Grass blows in the wind, character models are well-defined, and levels are meticulously detailed. When loading up the game for the first time, it's hard not to be impressed by Unreal II's beautiful graphics. There are a few moments of levity, but for the most part the dialogue and story are no better or worse than your typical summer action flick, and only towards the very end do things get interesting. Unfortunately, the majority of these cutscenes (at least early on) show little more than (a) your shuttle leaving the Atlantis and landing on a new planet (b) your shuttle leaving said planet and returning to the Atlantis. While many games would just flash you some text and drop you off on a new planet, Unreal II contains numerous cinematics (rendered in the game engine) that connect one mission to another. It's not necessary to your cause, and there's not much to see, but you can talk to characters and learn about their backgrounds, setting the stage for future events.įor what's essentially a full-tilt action game, Unreal II tries hard to create some atmosphere and tell a story. While on board, you often have the option of exploring the Atlantis, similar to Star Trek Voyager: Elite Force. Ne'Ban, a "muckety-muck" from an alien race, has recently been assigned as your ship's pilot (to keep him out of harm's way), and provides a good deal of comic relief with his purposefully bad English. Ship's engineer Isaak tends to chain smoke and doubles as your weapons expert. Aida, your first officer-ette, has the chest of Lara Croft and dresses like a Bon Jovi groupie. He's been trying to get re-enlisted in the Marines without much luck, but when fighting breaks out on multiple worlds, centering around seven mysterious alien artifacts, Dalton is called upon to help.Īboard the Atlantis, you have three crewmates who you can interact with between missions. Dalton's not particularly happy with his current TCA assignment, patrolling "the ass-end of nowhere" in his ship, the Atlantis. Unreal II is set in the same universe as the original game, but this time around you're playing Marshal John Dalton, an ex-space marine working for a cosmic police force called the Terran Colonial Authority. It's a good game, but too often resorts to recycling a number of first-person shooter clichés instead of breaking new ground. When objectives are completed, the player returns to the ship and the story advances based on new developments.Īfter nearly five years since Epic released the original Unreal, and after a mission pack, two Unreal Tournament games, and a slew of games licensing their next-generation engine, a true sequel has finally arrived: Unreal II: The Awakening.ĭeveloped by Legend Entertainment (who developed 1999's vastly overlooked The Wheel of Time), Unreal II is a solid and gorgeous-looking shooter, but rarely reaches higher than its more-of-the-same multiplayer sibling, Unreal Tournament 2003. Before each assignment, the player is briefed aboard the orbiting Atlantis. The game is designed so that the story-telling elements will not interfere with the player's immersion in the game world.
Missions vary from tactical hostage rescues and organized base defense to more conventional one-person search-and-destroy operations. Missions take place in ten different environments, with settings that range from a jungle planet thick with strange vegetation and dangerous creatures to an arid desert world spotted with the ancient ruins of forgotten civilizations. While the player's first responsibility must be the protection of the frontier citizens in the area, determining the cause of this sudden war could make that job a lot easier. Patrols seem routine and uneventful, until war breaks out unexpectedly in the area and the ship and its crew suddenly find themselves in the middle of a violent and dangerous conflict.
While the original Unreal put the player in the role of a convicted criminal, gamers play the part of a law enforcement agent in this story.Īs a Terran Colonial Authority Frontier Marshal in charge of the aging Atlantis starship, the player represents the very long arm of the law as the only enforcement officer in a distant sector of space.
Though the multiplayer-based Unreal Tournament enhanced the original game with fast action and customizable multiplayer gameplay, Unreal II is a full-fledged sequel to the popular 1998 first-person shooter, complete with diverse new single-player missions and a storyline that ties them all together. Unreal II: The Awakening offers gamers a new story that takes place in the universe introduced in the hugely successful original Unreal.
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