Unreal II: The Awakening

Unreal 2: The Awakening is described as a sequel to Unreal, though many of the story elements, including characters and locations, are entirely unrelated to the original. The game was released to stores on February 4, 2003.

History

Primary development on Unreal 2 was performed by Legend Entertainment, with some assistance by Epic Games, and published by Atari.

Demo

Unreal 2

After much delay, the Unreal II demo was finally released on May 1st, 2003. It included one level from the Single-player campaign.

XMP

The Demo for XMP was released on December 5th, 2003 and included one map, XMP-Garden, out of the 8 maps included with the XMP addon.

Release Details

• February 4, 2003 - Unreal 2 release
• December 9, 2003 - eXpanded MultiPlayer (XMP) addon
• December 9, 2003 - Unreal 2 SE (PC)
• December 9, 2003 - Unreal 2 SE (Xbox)

Reception

While Unreal 2 received above average review scores from most of the major game news outlets, it was not received well at all. The most common complaints were that, while it looked pretty, the game did not have much depth nor any replayability to speak of. The game did gain somewhat of a cult following sometime after the XMP addon was released, however this community focused more on the multiplayer aspect of the game, with the single-player campaign receiving very little time or attention.

Most people dislike Unreal 2 in name only. The game had relatively little to do with the original game, including leaving out any characters, location, and most enemies from the first game. Some people agree that the game is fine as a game, but is not by any means a sequel to Unreal.

Game Content

Engine

Upon release, Unreal 2 utilized build 2001 of the Unreal Engine 2 (verify?). Upon release of the XMP addon, the game utilized build 2226. The game appears to use a different series of build enumerations from the base Unreal Engine, as the XMP release was described as build 6496, with patches to 6497 and 7710 (the latest patch).

Music

Jack Wall (Tommy Tallarico Studios), Clint Bajakian (Tommy Tallarico Studios), Jeremy Soule (Artistry Entertainment), Crispin Hands (Artistry Entertainment), Brian Min (Wedding Productions), Chance Thomas and Richard Schneider are credited for working on the music in Unreal 2.

Most of the music files of Unreal 2 use DirectMusic, and only the cutscenes use OGG Vorbis format. There are some additional music tracks that were not used in the game. Overall the music is very cinematic and uses much effects.

OGG tracks

Direct Music tracks

Note: they have .con extension and needs special software to play.

Gametypes

The base game of Unreal 2 is a single-player mission. A multiplayer addon was released in December 2003, known as XMP (eXpanded Multi-Player).

Weapons

• Dispersion Pistol (LEPEW-13, T-13 Popgun)
• Combat Assault Rifle (CAR, M32 Duster)
• Grenade Launcher (M406 Hydra)
• Shotgun (M700, Crowd Pleaser)
• Flamethrower (Vulcan)
• Magnum (Avenger, Grace)
• Rocket Launcher (Shark)
• Sniper Rifle (Widowmaker)
• Energy Rifle (Shock Lance)
• Spore Cannon (Spider Gun)
• Drakk Laser
• The Takkra (Drakk Hunter)
• Singularity Cannon
• Auto Turret
• Rocket Turret
• Force Wall
• Proximity Sensor

Vehicles

• Raptor
• Harbinger
• Juggernaut

Races

• Humans (Terran Colonial Authority)
• Liandri Angels (Liandri Corporation)
• Ghost Warriors (Izanagi Corporation)
• Skaarj
• Drakk
• Kai
• Tosc
• Izarians
• Araknids

Characters

• John Dalton
• Aida
• Isaak
• Ne'Ban
• Sector Commander Hawkins

Maps

The single-player maps are included in the base game of Unreal 2. The XMP maps are included in the XMP addon.

Single Player

XMP

Cut content

Almost one fourth of the game was cut from Unreal two. The content that was cut include:

Three races that includes nine or more enemies (N, Striders, Shian)

The N are trans-dimensional aliens that can occupy many simultaneous places in space and time. In reality, there are only three N – but because they can somehow be in more than one place at once, there appear to be hundreds of thousands of them. N weapons are all ranged and psi-based – and each of the three N has a different weapon. You can't really 'kill' an N – when you shoot one, the weapon simply depletes the energy used to fold space and time at that particular node of the N.

There were three different N that could clone itself. None of the content was included, although some of the OGG tracks might have been used for their levels. See the main article for more information.

The Striders grow their own armor, weapons, and even spaceships. One Strider Pod alone is not intimidating at all – a conical blob of goo on four squat legs that is dumb as a post and is armed with little more than serrated teeth. Unfortunately, the Pods will combine with each other to form the much harder Strider Villains. And multiple Strider Villains can clump to create a towering and lethal Strider Nemesis with dramatically increased intelligence and firepower. The larger Strider monsters can navigate around obstacles and through small openings by disassembling themselves long enough to get past or through.

Striders had three forms - Strider pod, Strider Villain and Strider Nemesis. None of the content was included in the game, but some OGG tracks might have been made for their levels. They are also oficcialy mentioned in the Unreal Tournament timeline and in the game itself. See the main article for more information.

The Shiarn are an underwater community (and the underwater regions look extremely cool). They appear to have lobster shells and tentacles, and communicate with you telepathically, in that your mind simply "hears what they're saying." Where this really comes into play is that they, just like fairy tale mermaids, are able to summon all the sea creatures in the area to serve in the battle. You'll spend a lot of time not fighting them directly, but instead fighting all the creatures that they're summoning from different parts of the ocean.

The Shian could summon sea creatures, that means there were at lest 2 of them, probably more. They were one of the most important races, together with the Drakk and the Skaarj. Some of the content is left in the game - the pawns ShianWorker and ShianWarrior as well as the music - Mission_07Ambient, Mission_07Battle and Mission_07Underwater, which makes it possible to imagine them. See the main article for more information.

Five weapons (Tractor Beam, Stun Baton, Mind Claw, Shock Rifle, Flak Cannon)

The last and hardest thing to really put into words was one of the multiplayer levels that we got a glimpse at that was set in an asteroid belt. It was really, really cool. Really. The basic premise is that you are floating along amongst these pieces of space rock shooting at your opponents. But to move around, you have to pull yourself towards asteroids with a special tractor beam type of grappling hook.

Nothing more is known about the Tractor Beam.

The Stun Baton is mysterious as well. Noting more than it's name is known, but obviously it was a melee weapon and could stun enemies.

"A fearsome psi-weapon", "a crystal-based psionic weapon that channels health from your enemies to you"

Nothing more about the Mind Claw is known. As the N had psi powers, it might be true that it belonged to them, but together was cut from the game.

Seven maps

After you clear the ramp and run a safe distance, the dropship claws skyward on a plume of blinding white fire. You take a moment to look around the surface of Charon. The landscape is made up of twisted spires of rock and ice. Volcanic vents spew fire, smoke, and steam into the twilight sky, which is dominated by the sight of the gas giant planet Janus.

This map was obviously on Charon, moon of Janus. The game contains a map of Janus itself instead, but it is not a gas giant.

The Tractor Beam quote mentioned a map with asteroids, which apparently was cut out. The XMP addon, however, contains the map XMP-FreeFall that is on an asteroid belt, so it might be true that that map was ported to XMP.

The three cut races obviously had their own missions and maps, and probably a few of them. The Shian had an amazing underwater map, nothing about other two races is known.

Various graphics, gameplay and sound technologies (MP3 music player, GOLEM tool for mod creation, Co-op support, multiplayer support, dynamic conversation system, armor changing)

MP3 technology was changed into the DirectMusic technology for easier integration.

The GOLEM tool was not included for unknown reasons, the UnrealEd 3.0 is also buggy.

Co-op mode support was not added because of the maps being hard to configure for co-op play. This quote from the Infogrames forum explains their decision:

We've said it several times before, and I'll say it again: there will be no coop in U2. Sorry, live with it. We're making a very story-driven SP game here, with dialog, tons of scripted sequences and quite a bit of non-linear gameplay. No, all that will not take away from the action (Unreal was an action FPS game and U2 will be the same), but it's simply impossible to include a coop mode that works well and is bug-free (do you have any idea how easily scripted sequences break when there's more than one player? ;)) without adding a few more months to the schedule. We realize that a lot of the hard-core fans love coop, but we have to make tradeoffs here. HL is still the biggest FPS game out there, and it doesn't have coop (nor do I hear many people *****ing about it). If you want coop you should wait until a 3rd party team creates a mod for it - until then you can play straight action-shooters like Serious Sam :)

Multiplayer support is in the game but was never finished. It is possible to play deathmatch and Capture the Flag and there is even a mod for launching maps, but bot support was never completed and their skins are not changed depending on the team they are in.

Dynamic conversation system was never done. Even though it was promised, it wasn't entirely completed. This quote describes how the creators didn't want it to be and how it actually ended up being in the game:

With character development, we are trying to move the genre ahead a bit. We want the player to have conversations in realtime, not the stilted, horrible 'choose-a-dialogue-statement-off-a-menu-while-the-NPC-does-an-awkward-idle-animation' conversations that are common to the current crop of games.

This quote describe how the system was intended to be:

You can even interrupt conversations and be interrupted in turn. On the Atlantis, the crew will remember where you left off conversations and how you interacted with them - if you continually leave while someone is talking or you are rude to them, they will begin to react negatively to you. You may see tense or unhappy expressions on their faces and you'll get clipped, strained speech instead of warmth or banter. Positive interactions lead to positive reactions. You can change your relationship with someone on your crew - and the nature of the conversations you will have - by changing the way you interact with them.

Armor changing is included in the game, yet it was never used and the armor has no model.

Bonus Content

User Created Content

XMP Community Bonus Pack

Additional Informaiton

Previews and Reviews

Gamespot (7.3/10)

References

See Also

• Unreal
• XMP
• Unreal - Return to Na Pali