Unreal II: The Awakening

THE BAD:
Graphics that had to be too heavily toned down for the Xbox as well as an annoyingly flaky combat system.

SUMMARY:
When I aquired this game the first thing I did was sit down for some XMP. This was an incredibly complex game mode if played correctly, and gave me more enjoyment than I have had in a long time on Xbox live. Infact, the last time I had that much fun in a multiplayer game I was playing Halo.

However, I found the single player game a little less than I would have expected, the gameplay itself was great but I could tell that the Xbox was struggling to put this game on my TV screen. When I caught my first bit of graphical lag from that aspect, I knew I was in for a real cricle jerk. That also would be my second problem, this game really wasn't meant for the Xbox, and it becomes very evident once you try any game mode(I can just imagine Bill Gates holding an Atari employee at gun point forcing him to release this game on the Xbox). It makes me extremely nervous to think what Half Life 2 and Doom 3 will look like on this system when this game tore it into peices.

It was fun whenever it worked, and I feel im being a bit too generous when I give it a 4 out of 5.

THE BAD:
Dated plot line, character rendering is not fluid.

SUMMARY:
I have always enjoyed the Unreal series of games. Both the tournaments and the first person story games have always impressed me. Unreal 2 has a lot of positive elements such as great graphics, sound, and most importantly gameplay. While not perfect, is is the perfect answer for those waiting for Halo 2. The game will not let the enthusist of first person shooters down. Poor multiplayer can make this a questionable replay after you have beaten the game. I hear the Xbox Live is great with this game however and that can make a significant difference. I bought this for under $40 and it was worth that price. So many recent Xbox games have been just a little off, and this might be too, but I forgive Unreal 2 because it is the Grand-Daddy graphics engine and it is still rolling on!
Seriously don't listen to the review by Azerrwhatever. Apparently he wasn't in a good mood when he wrote the review. Unreal 2 is like Halo's evil twin. Takes a good formula and rearanges some stuff. Halo too has many downfalls, biggest being that there is no lypsync, and it runs at a slower action pace than Unreal 2.

THE BAD:
Unforgivable excuse for a single player game, 2 player co-op is just as bad but with someone to share the swearing. Seriously this is BAD

SUMMARY:
If this game being reviewed in http:\\www.somethingawful.com is not enough warning let confirm it for you: this game seriously sucks (and this is from a guy that kind of liked "spawn").

Just picture this: halo 2 gets delayed again, suddenly a new shooter with xbox-live multiplayer vehicle halo like action comes along and is available now so the game is an awesome hit, and the single player rocks, right? WRONG (in your best shwarzennegger like voice).

Unreal 2 is aparently compossed of antihalo materia, is exactly like halo except is exactly like someone dropped a gravity fecal bomb that sucked all the fun from it leaving behind concepts that were already considered crap in the PSX fps console era.

From the terrible cliched story to the "high school" quality designed characters and animation, this game features such original concepts as "hey I know how to make this level scary lets turn off ALL lights!" and "I know how to reduce our budget lets use 2 frames of animation on each enemy model nobody will notice!" plus "I know how to code our AI easy! lets put the monster at random locations while the player shoots them a few thousand times! thats challenging!" not to mention "I know how we can forget about lip synching, lets make their their flapping mouths VIBRATE while speaking, like terrance & philip people love them!".

The game doesnt look that bad at the beginning, some good quality scenarios, cinemas and scripted events are at display, but you will begin to get a strange feeling while using your weapons in the shooting range tutorial, you see there's a slight "glitch" in the camera perspective , whenever you shoot something that's RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU the projectile will take some good 5 MINUTES to hit it and when it does the explosion will look like is viewed from a few blocks away or from an helicopter. You can fix this by using a complementary sticker in the screen reading "OBJECTS IN GAME MAY LOOK A FEW MILES CLOSER THAN THEY REALLY ARE" which is just a small taste of all the "fun" you are about to have. If you choose to deathmatch you will get the 2nd warning by winning using the cleaver maneuver: "STANDING IN A CORNER SHOOTING GRENADES WHICH THE AI OPPONENT WILL SORT OF "CATCH" PRETTY OFTEN" (tm) this is somehow forgivable at the time since is "just a tutorial" Or at least thats what you will say to yourself in denial.

When the first mission starts your confidence will grow a bit thanks to an "almost" decent cinema (featuring flapping mouths! and at some point a guy who aparently buried himself in grass or is wearing a grass made shirt, take your pick!) you are to attend a distress signal in some planet infested by ugly aliens (have a machine gun, will travel!) which sounds pretty good to me.

Unfortunately this is where things go.. well I will use a cientific term: "caca" the minute you meet the so called "aliens" every single hope this would be any good shatters in the ground like a small china plate dropped in slow motion for dramatic effect with a name made up by "Kayser Suze" on the back.

I dare to recall the image (and Im sorry to bring back these hurtful memories) do you remember how the "aliens" in aliens vs predator for the PSX looked like ,yeah those putrid 2d sprites that sort of floated/vibrated around and became horrible pixel splotches when they got near? well... these ones kind of look and move twice as bad as that.

Seriously I killed one of these things and ran to it so I could take a good look at it before it magically "clipped" underground. (which is what dead alien critters do, just like real life!) to make sure this was a 3d model and not a 2d sprite. It turns out once is not moving AND always looking at you, it is 3D!! made with a low quality texture as bad as it can be and no shadowing anywhere! They actually found out how to make a 3d object look completely flat!!! craptastic!!!!

I will try to explain the deep game mechanics involved in attacking this critters.
1. stand in front of it
2. press shot about 100 times,
3. reload. (dont worry the critter wont go anywhere)
4. keep shooting.
5. for better results (and sanity's sake) try using grenades until you ran out of them.
6. Repeat about a million times Or until you feel the impulse to turn the console off and return the dvd (recommended)

To add more "spice" to the game play you will also be subject to:Bigger monsters, which require MORE shots, "swimming" by clipping underneath a plane and having more fog, pressing buttons to activate scripted events (some of them good) Turning the gamma to 200 because you are thrown into an Area with NO light sources at all, no I dont mean dark ala "doom", I mean dark ala "who turned off the damn tv?" which is the most fun I have had since I went blind by drinking homemade tequila and falling down the stairs... which was curiously more fun than this entire game.

In conclussion:
I have not played this game in multi, and Ive been told is good there, but unless you are a lan-party animal (pun intended) or posses xbox live. Stay far far away as possible from this game. I would've use a negative score (-1) but Im keeping an open mind for XMP.

This is complete crap.

THE BAD:
-loading time is about 20 to 25 seconds
-the controlls feal clunky and hard to manage

SUMMARY:
Although this game can keep you playing for hours, i found that the long loading times, the bland graphics and repetative environments slowed down my experiance with this game. Of course all the same weapons from the PC version are here, but seem to hard to handle with the xbox controller. The multiplayer is fun for maybe 30 min then you just want to quit. Although there are better games to choose from in the entire xbox librabry, this game was fun while it lasted. Although unreal one was set to become the "Quake killer" it seams that Unreal 2 for xbox was trying to become somewhat of a "halo killer" and doesnt succeed.(check it out on PC instead.)

THE BAD:
Creepy Character skinz. Robo-cop looking faces

SUMMARY:
Unreal II: The Awakening is trully amazing. The Character voices, and interaction is much better than other FPS this year. Unreal II is intense, and at times a nice nap in the park (gives you a break from being slaughtered). The difficulty levels are fair and are accurate, unlike some games that offer seven difficulty levels and differ at great degrees. Unreal II takes advantage of the Xbox controller's wicked assortment of buttons to complicate/simplify your survival in the unknown. The environments are large, and allow for creative hiding spots, for you and your enemy. The Co Op is very nice too. Jam another controller into that oval hole, and BOOM! two player Co Op, or connect to Xbox Live, and play with up to six-on-six matches. The Live component was ok so far. The biggest problem was finding a group of people to play against. This game just arrived in stores today, and was purchased at 10:00 EST. not sure how the online component has changed yet. But will write another as I play a bit longer.