, videos, tips, art, screenshots, and editing information -
Unreal II - The Awakening
The official Unreal 2 website.
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Contributors to this Entry
Game added by Riley Beckham.
Xbox added by Kartanym.
Additional contributors: KSlayer, Unicorn Lynx, Rebelteen, Sciere, Patrick Bregger.
Game added February 9, 2003. Last modified March 30, 2024.