Graphically Outstanding, but other aspects weaken...
"I am already there, toots" - John Dalton.
You're John Dalton, you're Marshall of the Space Marines(or somethin', played this game a long time ago and since I don't have my PC right next to me with the game at the moment, I may not give more specific information, but I know enough) and your superiors have downgraded you thus taking away your Marine status and giving you a bit worse missions than you have had before. So you get back to your ship, meet Aida and Isaac and some alien Ne'ban. You get a distress call from some Liandri Mining Corporation saying that aliens attacked them after they have discovered some artifact(Liandri? From UT? Why can't they just send their Gorge or Malcolm to take care of it). You go down, get the artifact and finally find out that there are 7 of artifacts, your next objective will follow after you actually buy the game or read a spoiler walkthrough, which this is not.
Story:
One of the weaker aspects of the game, the Story may not satisfy you in all possible ways but it is alright, since the Story itself is not main problem of the game... it is the way the Story is being told. \. Right before each mission, you are going to have a lengthy briefing of your mission before you can actually go out and get to the thing, it happens so often and it is so lengthy that you may not want to listen to it no more. Since the briefing is the main source of the story of the game(you don't get much story during the missions), it hurts the story altogether no matter how good the plot is. Another bad thing of Unreal's 2 story is that it has almost no connection to the original Unreal. It did infact have a little, while I was playing Unreal's expansion - Return to Na'pali, there was a mention of 'Dalton and Marshall' in the logs, but it was so small and unnoticable so I thought that there is not going to be a sequel with Dalton in it.
The Good:
1. Good enough story for a game of it's time.
The Bad:
1. A way of getting the story across.
2. Little or no connection(depending if you played a rather bad expansion of Unreal 1) to it's original game.
SOUND:
The sound overall is pretty good, monster sounds are alerting but not too distinctive. Sarcastic remarks(quotes above) by Dalton and Aida keep up some of the amusing feel of the game. But there is a downfall again... remember the briefing I mentioned in the Story? Oh ya, it is pretty bad in here too. It is just a fact that you get to hear Aida and Isaac way too often, and since their 'story-telling' isn't as great as it could've been, their voices become a bit annoying. Nothing much to tell though, just some goods and bads.
The Good:
1. Dialogue during the missions with occuring funny and sarcastic remarks keeps the gameplay a bit more entertaining.
The Bad:
1. The Briefing!
GAMEPLAY: If you don't feel like reading all this, scroll down to good/bad.
This is frankly the worst part of our lil game right here. Where to start... it pains me to mention that the briefing burns the Gameplay as well - lengthy dialogues is something that every game should avoid. There is no apparent way to avoid going on to your mission without talking to Aida, and the Loading Time afterwards makes a nasty combination of time-wasting.
Like in Unreal 1, every weapon has an alt-fire. In Unreal 1, I liked it because all of them were quite balanced and I used all of them occasionally, in Unreal 2 on the other hard - some alt-fire's of the weapons are practically useless unless you're using it for a specific move that is Required to kill someone, Unreal 2 just has too much weapons to carry around, you may not even use some of them, it is not necessarily a bad thing - but switching is a bit tricky in Unreal 2. One more bad thing about Unreal 2... in open areas - it takes you awhile to get around... John Dalton walks so slow, it gets annoying. If you're walking carefully on a some ledge and you fall... guess what - you're going to have to walk again just to get somewhere Gordon Freeman could've mashed 'Sprint' and got there in seconds. The AI of the enemies are pretty good, the Zigzagging Skaarj are a nice touch but may get annoying. The battle with humans is sometimes tedious due to the fact that you can't possible dodge any of their bullets against a human with an automatic rifle unless you have cover - so you can only win if you have a certain amount of health left. The Boss fights are bad, I have found a way to kill one with no effort or health loss, even on Hard...Another good thing about this game is that there is a Strategic approach to most of it's parts that will either let you blow everyone up in one grenade or have you fight all the monsters at once thus injuring you. Strategic thinking of this game forces you to use different weapons - you will not be able to spam only one weapon on hard mode or you will die.
The Good:
1. Good weapon projectile.
2. Strategic approach to the FPS game.
3. Good Zigzagging AI of the Skaarj, but gets a bit annoying sooner.
4. A possible use of Ragdoll Effect on John Dalton upon death.
Ragdoll Effect was first used in 2002 so it is quite possible, but I cannot determine.
The Bad:
1. Hard Weapon Switching/Too many weapons
2. John Dalton walks incredibly slow.
3. Briefing and Loading Time is a nasty combination.
4. Boss Fights are not developed properly, a simple exploit can beat the boss with no effort.
GRAPHICS:
I am very tired of saying bad things about the game... let's talk about the good. The Graphics are purely brilliant, they look very close to the Graphics of Half-life 2... outdoors are great, indoors are great too. Great Weapon projectiles, great atmosphere in a dark forest. Fire looks very very good for the game of that time. Epic has always been great with it's graphics, anytime you expect a game from them, expect a great polish and detail - everything you need for a satisfacting view. Best graphics of 2002.
The Good:
1. Great Atmosphere.
2. Great Weapon Projectiles.
3. Good Shadows...
The Bad: None
OVERALL:
Unreal 2 is a game that looks absolutely amazing. Unreal 2 has an ok gameplay and story, but it may get absolutely annoying to some people. Fans of Unreal series may not like it because it doesn't include any of the weapons used in UT and the original Unreal. The only monster used in past series in this game was Skaarj, you may see the mention of Brutes or Krall in there, but no actual fight.
This game is an okay game. It doesn't hold anything special and it does have some annoying problems, but if you like FPS, you may want to try it.
SCORE: GAMEPLAY - 6 STORY - 7 GRAPHICS - 10
OVERALL: 76.7%