Difficulty:

Just Right

Time Spent:

10 to 20 Hours

The Bottom Line:

"Rent it first"

Unreal 2: The Awakening's graphics are ok but otherwise aren't that good. From the moment players start playing they can already see that the graphics aren't very solid nor do they standout that much. All surfaces seem a little rough and lack any sort of real detail to them. At best there described as almost older PC graphics to some extent with a few tweaks. While there is some detail there isn't anything that will make players drop their jaws in awe. Characters seem out of proportion with the exception of a select few. Sadly even the characters lack detail and depth to an extent.

Unreal 2: The Awakening's gameplay is ok but has some issues. The gunplay is solid and feels just right but some the weapons feel too big. These weapons feel almost too big to be actual weapons and like the graphics suffer from the same problems only not as bad. The weapons look good when their firing with each weapon feeling different from each other. However the main thing that the gameplay suffers from is the inability to smack enemies with weapons. While this is not critical weapon whacking has become standard in almost all FPS's. Furthermore the animation for both enemies and allies seems dodgy or not very well done most of the times. Enemies and allies will quite often move in quick jerks thus making them appear to be moving at a different rate of speed or out of sync with the gameplay.

Unreal 2: The Awakening's audio is ok but isn't that good. Characters will occasionally sound like there's some sort of interference or background noise when they're talking. This wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't a rare problem but unfortunately it happens every so often during speaking parts. Other than that the voice acting is good and feels ok but not top notch.

Overall Unreal 2: The Awakening is a title that should be rented first to allow players to see if they want it bad enough before they buy it.