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In space, no one can hear you yawn

Unreal 2 tries to hold all this stuff together by making John Dalton part of a crew. Between each of the game's disjointed missions, he goes back to his ship and chats with the rest of the crew. At least that's how the developers would have liked it to go. In reality, before you can start a mission, you have to initiate a briefing with the chesty Aida, who will lock the door until she's done. I found this out the hard way. Once I realized the missions were entirely linear and there was no need for me to sit through this chick's exposition, I tried to leave as soon as she launched into some yarn about a scientist who needed rescuing or a secret base where they're studying alien artifacts. I just want to get to the shooting, but she had cleverly locked me in. Pretty smart for a woman who can't even pronounce her own name. Of course, maybe in the future 'Aida' really is pronounced 'Ida'. Maybe in the future tough military women wear their hair in sorority girl ponytails on top of their heads. Maybe in the future they also go on long mixed-gender interstellar voyages with their breasts all but hanging out.

Giving orders

How about a little fire?

Blue man

For comic relief there's a little blue guy who speaks poor English, sort of like Balki from Perfect Strangers, but little and blue. Then there's the weapons guy who describes the alt-fire for all the guns as they're doled out over the course of the storyline. This is helpful for people who don't know what a manual is. This guy's backstory is that he's an alcoholic, which isn't really surprising since he chain smokes like a fiend and sounds like he's had his share of recreational chemical indulgence. For some reason, the Mysterious Alien Artifacts that Control the Destiny of the Universe are just left lying around on a table in his room. Very clever, since the merciless corporate spies and bloodthirsty aliens would never think to look there. As the artifacts accumulated on this guy's desk, I had an uneasy feeling that they were eventually going to be assembled into some sort of fruity superhero costume that I was going to have to wear by the time the game ended (thankfully, I was spared that fate).

Kicking ass and soothing psyches

These sequences might have been more successful if they weren't so poorly written and if they didn't feel like filler. In lieu of camaraderie, there are lame jokes and bad dialogue that's just earnest enough that you can't enjoy it on a Max Payne level. You never get to play as any of the other characters and they don't even go on any of the missions with you. Half way into the game, each character suddenly develops a backstory, as if you cared. John Dalton tries to patch up everyone's haunted past with a few 'chin up, buckeroo' pep talks and even a dash of pop psychology about not blaming yourself. These are pretty funny, since our hero seems to be patterned after Vin Diesel. Which means he can't deliver a convincingly spoken line to save his life.

Let it snow

Is that supposed to happen?

Mr. Pessimism

It's not until the very end of the game that you understand why the developers went to all this trouble to try to simulate camaraderie. The ending works nicely, but it's a lot of work for an unconventional payoff. After all that time chatting with the crew, moving from the briefing room to the weapons locker to the hangar, there isn't even a mission set on the ship. It's all in the service of a final manipulative punch line before the credits roll. Half of me wants to admire the developers at Legend for trying this, but the other half really wishes the whole process hadn't been so clumsy and ham-handed.