Unreal II: The Awakening

                      Reviewed by Nick

Following closely on the heels of the multiplay only game Unreal
Tournament 2003 comes the single player only game Unreal II: The
Awakening.  Developed by Legend Entertainment, the creators of
Wheel of Time, UII:TA was released amidst much anticipation from
the gaming community as the Unreal franchise has a reputation for
pushing the boundaries of graphics and gameplay, but has
unfortunately received rather a lukewarm reception.  With a
significantly different style and pace to the recent Tournament
games UII:TA is really aimed at a different market altogether and
as such has disappointed many online gamers.

You play John Dalton an ex space marine with a chip on his shoulder
and a similarly misfit crew.  Aida, the surly space vixen and
tactician (sort of like a futuristic Carol Vorderman), Isaac the
grouchy weapons technician and recovering alcoholic and Ne'Ban the
cutesy alien pilot. You and your crew are patrolling the edge of
human space for the TCA (Terran Colonial Authority) when you answer
a distress call, which inevitably ends up involving you in a
conspiracy. While investigating a planetary station you discover
that a set of artefacts have been excavated across several planets.
The nature of these items is initially unknown but it soon becomes
apparent that they must be kept out of the hands of the other
agencies and races looking for them.

Thus the alien treasure hunt begins.  The seven artefacts (why are
there always seven of anything that has to be collected? all plot
writers can't be aware of Millers (1956) magic number theory) are
scattered across several worlds. This provides an opportunity for
the Unreal II engine to do its stuff as you explore the alien
landscapes each with fantastically rendered climates and
topography.  Which brings us neatly to Aida's breasts which also
require the benefit of science fiction in order to exist. As ever
all this graphical splendour comes at a price and many have found
that the suggested minimum system specification is really a bare
minimum and if at all possible recommended spec should be followed.

Between each mission is an unskippable cut scene and an enforced
return to the mother ship for a mission briefing. Whilst on the
ship you are free to wander around in a faux adventure style having
multiple choice conversations with the scurvy crew in order to do a
little background revealing and part time social work.  Although
not necessary to advance the plot or even start a mission, these
options attempt to provide an insight into your crews backgrounds -
however they end up making you feel as if another dimension to the
gameplay was intended and later abandoned.

Cannon fodder encountered during your missions include space
monkeys, Skaarj (making a welcome return from the first Unreal),
mutant spiders, and (the now compulsory unit of any personal army)
the genetically engineered female mercenaries. While you are out
there shooting this lot the deranged Isaac is busy tweaking your
weapons which he delights in telling you about between missions.
In fact Isaac is so excited by tinkering with your weapon that you
soon have an impressive personal arsenal - some of which are
completely bonkers; like the spider gun, which your man Isaac
cobbles together out of alien technology and which does exactly
what it says on the tin - although at times it feels like there are
almost too many weapons available.  And as each weapon also has an
alternative fire function as well, you're never short of options
regarding firepower. Surprising then, given the availability of
weapons, that the weapon change is activated via the scroll wheel
or with the 1 - 4 keys which makes accessing the available options
a little awkward. A similar issue, and one that has particularly
galled online gamers, is that the 'jump' and 'dodge' functions are
assigned the same key.  This, rather unsportingly, means your man
is nowhere near as athletic as the enemy, but hey it's not the
Olympics it's a shooter, so shut up and shoot.

UII:TA attempts to differ from a typical shooter by incorporating
gameplay strategies over the levels.  Slotted between the standard
shooter fare are a few different styles of mission where, e.g.
your task is to defend a base and colleagues in a frantic 'hold the
fort' scenario, or to provide protective fire with a sniper rifle
as enemies approach a distant repairman. While these missions and
different settings do add variety to the game it's not quite enough
to set tongues a-wagging.

I appreciate that it's difficult to come up with an entirely
original idea for anything, but UII really is chock full of
stereotypes from the clich‚d characters to the Halflife style
accident in a science lab.  In fact there's not much here that
hasn't been done before and it's more than a bit Jedi Knight, Elite
Force and any other shooter you can think of. Although if we look
past the uninspiring story we see that UII:TA is less cartoony than
previous Unreal episodes, and the attempt at characterisation and
story meshing, and even the melodramatic finale belie it's
cinematic ambitions. UII:TA had the potential to amalgamate the
action and adventure genres in the manner of Deus Ex, but hasn't
delivered the goods.  While there's little innovation here and much
of it has been done better previously we can't expect every new
game to revolutionise the way we play.  UII:TA looks good, is
stylishly done, and there's an enjoyable ten hours gameplay to be
had here.


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