Unreal II: The Awakening (2003) - MobyGames (2024)

Unreal II: The Awakening (2003) - MobyGames (1)

Unreal II: The Awakening (2003) - MobyGames (2)

aka: Unreal 2

Moby ID: 8377

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Released
February 4, 2003 on Windows
Credits
227 people
Releases by Date (by platform)
  • 2003 (Windows)
  • 2004 (Xbox)
Publishers
  • Infogrames, Inc.
  • Epic Games, Inc.
Developers
  • Legend Entertainment Company
Moby Score

7.2

#11,463 of 25.6K
Critics
79% (43)
Players
(108)
Review Ranking
  • #715 on Xbox
  • #4,165 on Windows
Collected By
237 players
Genre
Action
Perspective
1st-person
Gameplay
Shooter
Interface
Direct control
Setting
Sci-fi / futuristic
Misc
Regional differences

Windows Specs

ESRB Rating
Mature
Business Model
Commercial
Media Type
CD-ROM, Download
Input Devices Supported/Optional
Keyboard, Mouse
Multiplayer Options
Internet, LAN
Number of Offline Players
1 Player
Number of Online Players
32 Players
[ view all 37 specs ]

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Add-on (official)

  • Unreal II: eXpanded MultiPlayer (2003)

Included in

  • Unreal Deal Pack (2008)
  • Unreal II: The Awakening - Special Edition (2003)
  • Unreal: Anthology (2006)
  • Unreal: Gold Edition (2004)

Description official descriptions

Some years after the Strider Wars, humanity has resumed its expansion into space. On the rough frontier, it falls to the Terran Colonial Authority to maintain peace and order among the outlying colonies and outposts. TCA Marshal John Dalton and the crew of his ship, the Atlantis, patrol this dangerous sector of space when several distress calls lead to the discovery of alien artifacts with unique properties. Soon, the hunt for these artifacts is on between several alien factions as well as human corporations and their mercenary forces, with the TCA and their allies caught in the middle.

The first-person shooter Unreal II, while a sequel to Unreal, has no direct connection to the first game except being set in the same universe (with the Skaarj from Unreal and the Liandri Corporation from Unreal Tournament being major enemy factions). The player controls John Dalton through a dozen missions, taking place in such locations as the dense jungle of a tropical planet, a research facility on a frozen moon, the insides of a planet-sized living organism, the home world of an insectoid machine civilization, as well as a huge starship.

The weapon arsenal consists of more than a dozen guns. Standard types include pistols, an assault rifle, shotgun, and sniper rifle. Some heavier ones are a flame thrower, as well as rocket and grenade launchers, with the grenade launcher being able to use six different ammunition types, including fragmentation, EMP and smoke grenades. Available in later missions are weapons adapted from alien technologies. These include various energy guns, a biological weapon that creates living spiders that attack enemies, and an autonomous floating orb that either seeks out and attacks enemies or circles around the player in point defense. As in other Unreal titles, each weapon has two different firing modes.

Missions are usually of the run-and-gun type, but there are exceptions. Several levels include defense assignments where either a position must be held for a certain time or a character be kept alive. These levels usually include additional tools such as energy barriers and automated turrets that can be placed by the player in any location. Sometimes, AI-controlled characters will be there to help out the player as well. In that case they can be given orders on which sector to defend or patrol, for example.

The story of the game is told through a variety of means: besides in-engine cutscenes, there is a lot of radio chatter during a mission; in fact, it's not unusual for mission objectives to completely change due to story developments. Between missions, Dalton can wander freely about the Atlantis and chat with his crew, going into their personal backstories as well as more details about the main plot.

Spellings

  • 虚幻II:觉醒 - Simplified Chinese spelling

Groups +

  • 3D Engine: Unreal Engine 2
  • Best of Infogrames / Atari releases
  • Console Generation Exclusives: Xbox
  • Games that include map/level editor
  • Protagonist: Black
  • Setting: Space station / Spaceship
  • Software Pyramide releases
  • Technology: amBX
  • Unreal series

Screenshots

Promos

Videos

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Credits (Windows version)

227 People (207 developers, 20 thanks) · View all

Project Director
  • Michael Verdu
  • Glen R. Dahlgren
Producer
  • Michael Verdu
  • Glen R. Dahlgren
  • Mark Poesch
Associate Producer
  • Grant K. Roberts
  • Craig Lafferty
Game Design
  • Michael Verdu
  • Glen R. Dahlgren
  • Scott Dalton
  • Grayson Edge
  • Aaron Leiby
  • Matthias Worch
  • James Parkman
Level Design
  • Scott Dalton
  • Grayson Edge
  • James Parkman
  • Matthias Worch
Additional Level Design
  • Ryan Pendleton
  • Severnaya
Office Manager
  • Rosie Freeman
Special Thanks
  • Rosie Freeman
  • NASA
  • Owen Keating
  • JP LeBreton
[ full credits ]

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 79% (based on 43 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.3 out of 5 (based on 108 ratings with 12 reviews)

Am I the only one who really enjoyed this game?

The Good
There is a great deal of disappointment surrounding this game. It looms over it with every opinion and review like a dark cloud. Maybe there was a lot of hype surrounding the game before it was released. Maybe people were promised more than the game gave. For me, I never even heard of the game until I picked it up, and I enjoyed just about every moment through it.

The game is nothing revolutionary. The graphics are top-notch, perhaps the best I've seen in a FPS so far, but aside from that the gameplay is reminiscent of old shoot-everything-and-then-pull-the-switch/push-the-button games like Doom. So if you were expecting more than that, you will be disappointed. But otherwise, the game is great. At least, I think so.

As I mentioned, the graphics are great. Really great. The colors in some of the landscapes - like the very first place you travel to - are very vibrant. Landscapes look almost completely devoid of jagged polygon edges, while indoor areas look appropriately outer-spacey.

Also, there are actual waves in this game, as well as reflections! Well, fake reflections, but they look real enough. As you swim through the water, you can see the waves react to your movement. Dive into a lake and watch the water ripple away as you crash into it.

Character models look great, and the voice acting is supurb. The writing might not be, but I think the voice acting is spot-on. A lot of people complained about the voice acting, but I feel it was the writing that was bad. For instance, at one part of the game you have to defend this scientist as he fixes a transmitter so you can escape, all the while you and him are tossing really dumb insults back at each other. "Did your mommy teach you how to fight?" "No, did yours teach you how to be an idiot?" Well, those aren't the exact things they said, but they were something dumb like that. Some of the writing is rather humerous, however. Like when the mechanic is trying to fix the ship and the blue pilot guy says, "I have read the manual; you have voided the warranty," or "Intercourse!" And there's ragdoll effects! Like when you blast a guy off the side of a hill, you can actually see him tumble and flip and fall down it. Or if you shotgun a guy over a desk, you can watch his body slump over it or slide off with a "clunk" as he hits the floor. Likewise, when you get killed, you get to watch your own corpse's death, which is usually quite entertaining - especially when you die on the side of a cliff and get to watch yourself tumble down it.

While there aren't many types of monsters, the few you fight are quite distinct, and you'll have to use a unique strategy for each type you fight. Some will run right toward you and start slashing at you - too fast to outrun, you'll have to find some way to either kill them before they reach you or set a trap or manage to fight them in close quarters. Others will fire at you from afar, and you'll have to take cover and try and get them before they get you. And some battles require you to actually set up a defense perimeter and set gun emplacements to help you defend against the enemy's onslaught. One of the very first missions requires you to travel through a swampy forest in the dark with several marines as a hundred monsters attempt to make you thier meal.

I also thought the story was good. It's nothing to make you go "whoa man, that's deep", but it's a lot better than "go out and save the world you gun-toting psycho!" like most FPS games are. Actually, the story in the game, right up until the end is pretty vague. You're not a hero out saving the world (or in this case, the universe). You're just doing missions for the army for your own personal reasons. I like that. Being the savior of the universe is fun and all, but I'm sick of doing it in every single game. This was a refreshing change.

Weapons are cool, but nothing spectacular. The flame thrower is a cool weapon, and particularly useful in the level you obtain it, where you fight hordes of spiders. Other interesting weapons include a spider-launcher thing, which covers your opponent in spiders and has an alterative fire that throws a green sack against the wall that explodes when anything gets near it. The sniper rifle is also pretty cool, due to its awesome range. You can zoom in so far as being able to count the hairs in your target's nose from a mile away!

Your character is also black. I don't know if this is necesarrily a good or bad thing, since I really don't care what color the character is, but I can't remember the last game I played in which the main character was black and didn't spend the entire game spouting off ebonics and pimp lingo. Finally, a step forward race-wise.

The characters in the game, I feel, were pretty deep. So many people are complaining about the lack of depth in the people, but...dammit, maybe I missed something, because this was one of those games where I didn't want anything bad to happen to my comrades. They each have a sort of history, and reasons as to why they're traveling with you, and the voice acting is great. I would have liked to have seen a sequel to this game, just to see more of the characters in it.

The Bad
While I liked the female's character, her outfit is annoying. I can just imagine the art department during one of their meetings:"This is the Aida model. We gave her a very sophisticated outfit as to-"
"Sophisti-wha? Pump her tits up a size or two and give her something skimpy."
"What? Why? She's not just some ditzy-"
"I said do it! I'm in charge here! Who gots the hot dogs? I gotta get me a hot dogs! DO IT I SAID!!! WE GOTTA GET THE G'S TO PLEASE!"

Erm. Sorry, I got carried away there. I just mean that, there's no reason for her to be dressing that way. It's obvious that she looks the way she does just to increase game sales, if nothing else, because not once in the game does she do or say anything that's the least bit seductive. She's deep and sophisticated, not some ditz.

Most of the game, the graphics are wonderful and the textures are very high-res...yet...in one part of the game, all the textures seem to have been imported from Wolfeinstein or something, because they were the worst looking textures I've ever seen! They could have been drawn in Paintbrush! I literally restarted the game the first time I saw it, thinking something had screwed up with my video card or something.

Some parts of the game were tough, but not the ones you'd really think. Some missions require you to defend a certain location, which you would think would be some of the hardest missions. Well, aside from one mission, I was able to breeze through these. One I remember, you had to defend some scientists, while these ninja-chicks attacked in waves. Right when the battle started, I took off the other way, trying to reach the top of the building so that I might be able to destroy the attackers from the roof. Unfortunately, I never found the roof, but the mission was a success anyway, because the marines traveling with me were able to defend it all by themselves! I never even fired a shot! Honestly, I think it's great that you have some buddies to help you fight in some missions, but it should at least require you to do SOME of the work to beat the missions. Another mission had this problem.

As I've said before, the gameplay is nothing revolutionary. It's all just running around, killing anything that attacks you, and then moving on to the next part. There's a lot of variety - like defending a base, or placing gun emplacements and such, but they're few, and between those is a lot of run-and-gun gameplay.

The Bottom Line
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***

Good:
+Great graphics.
+Story isn't too cliche'd.
+Ragdoll effects!.
+Good voice acting.
+Interesting and unique characters.
+Different types of missions.
Neutral:
oSystem requirements are a bit high, and as usual the "recommended" specs don't mean squat. Great graphics if you got it, though.
oTypical run-and-gun first person shooter. You've seen it before. Maybe didn't look this good, but you've seen it before.Evil:
-Aida's outfit is obviously targeted at thirteen year old sexually frustrated idiots.
-Linear levels.
-Not enough interaction with the other characters.
-Bad, bad textures in the alien place.
Score:
8.0/10All these bad reviews don't seem right. If you're expecting something revolutionary, like I said, you will be disappointed. But if you're looking for a standard FPS with great graphics and interesting characters, with GOOD voice acting for a change, Unreal II is a great game.

Windows · by kbmb (415) · 2003

What a BORE !

The Good
The graphics are nice.

The Bad
The gameplay is BORING.The actors are BORING.The music and sound are BORING.

The Bottom Line
Well, well, this is the successor to a game that wanted to revolutionize the genre from within and partially succeeded.The hype was high on this one, and it got pretty good ratings, but is it really a good game?Depends on what kind of gamer You are.The casual gamer will like the easy gameplay, linear level design and not-so-deepimmersion. The games player will like the graphics and soon turn to something else.The hardcore gamer will probably turn to something else 6 hours later after he played through U2 once.

U2 is very light, it features some great graphics and environments, and it also offers a plot.That's all I can say neutrally.

The plot is boring, the characters are so superficial that the helpless try of giving them depth through conversation is in vain.The hero is quite strange, and hard to identify with.The story is very linear and the enemies You encounter a pretty faceless.The infamous Skarrj appear only rarely, the boss enemies are mostly huge, and the weapons are pretty unimaginative.

Conclusion: nice to see, but it has no identity.

Windows · by Emmanuel Henne (23) · 2003

Under-rated FPS and a decent Coda for the Legend developers.

The Good
This game is set in the Unreal universe, but has little to do with the original Unreal game. Legend Entertainment has always included a good story in their games. Unreal II is no exception. You meet interesting characters, competently acted by skilled performers. The storyline is original in the sense that it completely borrows from a plethora of movies and computer games. I saw elements from Aliens, Anachronox, Half-Life, Starship Troopers, and numerous others. It’s a B movie scripting, but its good B movie scripting. Any fan of Sci Fi would probably enjoy this game on that level. The ending was actually a surprise. The script and game play worked well together.

The environments are breathtakingly beautiful and a good way of showing off your DirectX 9 compliant video card. The sound is equally well done. No drops in audio, and a consistently clear sound even when there is chaos all over the place. The rat-tat-tat of the machine gun was satisfying and the missile launcher throom had a thrilling roar to it. The models were really well done and fascinating to watch. I admit that I found a single contradiction slightly disturbing. Aida is the mandatory scantily clad tomboy. She looks like a young woman but sounds like lunch lady Doris from the Simpsons.

The main character, Dalton, does more than shoot aliens. He talks with the crew and interacts with them on a personal level. Aida and the Engineer have a sorted past that they are hoping to rectify by serving with Dalton. Also on board is a pilot of distant origins named Ne'ban. One of the running gags of the game is Ne'ban's mis-use of the English language. In one scene, Ne'ban yells out "Intercourse!" in a fit of frustration.

Aida is the tactical officer and worried mother figure to Dalton. Shockingly enough, they aren't romantically involved. She and the engineer have an ongoing disenchantment with each other that Dalton helps to work out.

The game levels were very well designed and spooky. Instead of throwing enemies at you non-stop, they let you wander around and get ambushed. A few levels required you to wait and defend until a certain a certain goal was achieved. While not a new convention, they were well done and designed to maximize tension as you heard your fellow soldiers return fire and scream when injured. The enemies always have a signature sound indicating an impeding attack. This builds anticipation as you look around for it.

The diversity of weapons and their resulting effects were spectacular. Causing great death and destruction. Watching your enemies go down in a ball of flame has never been so gratifying in recent memory.

And there is at least one scene that is laugh out loud funny. Play it if you're curious.

The Bad
All the guns have similiar levels of destruction. It’s also pretty short. You can wander around and attack enemies without a response until the script triggers it.

This game is LINEAR. No options of game play. Very few opportunities for tactical game play. I found myself able to kill a few monsters by lobbing a missile while they walked to a set point in a script.

While the Skaarj are back and hard to kill, they are the only returning characters I could remember from the original. Nai aren't there. Very little mention of anything from the original.

With the exception of the ending theme, I thought the music was obnoxious and relied too heavily on worn out synth themes and rhythm patterns. If there ever was a game that I wish had a jukebox feature, this one is it.

The Bottom Line
A light fare FPS with gorgeous graphics, a good story and great sound. Its way under-rated for entertainment value.

Windows · by Scott Monster (986) · 2004

[ View all 12 player reviews ]

Trivia

German version

In the German version, all blood and gore effects were removed. Also some corpses in the levels were replaced or removed. The later released Special Edition is not affected.

John Dalton

The main character's last name, Dalton, was based on Scott Dalton, one of Unreal II's game designers. The developers tried to avoid the name collision for a while, but in the end "Dalton" just seemed to work best for the game and was used in the final product.

Multiplayer and delisting

A patch to this game adds multiplayer, vehicles and new weapons. It is called Expanded Multiplayer or Unreal II XMP.

The game's original online master servers were shut down on 31 May 2014 alongside other GameSpy servers. Unlike with the Unreal Tournament spin-off series, Epic Games would not host their own master server for Unreal II (despite the 2022 shutdown notice erroneously referring to it).

Like other games in the series, Unreal II was delisted from Steam on 14 December 2022 and GOG.com on 23 December 2022.

References

  • Coincidence... or not? The player character, sometimes appreviated as "U2", is named John Dalton. In the late 1980's, the Irish rock group U2 would sometimes dress up as a country western band and open for their own shows. The name of the group?: The Dalton Brothers.
  • An NPC in the tutorial area muses about getting himself two flags and conducting a some kind of tournament. An obvious reference to the Unreal Tournament series of games.

Seagoat

The Seagoat, the alien, bunny-like pet that shows up on the player's ship during mid-game, was created very early on in development and originally thought to be a huge, bovine creature that could inhabit one of the alien worlds in the game. During development, the name "Seagoat" started to stick for the creature, and it was greatly reduced in size and given the role of cute, slightly weird pet.

Voice acting

Even though all other voices for the game were performed by professional actors, Ne'Ban, the ship's alien pilot, is voiced by one of the developers (Grant Roberts).

Awards

  • GameStar (Germany)
    • Issue 04/2009 - One of the "10 Most Terrible Sequels" ( It is a good game in its own right but forgettable and far from being as groundbreaking as Unreal. The technical potential goes to waste because the player mostly walks through illogical and linear levels instead of being outdoors.)
  • PC Powerplay (Germany)
    • Issue 03/2005 - #6 Biggest Disappointment

Information also contributed byMatthias Worch,St. Martyne andSTU2

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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by Riley Beckham.

Xbox added by Kartanym.

Additional contributors: KSlayer, Unicorn Lynx, Rebelteen, Sciere, Patrick Bregger, Plok.

Game added February 9, 2003. Last modified November 24, 2024.

Unreal II: The Awakening (2003) - MobyGames (2024)

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