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Unreal II: The Awakening

aka: Unreal 2
Moby ID: 8377
Windows Specs
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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

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 79% (based on 43 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.3 out of 5 (based on 108 ratings with 12 reviews)

Great to look at, nice guns to shoot with, but sadly not much to explore

The Good
First and foremost, the graphics. The quality of the artwork is superb, lovingly crafted and easily surpasses that of the original Unreal, which was more of a mixed bag bar the skyboxes and the lens flares. The static mesh detailing ranged from OK to excellent, and the architecture was one of the best for its day. A great deal of variety of different environments and worlds also means you'll never get bored of looking at this baby.

And the variety of weapons on offer is certainly worth writing home about. After all, you get a grenade launcher with several varieties of grenade to use as the situation requires, and the sniper rifle is one of the best you'll ever find in a first person shooter. The rocket launcher packs a punch, and the spider gun is worth checking out for curiosity's sake, but otherwise I wouldn't bother using it as a primary weapon.

The Bad
The extremely linear gameplay and the ever so short maps. Most of the map is dedicated to environmental detail, which is a waste, and means that multiple maps are required for the one 'level', requiring frequent map loading, which is a pain in the bum itself, as even on modern machines things take forever to load. As a result of these seemingly short maps, the player moves at a snail's pace. Grrrr!!! ADHD is not compatible with this game, sadly.

Also, the game is somewhat unreliable, even with the latest patch, and has crashed several times on me, much to my frustration. The programmers who worked at the now defunct Legend should be summoned and shot for their blatant negligence, because this is one of the least reliable games out there.

And don't get me started on those flippin' cut scenes. It's not so bad when you're playing the game for the first time, but if you want to play it again you have no choice but to sit through them. Very annoying. The people who made this game didn't think this one through. If they ever made a patch fixing this (fat chance now, I might add) as well as the bugs, I may just forgive them.

The Bottom Line
It is worth playing, but only just. Had they made the game more stable and included an option to skip those darned cut scenes, I could quite easily overlook the linear, multi-mapped levels and the loading times that seem to take decades.

Windows · by Dave Billing (24) · 2011

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

Am I the only one who really enjoyed this game?

The Good
There is a great deal of disappointment surrounding this game. It looms over it with every opinion and review like a dark cloud. Maybe there was a lot of hype surrounding the game before it was released. Maybe people were promised more than the game gave. For me, I never even heard of the game until I picked it up, and I enjoyed just about every moment through it.

The game is nothing revolutionary. The graphics are top-notch, perhaps the best I've seen in a FPS so far, but aside from that the gameplay is reminiscent of old shoot-everything-and-then-pull-the-switch/push-the-button games like Doom. So if you were expecting more than that, you will be disappointed. But otherwise, the game is great. At least, I think so.

As I mentioned, the graphics are great. Really great. The colors in some of the landscapes - like the very first place you travel to - are very vibrant. Landscapes look almost completely devoid of jagged polygon edges, while indoor areas look appropriately outer-spacey.

Also, there are actual waves in this game, as well as reflections! Well, fake reflections, but they look real enough. As you swim through the water, you can see the waves react to your movement. Dive into a lake and watch the water ripple away as you crash into it.

Character models look great, and the voice acting is supurb. The writing might not be, but I think the voice acting is spot-on. A lot of people complained about the voice acting, but I feel it was the writing that was bad. For instance, at one part of the game you have to defend this scientist as he fixes a transmitter so you can escape, all the while you and him are tossing really dumb insults back at each other. "Did your mommy teach you how to fight?" "No, did yours teach you how to be an idiot?" Well, those aren't the exact things they said, but they were something dumb like that. Some of the writing is rather humerous, however. Like when the mechanic is trying to fix the ship and the blue pilot guy says, "I have read the manual; you have voided the warranty," or "Intercourse!" And there's ragdoll effects! Like when you blast a guy off the side of a hill, you can actually see him tumble and flip and fall down it. Or if you shotgun a guy over a desk, you can watch his body slump over it or slide off with a "clunk" as he hits the floor. Likewise, when you get killed, you get to watch your own corpse's death, which is usually quite entertaining - especially when you die on the side of a cliff and get to watch yourself tumble down it.

While there aren't many types of monsters, the few you fight are quite distinct, and you'll have to use a unique strategy for each type you fight. Some will run right toward you and start slashing at you - too fast to outrun, you'll have to find some way to either kill them before they reach you or set a trap or manage to fight them in close quarters. Others will fire at you from afar, and you'll have to take cover and try and get them before they get you. And some battles require you to actually set up a defense perimeter and set gun emplacements to help you defend against the enemy's onslaught. One of the very first missions requires you to travel through a swampy forest in the dark with several marines as a hundred monsters attempt to make you thier meal.

I also thought the story was good. It's nothing to make you go "whoa man, that's deep", but it's a lot better than "go out and save the world you gun-toting psycho!" like most FPS games are. Actually, the story in the game, right up until the end is pretty vague. You're not a hero out saving the world (or in this case, the universe). You're just doing missions for the army for your own personal reasons. I like that. Being the savior of the universe is fun and all, but I'm sick of doing it in every single game. This was a refreshing change.

Weapons are cool, but nothing spectacular. The flame thrower is a cool weapon, and particularly useful in the level you obtain it, where you fight hordes of spiders. Other interesting weapons include a spider-launcher thing, which covers your opponent in spiders and has an alterative fire that throws a green sack against the wall that explodes when anything gets near it. The sniper rifle is also pretty cool, due to its awesome range. You can zoom in so far as being able to count the hairs in your target's nose from a mile away!

Your character is also black. I don't know if this is necesarrily a good or bad thing, since I really don't care what color the character is, but I can't remember the last game I played in which the main character was black and didn't spend the entire game spouting off ebonics and pimp lingo. Finally, a step forward race-wise.

The characters in the game, I feel, were pretty deep. So many people are complaining about the lack of depth in the people, but...dammit, maybe I missed something, because this was one of those games where I didn't want anything bad to happen to my comrades. They each have a sort of history, and reasons as to why they're traveling with you, and the voice acting is great. I would have liked to have seen a sequel to this game, just to see more of the characters in it.

The Bad
While I liked the female's character, her outfit is annoying. I can just imagine the art department during one of their meetings: "This is the Aida model. We gave her a very sophisticated outfit as to-"
"Sophisti-wha? Pump her tits up a size or two and give her something skimpy."
"What? Why? She's not just some ditzy-"
"I said do it! I'm in charge here! Who gots the hot dogs? I gotta get me a hot dogs! DO IT I SAID!!! WE GOTTA GET THE G'S TO PLEASE!"

Erm. Sorry, I got carried away there. I just mean that, there's no reason for her to be dressing that way. It's obvious that she looks the way she does just to increase game sales, if nothing else, because not once in the game does she do or say anything that's the least bit seductive. She's deep and sophisticated, not some ditz.

Most of the game, the graphics are wonderful and the textures are very high-res...yet...in one part of the game, all the textures seem to have been imported from Wolfeinstein or something, because they were the worst looking textures I've ever seen! They could have been drawn in Paintbrush! I literally restarted the game the first time I saw it, thinking something had screwed up with my video card or something.

Some parts of the game were tough, but not the ones you'd really think. Some missions require you to defend a certain location, which you would think would be some of the hardest missions. Well, aside from one mission, I was able to breeze through these. One I remember, you had to defend some scientists, while these ninja-chicks attacked in waves. Right when the battle started, I took off the other way, trying to reach the top of the building so that I might be able to destroy the attackers from the roof. Unfortunately, I never found the roof, but the mission was a success anyway, because the marines traveling with me were able to defend it all by themselves! I never even fired a shot! Honestly, I think it's great that you have some buddies to help you fight in some missions, but it should at least require you to do SOME of the work to beat the missions. Another mission had this problem.

As I've said before, the gameplay is nothing revolutionary. It's all just running around, killing anything that attacks you, and then moving on to the next part. There's a lot of variety - like defending a base, or placing gun emplacements and such, but they're few, and between those is a lot of run-and-gun gameplay.

The Bottom Line
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***

Good:
+Great graphics.
+Story isn't too cliche'd.
+Ragdoll effects!.
+Good voice acting.
+Interesting and unique characters.
+Different types of missions.
Neutral:
oSystem requirements are a bit high, and as usual the "recommended" specs don't mean squat. Great graphics if you got it, though.
oTypical run-and-gun first person shooter. You've seen it before. Maybe didn't look this good, but you've seen it before. Evil:
-Aida's outfit is obviously targeted at thirteen year old sexually frustrated idiots.
-Linear levels.
-Not enough interaction with the other characters.
-Bad, bad textures in the alien place.
Score:
8.0/10 All these bad reviews don't seem right. If you're expecting something revolutionary, like I said, you will be disappointed. But if you're looking for a standard FPS with great graphics and interesting characters, with GOOD voice acting for a change, Unreal II is a great game.

Windows · by kbmb (415) · 2003

[ View all 12 player reviews ]

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 and delisting

A patch to this game adds multiplayer, vehicles and new weapons. It is called Expanded Multiplayer or Unreal II XMP.

The game's original online master servers were shut down on 31 May 2014 alongside other GameSpy servers. Unlike with the Unreal Tournament spin-off series, Epic Games would not host their own master server for Unreal II (despite the 2022 shutdown notice erroneously referring to it).

Like other games in the series, Unreal II was delisted from Steam on 14 December 2022 and GOG.com on 23 December 2022.

References

  • Coincidence... or not? The player character, sometimes appreviated as "U2", is named John Dalton. In the late 1980'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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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by Riley Beckham.

Xbox added by Kartanym.

Additional contributors: KSlayer, Unicorn Lynx, Rebelteen, Sciere, Patrick Bregger, Plok.

Game added February 9, 2003. Last modified September 16, 2024.