Rating: 
Summary: It's Unreal "Too", but not for the right reasons...
Review: The original Unreal combined cutting-edge graphics with expansive levels, great attention to detail, good AI, excellent gameplay, a decent story, a variety of "enemies", and hours of entertainment. It was "Unreal" in a good way compared to the standard of the day. Unreal set a new high standard for the genre.Unreal 2 has excellent graphics (as expected), little attention to detail (barely any environmental interaction is possible), mediocre AI (even by the original Unreal's standard), [bad] gameplay, a boring and contrived storyline, little character variety, and about 4-10 hours of entertainment depending on your level of skill. Unreal 2 doesn't bring anything new or particularly impressive to the gaming world. My advice, take a pass on it, unless you can get it for a substantial discount.
Rating:
Summary: terrible gameplay
Review: the gfx might be good.... but what good are realistic graphics when the gameplay stinks? This game has amateur-game-studio written all over it.... There is only one way to beat every level! that makes it basicly a walk-through interactive movie with linear advancement... gets very boring and doesnt require intuitive or logical thinking on the part of the player. After playing games like deus ex or nolf/nolf2, which had excellent story as well as multiple ways to complete each level, a game like unreal2 is a joke.
plus there are lengthy loading screens about every 5-10 mins of play....and im on a p4-2.26ghz with 1GB of pc4200 and it takes 1min+ to load levels! I mean max payne had nearly as good gfx in unreal2, but had much shorter loading screens and they were few and far between.... and not to mention in unreal2 u must wait 1min+ just to quick load after you die... it really tests your patience. on another note, the reason i gave this 2 stars instead of 1 is because the introduction movie/ingame cinematic (with studio logos) actually puts you in awe... very breathtaking..... but from there on out the game goes downhill. also, for people experiencing crashes.. there is a patch out that fixes it.. i had the same problem (i had to disable EAX) but after patch i can now enable it again and the game runs fine. --------------------------------
overall.... this game is a waste of money.. it belongs in a jewel case on the "value shelf". -duck
Rating:
Summary: What happened?
Review: Unreal was a great game if only for its groundbreaking technology and massive sp experience. Unreal 2 has great technology as well, but....first off, the game takes maybe 10 hours to beat (and that's a generous estimate) and is shorter than most expansion packs. Second, it has nothing to do with the original Unreal (which is frustrating, 'cause the final cutscene of Unreal hinted at some kind of sequel). The game plays like a dumbed-down version of the Mechwarrior or Heavy Gear series, where you go on short, pointless missions that are completely disjointed and have absolutely no oppurtunity for exploration (which was a strong point of the original Unreal). The worst part is, it took 5 years for this game to reach the market and yet lasts as long as if it had been in development for only a few months. Seriously, the old shareware versions of Doom and Heretic (which included a single episode and were FREE) practically offered more gameplay time than this over-hyped joke of a game. This is almost definitely a situation where the developers were so overwhelmed by the capabilities of the new Unreal engine that they completely forgot about making a good game and instead created a mish-mash of poorly designed levels with way too much pointless and unneccessary eye-candy. The only selling point of this game are the spectacular graphics (if you have a brand new, stacked computer); but everything else about Unreal 2 is a complete wash. One final note: in a blatant attempt to force people to buy 2 games, Unreal 2 completely lacks any multi-player support, so if mp is your thing, you have to get UT 2003. This also almost completely guarantees that Unreal 2 will have no community support and that once you beat the game, keeping Unreal 2 on your hard-drive will be pointless.
Rating: 
Summary: Beauty Without The Brains
Review: There is no doubt that Unreal II: The Awakening is the current 'best looking game of all time'. It delivers staggering graphics that, while you need a power house of a machine to utilize, sets a new standard by which other games of this genre will be judged. At least until Doom III, (And that's just a retelling of the original Doom's story), is released later this year. Or Halo for the PC, also due out this year from Gearbox. Or Deus Ex- take your pick. Unreal II builds on the existing mythology established in the first Unreal (and in Return to Na-Pali), it even mentions the Tournaments and Liandri Corporation. Not to mention the three flavors of Skaarj reptile warriors- Big, Bigger and 'Oh my god!'. That aside, it is a totally new game that capitalizes on the Unreal name. However, I doubt very much Unreal II will have the same effect its predecessors will- it is graphically pretty, but isn't that good of a game even though it makes an effort to build a story better than the first ones did, even though, again, they are basically the same. As Terran Colonial Authority Marshall, John Dalton, a former Marine who had been disgraced, you ply the space lanes of the outer rim, 'bringing law to the lawless' in your ship the Atlantis (yawn!), with your crewmates. First up is the luscious Aida, whose pixelated polygons put Lara Croft to shame, she's basically second in command and gives you all your mission breifings. Aida also complains to you a lot. Next up is Isaak, another washout and drunk- he explains all your weapons and makes modifications to them. Finally is the ship's pilot, Ne'Ban, who is kind of like a little Vorlon, plus he's the only instantly likeable member of the crew and his turns of phrase are amusing. There is some interplay and development between all the characters, but its pretty minor. Unfortunately, it doesn't matter whether you interact with these people or not- if you skip a briefing from Isaak, it's not like you go on a mission without weapons or are unable to figure out what these weapons do. The missions revolve around obtaining seven pieces of this ancient artifact- while this isn't exactly a new story idea in science fiction or fantasy, it is also not one that is too difficult to make interesting. In Unreal II, however, they don't even try, because while it is a driving goal to obtain the next piece, it really could have been anything- a computer disk, a bag of money or whatever. It ultimately doesn't amount to very much when it is finally revealed what it does. It is of course wanted by everyone in the galaxy. Plus you can wander around the Atlantis between missions. This is great, but serves no purpose. You can open a few hatches and crawl around in some tunnels- but you can't DO anything to or with anything. You can't press buttons to make things happen, all you can do is look- a little like being in a Louvre. In fact, a lot of the game is like this - except for the things you're allowed to kill, environmental interaction is non-existent. The story aside, the programmers also dropped some things that were in the original that could have been useful in Unreal II- there are no portable light sources available for you to use- no flares or flashlights. I also suspect that even the story was tacked on and the game itself is just a showcase for Legend's and Digital Extreme's new graphics engine. As well there are numerous other games coming out that use the Unreal II engine, such as Deus Ex II, it will be interesting if they can get more out of it than the originators did. The music is a mixed bag, but no where near the same quality as Unreal or Unreal Tournament. Sound effects are pretty good, but nothing to write home about. Mission maps are quite large- expansive out door vistas on alien planets that eventually lead indoors in seamless transitions. Texture detail is superb and razor crisp- most things like signs and all but the smallest of computer displays, are readable. The engine is capable of so much detail- from waving grass and trees to flowing water, curves, curves and more curves, and creatures such as fish, birds and land critters that it gives everything a wonderful and very realistic organic look to it. It is often as much as fun to just explore the worlds you're on as it is to start shooting and killing bad guys. Character models, be they humans, Skaarj, mechanized marines, etc. are all first-rate, with highly detailed facial features and expressions. But the game play just isn't there- I finished the game in less than six hours total time. I got it on a Thursday and finished it that night. I felt let down- there wasn't enough to do, beyond accomplishing goals, the environment doesn't interact well- you can't even blow up trees, though you can kill all the fauna you come across. Here is a game that could have benefitted from Red Faction's Geo-Mod code- it could have made things more interesting. It was also reported that the Unreal Editor that shipped with the game was easier to use than previous versions. I loaded it up and wondered that if by 'easier' they meant 'harder and more complex'. So basically what we have is a spectacular looking game that delivers awesome visual splendor, but only mediocre game play. This was also one of the three games that I was really looking forward to in 2003, the others being Halo, and the sequel to the greatest game of all time, Homeworld 2. So far I'm zero for three. Unreal isn't a bad game, it's an okay game. It's that really good looking girl you knew in highschool- the one you found out was really shallow once you got to know her.
Rating: 
Summary: Supermarfa
Review: Ma jucam la serviciu Unreal de mi se tocea mouseul. Tare jocul...
Rating:
Summary: Slow and boring
Review: Having just upgraded my PC (AMD Athlon 2100+, Geforce 4 128 Mb) I was looking forward to turning up all the game specs to the maximum. Bad idea; even after turning everything to medium and playing at a meagre 1024x768 the game still has a framerate too slow for comfort and seems to skip a beat every 2 to 3 seconds. Worst than the video performance however was the game itself. Other reviewers have already said a lot (all of it true) about the silly and predictable story and the total lack of originality. One of the things that also really infuriated me however was the endless wait for scene loads (count on one minute wait for every five minutes of gameplay). Particularly in difficult scenes were you get killed a number of times before you are able to finish them (hey, these things happen) it becomes extremely frustrating to again have to wait for the game to load the scene ... Overall a frustrating and strongly dissapointing experience. Think twice (do I have the system resources? do I have the patience?) before you buy this game!
Rating:
Summary: Simply Breathtaking
Review: I think this game can be summed up fairly easily, it is absolutely amazing. The graphics are beautiful, the sound is entrancing, and the gameplay is just plain addictive. I would HIGHLY recommend this game to anyone, with one warning... To really appreciate it, you need a fairly powerful system.
Rating: 
Summary: Flashy graphics destroy the gaming world
Review: I would just like to say that I'm a gamer all the way
and I play most of them. I pre-ordered this game and I'm
so sorry I did. The reason I did this is because, probably just like yourself,
I got carried away with the flashy graphics. Once you take
these away, absolutely nothing remains. The most disturbing thing was the fact that I finished it twice
in a weekend, and now it's lying on my shelf. This is
outrageous when you compare it with others like Baldur's gate 2
which offers over 300 hours of gameplay. I must conclude that although it was fun to play, it was way to
short, doesn't offer anything new and even got boring at some
times. I hope someone on this planet can convince you to NOT
buy this game, and continue your search for a game that can
thrill you at least for a couple of weeks. Sincerely yours,
Niels
Rating:
Summary: Can't play at all--crashes three different computers
Review: Be warned: I can't get past the initial screen on three different high-end computers--the game crashes with no useful information. I've wasted lots of time updating various drivers (and I'm generally knowledgable about PCs). To judge from the included help files, many problems seem to be caused by very aggressive CD copy protection (you're even supposed to update your cd-rom drivers in some cases--what a waste of time!). If I'd known about these problems, I would never have considered purchasing this game.
Rating: 
Summary: The facts...
Review: Here are the facts... This is a great SINGLE player game, it was made to satisfy the masses who have missed the single player action of the orginal Unreal. I think many of the people who played Unreal Tournament give this game a bad review find it boring to play a single player game. The graphics are probably the best of any game yet, which of course requires system resources (disk space, memory and video memory). If you cannot meet the suggested requirements, wait! The gameplay is fast and furious, a good melding of insane online play and rudimentary AI. The storyline is basic (as most FPS games are) and tells a very similar story as the first Unreal. The cutscenes are really pretty though. Keeping this review short, I really like this game. I have not had the system errors (i.e. GPFs) others have had but I am no doubting thier existence. I will say this is WAY more stable than GTAIII, which was released a few months premature. This game (I hope) is the beginning of the next generation of single player FPS for the PC. It actaully feels more like a console game that a PC version.
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