Unreal II: The Awakening

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Unreal II: The Awakening
Unreal II - The Awakening Coverart.png
Developer(s) Legend Entertainment [lower-alpha 1]
Publisher(s) Infogrames [lower-alpha 2]
Director(s) Mike Verdu
Glen Dahlgren
Producer(s) Michael Verdu
Glen Dahlgren
Mark Poesch
Programmer(s) Mark Poesch
Artist(s) Paul Mock
Writer(s) Bob Bates
Composer(s) Jack Wall
Clint Bajakian
Jeremy Soule
Crispin Hands
Series Unreal
Engine Unreal Engine 2
Platform(s) Microsoft Windows, Xbox
ReleaseMicrosoft Windows [1]
  • NA: February 4, 2003 [2]
  • EU: February 7, 2003
Xbox [3]
  • NA: February 10, 2004
  • EU: April 23, 2004
Genre(s) First-person shooter
Mode(s) Single-player, multiplayer

Unreal II: The Awakening is a first-person shooter video game developed by Legend Entertainment and published by Infogrames under the Atari brand for Microsoft Windows, the game was later ported to Microsoft's Xbox console by Tantalus. It is the sequel to the 1998 video game Unreal and part of the franchise of the same name. Cliff Bleszinski was an executive producer for the title. [4]

Contents

Plot

The player controls John Dalton, a former Marine veteran of the Human-Skaarj War and Marshal of the Terran Colonial Authority. His job is to patrol remote areas of space far away from any real action. However, he is called back into service when an ancient artifact is discovered in a ransacked mining facility on Elara V. This artifact is later revealed to be one piece of seven which, when assembled, create an ancient and powerful weapon. Tasked with retrieving the remaining pieces, he must contend with the Liandri and Izanagi corporations, the Skaarj, and other hostile powers who have their own designs on the artifacts.

Gameplay

The player moves through the game in first person and can shoot, interact with and speak to characters and objects they encounter throughout. Progress is made through each level by destroying enemies and taking actions to open up the path ahead, by interacting with the environment. When exploring enemy planets or bases, instructions and assistance are provided from a spaceship in orbit. Missions are defined by different planets or areas, with 'interlude' levels in between them where the player can explore said spaceship. During this time, the player can interact with other characters to enhance their equipment for the next mission.

eXpanded MultiPlayer

The scenery of the map 'Islands' Islands in EXpanded MultiPlayer.jpg
The scenery of the map 'Islands'

Unreal II: eXpanded MultiPlayer was developed by Legend Entertainment for Atari to deliver on the original promise to extend the original single player game Unreal II with a multiplayer functionality. The first playable version was released and made available for download on December 9, 2003. Almost nearing completion, the development of the game was suddenly halted by the unexpected close-down of Legend Entertainment on January 16, 2004. Unreal Tournament: Expanded Multiplayer (UT XMP) is a port of the same to Unreal Tournament 2004 .

Gameplay

XMP is a team-based game, where the players are split into two teams, red and blue. Both teams have a base with an Artifact Node. Each Artifact Node initially contains two Artifacts. The main objective is to steal the enemy's Artifacts and then register them at the Artifact Node belonging to the player's own team, but a team can also win by capturing and holding all generators, effectively draining the enemy team's energy.

Energy is required for almost everything in the game: weapons, vehicles and even the player's advanced movements. Autonomous mechanical defenses (so-called "Deployables") consume the most energy. Without energy, registering the enemy's Artifacts as their own cannot be done. Each map has a number of Generators which can be hacked by each team to provide energy. There are two separate supplies of Energy a player is concerned with: their team's Energy supply (the tall blue bar to the extreme lower right of the HUD) and their personal Energy reserve (the short yellow bar to the immediate left of the team energy bar). The personal Energy reserve is depleted when performing any of the 'advanced' functions of the game; i.e. hacking an object, deploying a turret or a mine, healing a teammate or activating jump jets. Some things, however, draw directly from the team's energy reserve, such as deployed turrets, or driving or firing from a vehicle. The player's personal reserve is refilled from the team's energy bank; therefore, if every team member 'spends' their energy frivolously, the team will soon find itself without defenses, vehicles, or even a place to register stolen artifacts. For this reason, a player should handle their energy responsibly, at least until their team has enough Generators under its control to support multiple energy-intensive activities.

In XMP, players can choose to spawn as one of three character classes. The classes have several different attributes, such as speed, armor and weapons. All classes have a stamina bar and the ability to sprint; sprinting roughly doubles the player's base speed (determined by their class) and depletes their stamina bar at a constant rate. In vehicles this is represented instead by a turbo bar, activated by the driver with the same key. The player's speed is represented by a tall blue bar to the lower left of the HUD and an abstract value next to it; stamina is represented by the short yellow bar to the immediate right of the speed indicator.

XMP has three vehicles: Raptor, Harbinger and Juggernaut. Like the player classes, each vehicle type has specific advantages and disadvantages over the other ones, like speed, armor and weaponry. Driving a vehicle or firing a vehicle weapon uses energy from the team's reserve. Throughout the battlefields are deployment points at which players can spawn after being killed. Most deploy points can be hacked like generators and hence taken over by the opposing team. Deployables can be deployed by a Tech or a Gunner. The Tech can place automatic weapons and force fields. The Gunner can place mines.

Reception

The game sold over 100,000 units in the German market by August 2003. [16] In the United Kingdom, it sold 40,000 units during the first half of 2003, which made it the fourth-best-selling computer game during the period. Kristan Reed of GamesIndustry.biz wrote that Unreal II's performance was "less than inspiring after the hype and expectation", and that "a slow descent into budget territory awaits the game". [17] In a 2019 retrospective, Hardcore Gaming stated that "Unreal II isn’t a bad game on its own, it’s just a different one". [18] [19]

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References

  1. ↑ Ported to Xbox by Tantalus.
  2. ↑ Infogrames, Inc. released the Microsoft Windows version under the Atari brand name. By the time it released the Xbox version, the company had been renamed Atari, Inc.
  1. ↑ "Unreal II: The Awakening Release Information for PC". GameFAQs. Archived from the original on 2010-11-24. Retrieved 2008-02-13.
  2. ↑ "Infogrames - Corporate Information". 2003-04-23. Archived from the original on 2003-04-23. Retrieved 2023-03-13.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
  3. ↑ "Unreal II: The Awakening Release Information for Xbox". GameFAQs. Archived from the original on 2011-10-01. Retrieved 2008-02-13.
  4. ↑ PC Gamer. "Meet The Next Game Gods". PC Gamer . Vol. 7, no. November 2000. Future plc. pp. 1, 70 & 84.
  5. ↑ "Unreal II: The Awakening for PC". GameRankings . CBS Interactive. Archived from the original on 9 December 2019. Retrieved 10 October 2014.
  6. ↑ "Unreal II: The Awakening Review for Xbox". GameRankings . CBS Interactive. Archived from the original on 9 December 2019. Retrieved 10 October 2014.
  7. ↑ "Unreal II: The Awakening for PC Reviews". Metacritic . CBS Interactive. Archived from the original on 5 April 2015. Retrieved 10 October 2014.
  8. ↑ "Unreal II: The Awakening for Xbox Reviews". Metacritic . CBS Interactive. Archived from the original on 29 November 2015. Retrieved 10 October 2014.
  9. ↑ Eurogamer Staff (6 February 2003). "Unreal II: The Awakening Review (PC). Review - Rob and Tom tackle the FPS game which really is due out on Friday". Eurogamer . Gamer Network. Archived from the original on 21 July 2015. Retrieved 10 October 2014.
  10. ↑ Reed, Kristan (2 March 2004). "Unreal II: The Awakening Review (Xbox). Another tired PC to Xbox conversion, or worthy companion to Halo?". Eurogamer . Gamer Network. Archived from the original on 21 December 2009. Retrieved 10 October 2014.
  11. ↑ Wolpaw, Erik (3 February 2003). "Unreal II: The Awakening Review (PC). It has the look and polish of a great shooter, but the gameplay of a merely good one. It's also a fairly short game with no multiplayer support to speak of". GameSpot . CBS Interactive. Archived from the original on 12 January 2016. Retrieved 10 October 2014.
  12. ↑ Colayco, Bob (13 February 2004). "Unreal II: The Awakening Review (Xbox). Xbox owners will be underwhelmed by this version of Unreal II because it plays and feels like a watered-down port". GameSpot . CBS Interactive. Archived from the original on 10 February 2014. Retrieved 10 October 2014.
  13. ↑ Accardo, Sal (31 January 2003). "Unreal II: The Awakening Review (PC)". GameSpy . Glu Mobile. Archived from the original on 27 April 2015. Retrieved 10 October 2014.
  14. ↑ Butts, Steve (29 January 2003). "Unreal II: The Awakening Review (PC). Like a favorite movie Unreal II fails to surprise but still manages to please". IGN. Archived from the original on 26 May 2015. Retrieved 10 October 2014.
  15. ↑ Boulding, Aaron (10 February 2004). "Unreal II: The Awakening Review (Xbox). Does the long-awaited sequel live up to the hype?". IGN. Archived from the original on 18 May 2015. Retrieved 10 October 2014.
  16. ↑ "VUD: Atari erhält Gold-Awards - GameStar". www.gamestar.de. Archived from the original on 30 November 2018. Retrieved 12 January 2022.
  17. ↑ Reed, Kristan (June 11, 2003). "UK Charts 2003: Summer Report". GamesIndustry.biz . Archived from the original on August 12, 2003.
  18. ↑ Prekurat, Maciej (April 20, 2019). "Unreal II: The Awakening – Hardcore Gaming 101". Hardcore Gaming 101. Archived from the original on January 21, 2021. Retrieved December 20, 2020.
  19. ↑ "Unreal 2: The Awakening - Test, Shooter". 4Players (in German). 10 June 2004. Archived from the original on 2022-11-13. Retrieved 2022-11-13.
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