Rating: 
Summary: Torn
Review: I'm really torn as I write this review, on the one hand I had so much fun beating this game, but on the other hand, its just isnt worth its price tag.
The graphics are the best out there today but this comes at an extremely high cost, I own an extremely high end system and it chugged pretty bad some places.When it comes to first person shooters for me the main fun is in the weapons, and this game has no lack of weapons. While a lot of the weapons are kinda [weak] and could be done without, some of them are just plain cool. I personally loved the very last weapon in the game although a bit overpowered. Some of the weapons could have been more balanced but you certainly have a wide variety to choose from. I have heard mised things about the AI, while I didn't pay much attention to thne AI I've heard it is extremly good however it can't live up to its potential because of the restricting corridors that plague the game. This game is full of action and most of the time you won't have trouble finding where to go. This is the way I like a game. However it just...ends, I beat the game in 5 days and I wasn't by any means playing through it nonstop...I can't justify the price tag without a multiplayer mode. Fun while it last but not enough.
Rating:
Summary: The original Unreal is better!
Review: Playing Unreal 2 has got to be one of the most tedious gaming experiences I ever had since I played Hunters: The Reckoning for Xbox. The plot seems like something right out of some Scfi Tv show. You are an ex-marine on a ship with a crew, you get missions from one of the crew members, and you're on your way. Dalton(the guy you play as) says the most stupidest things I ever heard. The graphics are great, but the level design looks like it was inspired by Star Wars. I almost fell asleep while playing the second level called "Hell." Why it's called "Hell" is beyond me because the level is on a snowy planet. You battle these giant bugs. Why introduce these new creatures? Why not just give us the Skaarj? You get to see them on the first level, along with "Space Monkeys," but the awesome atmosphere that the original Unreal had was missing. Here's another thing, no multiplayer. Soldier of Fortune 2 had tedious single-player, but the multiplayer component made the game worth buying for alone. I know they didn't intend for Unreal 2 to have multiplayer but if it did, it would have probably better then the single-player portion. Folks, do yourself a favor and pick up these awesome titles: Unreal Gold, Unreal Tournament 2003, Half-life, Soldier of Fortune 2(for multiplayer only!) I never even finished Unreal 2, and I don't intend to either. I'm just going to wait until a cool mod is released and at least I'll have Unreal 2 to play it.
Rating: 
Summary: Absoluteley Phenomenal-Amazing
Review: This game is the most amazing 3-D shooter I've played on the market his year. Downloaded the patch and patched Unreal 2 up. With a high-end Alienware P4 2.4 winxp 512mb ram r9700pro and sb audigy gamer, and more, I can play unreal 2 at nearly 60fps avg. At a 1280x1024 resolution with all other settings maxed out. Stunning. Sound is awesome, EAX and 3-D Dolby Digital Surround 360-Degree sound leaves me in awe and sunspense. Advanced spatial, reverb, and distance movement effects similair to real life is abosoluteley incredible. The errie chatter of alien tounges around the corner is no thing to laugh about. Graphics? Phenomenal-and enhanced thanks to my ATI Radeon 9700 Pro, high-end gaming card. Unreal 2 features real-time advanced dynamic light sourced volumetric lightning and shadow casting effects to add extrodinary realism in game play. Pain staking High-resolution textures and reflections all over the place on objects. Incredible water, sky resolutions, details on characters, weather effects, high object details, ultimate-advanced 'rag doll' character physics, highly detialed blood & gore, super high polygon counts, real-time realistic complex geometry, realistic 32-bit quality color, and much more bring Unreal 2's experience to life. Storyline and gameplay? nice. Apparently, you are John Dalton-Grizzly Lawmen ad scout of the terronial colonial authority complex. Of course, you are captain of the beatifully inside and out designed alantis
indoor and out. Aida, your first officer, briefs you on your missions and more, although is quite stubborn, beatiful, but soft and more, a chick she is, eh? Issak is your informal ... stubborn weapons loadout and technical assister on the vessel, he's has is causualities and issues in the past. And finnally, the hex-core short but wierd alien named neban pilots the alantis usually at the bridge of your ship. Quite loyal to you, and per-plexed at many times, Ne'ban takes his role and takes it good! There are many other characters. Game play is incredible. Super AI, realistic sci-fi movie game play, and much more brings unreal 2 to more life. Unreal 2 features incredible weapons, the flamethrower and sniper rifle are my favorite, to name a couple. Music? Awesome techno style. Very impressive and entertaining. Nice. Controls? Depends how it's customized...but overall great. Fun factor: Shootin' up aliens, superior graphics and audio, sci-fi movie style storyline and game play, extrodinary weapons. Overall score: 5 out of 5 stars. Final thoughts: "Sorry, it's been an epic wait for the tech upgrade." Yeah right! Unreal 2 is an immersive experience, whether you play it with the minimum, recommended, high, or better system configurations, you'll sureley be able to tweak it out so you'll get the gaming experience you wish. Score one for the terrolonial colonial authority! Score one for Unreal 2!*
Rating:
Summary: Too many crashes
Review: It crashes too frequently and made me disappointed.
Load/save takes about 1-2 minutes on 2.4G machine
with 1.5G ram and 256M video, that is a shame!
Sound is bad. It changes from loud to quiet and back without
any respect to the content.
I don't have any of that problems on my machine with Half-Life or StarWars Jedi Knight II....
Probably you can buy it to get some fun in between of crashes,
or trust that they will be able to fix it.
Rating: 
Summary: Okay FPS from Atari
Review: On the surface, this uninspired first person shooter has everything that makes up a great game...
1) Futuristic, save the universe plot with a hard-boiled, iconoclastic ex-marine trying, against monumental odds, to set things right
2) Decent array of weapons
3) Relatively large mix of foes
4) Intuitive user interface
5) Pretty good, but at times irrelevant, scenery But the whole thing just never really comes together. I think the biggest problem with Unreal 2 is that everything in the game has been done before -- and done before by better and more creative programmers (e.g. Halo, Jedi Outcast, Doom). Given the above, I am somewhat suprised by the high marks from some of the other reviewers -- maybe they've never played an FPS before? Net/net:
1) Tired rework of FPS format with no significant differentiator from other FPS's already on the market
2) Suprisingly high system requirements (Atari recommended system requirements: 384MB RAM, 64MB Video RAM, Pentium 1.2 Ghz or higher)
3) Worth borrowing/renting but not worth buying due to limited replay value
Rating:
Summary: A Waste of Technology
Review: I am very impressed with the graphics. The problem with this game is the lack of content. It is a frenzy of mindless carnage--just shoot shoot shoot. Like Serious Sam on steroids. To take a beautiful graphics engine such as this and use it to produce adolescent rubbish is a crime against technology.
Rating: 
Summary: Unreal graphics...so-so game play.
Review: I literally just finished Unreal 2. First and foremost I have to say this game has *amazing* graphics, top to bottom. The shadows, reflections, distances and so on are top-notch. On this level, this is a fantastic game. If you have a computer which is on the high-end side of the spectrum, you are in for a visual feast. However...the game itself is rather so-so. First of all, you never really feel that each mission is critical to the game. It feels more like a bunch of non-related tasks. Don't get me wrong, some of the tasks are quite fun, however it is really clear that the thrust of this game is all about the graphics...not the game play. Between missions you dock for a breifing, however the dialog between the other two main NPCs is just *bad*. Too many one-liners, and macho-insults. I like campy where needed, but this game is based on campy, and you never feel totally engrossed. Unreal 2 is an alright FPS, but unless you have a solid graphics machine, you won't find too much to love. Replay? Well, let's just say now that I am all done with the game, I uninstalled it right away. I may play this game again for the visual eye-candy, but not for the game-play. In fact, if I do re-install it, I am sure I will play a level or two, and remember why I unistalled it in the first place.
Rating:
Summary: Incredible
Review: When I first got this game installed on my new PC, I was thinking, "Well, this will hold me over until Doom III." I was absolutely wrong. Id software better have a storyline this time, because the Unreal II experience was like playing a gnarly sci-fi movie. The scripting is timed perfectly, the voice overs are entirely appropriate, the characters are lovable, the dialogue is funny. It was seriously like playing a Space Marine in the Alien movies, but better. And let's not forget about the awesomely huge and detailed visuals and the great sound and music. There is also an extensive amount of non-player character interaction. There are many missions where you get to command a squadron of Marines around, fight alongside them, tell the one dressed up in the Tank suit to go to the rear and tell the one with the Shotgun to head up front. You can set up perimeters to defend locations with force barriers, and there is a lot of tactical stuff that gave this game such a nice touch. Oh yeah, the weapons are balanced and way cool, too. Now, let's not forget the most important part: the content of the story. You and your crew are comprised of Marine Corps rejects - TCA Marshall John Dalton, your character, is a compassionate space cop who regularly disobeys the rules in the name of his own moral convictions, and consequently, has been put out of the Marine Corps for good. you patrol deep space enforcing the law and making sure that the power-hungry multi-planetary corporations aren't up to no good. This is a higly prophetic vision of the future, where big business extends its black arms into the deep regions of the universe where no watching eye can abate its quest for power. But the final betrayal to humanity comes from inside the government itself - it turns out that the power offered by the various alien Artifacts in the game is too much for even the government men to resist. I've been playing PC games since the late 80's, and it is rare indeed that a game like this comes along - This is one of those games that everyone must have.
Rating:
Summary: Dont expect it to be a sequel
Review: Unreal was a great game, Unreal 2 isnt. Three or four levels are good but the game as a whole is not worth the short amount of time it takes to play it. Very disapointing!
Rating:
Summary: Not much of an Awakening for the genre, but a good game. . .
Review: "Unreal II: The Awakening" isn't a very original first-person shooter, and this is an especially bad time to provide the gaming public with a formulaic action game, considering the amazing competition already sitting on store shelves, and the promising titles that will soon be shipping. That said, "Unreal II" is a very capable game, and should provide enough fps action to keep genre fans happy until the next thing rolls along. When all the hype is stripped away, it's not a great game, but a good one nonetheless. The plotline is pretty simple and unimportant. You portray a sort of intergalactic cop patrolling the backwaters of the universe, who happens upon a quest to collect the scattered pieces of an ancient alien artifact. Seeking the pieces of this artifact supplies the game with the ability to send you to various worlds, fighting various enemies, while providing minimal plot developments. It's all reason enough to play, though. Fortunately, your shipmates are rather colorful characters that you really get to know as the game progresses, since you return to your ship for briefings and chats on a fairly regular basis. It's a unique approach, and a nice change of pace, but it can be annoying as well, since the game forces you to go through these rather mundane situations a little too often. It is somewhat reminiscent of "Soldier of Fortune 2: Double Helix" in this regard, but implemented with a little more class and enthusiasm. On the action side of things, the game could have used more polish. Despite the stunning graphics on display, in gameplay terms this one seems dated much of the time. Your enemies display very little real intelligence, and usually just run wildly toward you or kick back and shoot at you from a distance without bothering to take any cover. On top of that, even the human characters move with a sort of superhuman speed, and their jerky gait makes them difficult to target with any precision. Of course, their stupidity will soon spell their end even so, as they'll eventually come so close within range of your weapons that you can dispatch them with relative ease. Shooting them isn't as much fun as it should be, since damage modeling is absent, and area specific damage is unpredictable. I once fired a sniper round into an opponent's knee and killed them instantly. Not exactly what I'd call realistic.
The weapons are nice, and offer the capacity for alternate modes of fire, which is a plus. Even standard fps weapons feel a little fresh, as the 'machine gun' exudes blue flame from its barrel and the shotgun can light enemies on fire (and yes, the fire effects are some of the best yet seen in a video game). Still, they feel a bit underpowered, thanks to the aforementioned issues. On top of that, you're sure to use some weapons far more than others - your pistol, for example, is a powerful weapon, but you are so limited by ammo that you'll rarely use it. So, given the problems I have just mentioned, how is the game fun at all? I mean, if combat is only somewhat gratifying in a game based around that combat, can it be worth the time and effort? Yes, actually, because of the game's mission design. I quickly concede that "Unreal II" provides some boring levels that are of the run-and-gun variety, but others force you to do more interesting things. You are often called upon to defend a given structure or person from potentially overwhelming odds - and you have laser beams and turrets that you can set up in preparation for the coming onslaught. It's like the assault and defend modes from "Unreal Tournament," and it's grand fun. More shooters should take note and provide similar missions, as they are tense, exciting, and even allow for strategic thought. Another mission charges you to defend a mechanic from rampaging aliens - only you're trapped in a high tower and can only protect him with your sniper rifle, which is easier said than done. Excellent stuff, reminiscent of developer Legend Entertainment's earlier (and better) fps, "The Wheel of Time." Another plus is that each planet you explore is remarkably different from the others that have come before it. Sure, you may face the same boring enemies from the previous stage, but the scenery is captivating, and it's hard not to wonder what eye candy lurks behind the next bend. "Unreal II' has excellent sound effects, a fitting musical score, and decent voice work. Your own character's vocal resemblance to actor Vin Diesel is quite amusing, and so is the generally horrible dialogue that spills from his mouth. (The game's one-liners could almost be ripped from B-movies circa the 1980s.) Needless to reiterate, the graphics are splendid, probably some of the best you'll see until Doom III hits store shelves. However, the game's environments are not very interactive - you can't shoot out glass or destroy computer terminals or what have you. In areas such as this, the game could have benefited from more attention to detail. It's also rather easy on the normal settings, and shouldn't take too long to finish (and when it's finished, the ending is inappropriately gloomy). All in all, though, "Unreal II" isn't the 'be-all, end-all' that Epic Megagames promised it would be (not by a long haul), but at its best, it can be a great deal of fun. At its worst, it's still a decent diversion. There are better games out there, but if you're an avid first-person shootist, you will probably get your money's worth, even at the full retail cost. Final Score: B
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