Game: Unreal 2

by Crom & D4V

D4V: After a 7 month hiatus of the tag team review, we are back in full force as a special treat for the inauguration of issue 3.0. However, we couldn’t have picked a shittier game to review than Unreal 2.

Crom: Truly, most special events have something worthwhile to talk about. Sadly, we managed to find a meaningless pile of turd instead. So, Unreal 2, long awaited sequel. At first I was kind of excited, I knew it was another FPS and I’ve played it before basically, but I was interested to see what they were going to throw at us this time. Too bad they threw fecal matter.

D4V: But man.. does that fecal matter ever look good in Unreal2. Sadly the only thing I can appreciate about this game is the stunning graphics that it uses. Running at 1280×1024 with everything turn on to the max looks outstanding. However, some of the coding is flawed; such as shadows, which are extremely varied. What I mean is it might be totally dark, and you gun is fully lit (or vice versa). The other thing that bugged me was the fact that firing your gun did absolutely nothing in terms of lighting. So if you are in the dark and can’t see shit, don’t bother firing your gun, you’ll just waste ammo.

Crom: That’s a good point, and is reflected in a specific point in the game. In an elevator the aliens you’re attacking manage to cut the power, so there you are, stuck in the elevator waiting for something to happen. Evidently pages stolen from the hand book of “HalfLife” were integrated at this point, because the glass is smashed out and they attack you in the dark. Like Hudson going out in a blaze of glory I shot wildly at the Aliens, of course it didn’t help, I still couldn’t see a damn thing. The graphics were a bit hazy, occasionally skipping frames, and a few times actually failing to render the alien I was fighting.

D4V: Ugh.. my number one thing that I can’t stand in games these days are cut-scenes, they are normally totally useless, and honestly I couldn’t give two shits about the “story” I just want to play the damned game. Unreal 2 takes the cake on the fact that you cannot skip the freakishly long cut-scenes. Secondly, the interface on how to be briefed for your mission and such is just a pain in the arse. You have to run around your ship and talk to people then jump into your “pod” to start your mission. Then you are treated to MORE cut-scenes. I swear it feels like you watch cut-scenes for at least 80% of the time while playing this shitshow.

Crom: All in all, this game doesn’t offer anything worth installing it for. It’s no different from all the other First Person Shooters out there, and on occasion is actually worse. The weapons read like an A-list of things that ALWAYS have to be in a FPS game, and don’t really offer any originality. The cut scenes are very brutal, lasting for 10 minutes at a time, and telling you things you couldn’t care less about. I can see where the creativity of having to go around the ship and speak to the various personnel is interesting, but the fact that you can’t avoid it, only makes pulling the trigger on your head that much more of a reality. As far as I’m concerned, there aren’t enough gongs to ring for this POS.

D4V: Well said Crom. Just to add on one final thing on the weapons, the flamethrower was actually really cool; alas that’s where the innovation (and not much of it) ended. That said, there is absolutely no reason to bother buying or even trying this game. It just sucks, and the fact that there is ZERO multiplayer capability just makes it even worse. In the meantime get Unreal Tournament 2003 instead, at least that’s kinda fun.

  • Game: Unreal 2
  • by Crom & D4V
  • Published on March 1st, 2003
Game:
Unreal 2
Rating:
Crom 2¼/10; D4V 2/10
Website:
unreal2.com

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