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Get to the shooting already

Okay, storyline and settings aside, gunplay can rescue a game like this, can't it? After all, Unreal Tournament 2003 looks great, so you'd think Unreal 2 would measure up as an excuse to shoot a lot of fancy weapons at a lot of tricky bots.

You're only about 15% right. Most of the gameplay is dull running and gunning, one room or hallway at a time. The AI is the sort of canned stuff that lets you snipe a guy while his buddy stands around staring at a wall. Toss a toxic grenade at a pair of guards with their backs turned and if it doesn't hit them square on, they'll just stand there until you do the right thing to activate them. The AI's cleverness appears limited to its ability to switch weapons; if you get close enough to someone with a rocket launcher, he'll whip out a flamethrower or maybe try to smack you with his rifle butt. And, of course, in the two levels with Skaarj, they exhibit their infamous gymnastic rolls to the left and right as they charge you. The most memorable monsters are packs of hooting space monkeys in the first part of the game. By the time you're facing the dreaded bio-mechanical super evil aliens at the end of the game, you'll fondly recall what it was like to shoot at things as animated and vivid as the hooting space monkeys. Hooting space monkeys, we hardly knew ye.

Obligatory spiders

My, what big mandibles you have

Got gas?

But the 15% of the shooting that stands out are about a half dozen sequences where you have to hold off waves of attackers. At first, these are rigidly scripted. You're running around with some autonomous friendlies fighting battles that should have played out like Halo, except for the fact that Unreal 2 doesn't have half the personality of Halo. Eventually, these defensive missions throw in some tactics by letting you place turrets, walls, and friendly marines. Most of these missions are timed, ostensibly so you can protect some soft unarmed little dude trying to accomplish a repair or hack a computer.

Keystone Kombat

These little flexible battles stand out from the rest of the game, but they're not as good as they could have been. The engine is really pushed to its limits when you get more than five or six characters firing their dynamically lit laser bolts and whatnot at each other. Framerates go way south during these sequences. And unfortunately, the AI doesn't exhibit any of the ersatz cleverness you'll find in Unreal Tournament. Instead, friendlies and enemies fumble around, bumping into each other, setting each other on fire, and generally just getting in the way of a good gunplay session.

Laser obstacle course

More spiders

A little something for close encounters