Unreal 2

Developer: Legend
Publisher: Infogrames
Estimated Release: Fall 2003
Unreal 2 official home page: http://www.unreal2.com/

Where’s the story

Legend Entertainment carries the banner for Epic in making Unreal 2: the Awakening. Unreal 2 will be single player only, focusing in on making the best possible story driven experience, since UT 2003 is already taking care of the multiplayer angle. The story this time around is that the player takes the role of a galactic police officer. Strange alien artifacts are being rediscovered in your system, sparking up battles over their possession. You have discovered a few of them yourself, and it’s your job to find out what these artifacts are and why certain factions are fighting for them.

Obligatory babe in skimpy outfit

Lovely outdoor scenes

Multiple ways to approach a mission

We were shown two different missions in our demonstration – the first one was an outdoor level, which the player has made an emergency landing on. Your ship has been damaged, and the ship’s mechanic needs time to fix the damage. Meanwhile, there are mercenary dropships patrolling overhead, looking for you in an attempt to take you out. The mission is to defend the ship for long enough to repair it and get off the planet.

The ship is located within a canyon, with a few possible avenues of attack. One of the ways you can approach the mission is to set up plasma fences down some of the open paths, which would funnel any troops away from those areas and down any openings you’ve left, creating a kill zone. You can then set up automated gun and rocket turrets in that kill zone to help you take on the incoming mercenaries. To do this effectively, you’ll need to spend time at the beginning of the mission going out and exploring the level, getting the lay of the land and setting up your barriers before the mercenaries drop in. Alternatively, you could leave everything open and try defending everyone right at the ship, although this method isn’t as wise in a tactical sense and would be much more difficult.

Look at that sky!

Burn baby, burn

The AI is smart enough to react to the barriers and traps you place. We also saw some of the AI enemies maneuvering behind cover. The mercenaries used their superior numbers fairly intelligently, always trying to get around the player while he was occupied with shooting someone else.

Drakk

The other mission I saw was set in a much less organic level – the homeworld of the Drakk, a planet overrun by sentient machines. The gloomy look and feel of the Drakk levels remind one of the “true Earth” revealed in The Matrix. One of the more creative elements on Drakk was the presence of fast moving repair druids. As you shoot and destroy the Drakk soldier bots, the repair droid comes around and repairs them, allowing them to get back up and start shooting again. Obviously they become a key target as you make your way around the planet.

Unreal 2 features 10 different planets and environments spread out over 13 missions, each with a couple of sublevels, making for a total of 30-35 levels. There are 14 weapons in the game, including a plasma pistol that can be charged up, an assault rifle with a grenade launcher, a sniper rifle, a shotgun, and a larger grenade launcher that has six different types of ammo. The different types of grenades force the players to make decisions as to which ones will be more appropriate for the opponent at hand. Incendiary and Toxic grenades obviously work better against organic enemies, while EMP grenades would be great against the robotic Drakk. There are also Stasis grenades that slow down time, a la Max Payne, although these were not demonstrated to me.

The boys are back

It’s also worth noting that the Skaarj make an appearance in Unreal 2 in dramatic fashion. In one of the levels you make your way up a long elevator shaft, when all of a sudden, the elevator stops its ascension. Looking up, you see the lights of all the upper floors go dark, one by one, starting from the top floor, on down until the darkness reaches your elevator, and the elevator’s lights go out. A couple of seconds pass until a large beast lands on the top of your elevator, tearing away at the top of it like a tin can, until finally you stand face to face with the glowing eyes of a Skaarj warrior. With moments like these, and interesting gameplay elements, Unreal 2 is shaping up to be a real winner