<font color='#000000'>Howdy,
Got a little tired of chasing mids all over the frontier so I picked up Unreal II, The Awakening to work out some frustrations.
First off, no multiplayer, but I have plenty of games to frag people all over the world with so that's not really a big deal.
The machine I use is a 2ghz P4, 1gb ram, Gforce4 4200 with 128 meg ram. With all the buzzers and bells on I only noticed some graphics hang 3 times.
The graphics are awesome durring gameplay, not as great durring cutscenes, but who cares about them anyway
As the game opens, you are a marshal in the Terran Colonial Authority.The TCA is an undermanned police force that patrols the outer reaches of space. Your job isn't about throwing drunks in jail, you get to go to several different planets, meet new and exciting people, and kill them.
The plot thickens when you start discovering "ancient artifacts" that everyone and their uncle wants to get ahold of and experiment with. You go to several different planets collecting these items, and once in awhile you get a mission to throw a monkey wrench into the plans of rival corporations and races that are also looking for them. You also meet one scientist that you really want to kill, I mean really. Game won't let you though,I tried...........repeatedly.
The gameplay is pretty liniar. You get to chose where and when to kill things sometimes, like snipe this guy instead of charging in guns blazing, but you have to do your objectives in order, and no skipping steps(ok, basic fps game when I was hoping for something more like Deus Ex).
End level "Bosses" were extremely disappointing. On every one of them I was able to find some trick in the room that made it so that I took almost no damage, unloaded on it, and killed it with no problem That's not to say that every endlevel was boring. Several of the missions are ended by defending a place against armies of enemie mercs. Sometimes you get marine forces to help you out, you get to post em. Also, some of the levels you get to set up turrets and plasma fences to aid in your defence. The defend endings were a blast, as you had to set up, and sometimes move turrets and fences durring the battle.
Well, on the whole the game was decent, but only took me about 14 hours of gameplay to finish(and I took my time about it). It's a pretty game that does move at a good pace and has a decent story line that does keep you interested. In about a month when it hits the bargain bin it will be worth a look, but IMO it wasn't worth what I paid for it hehe.
See you in the frontier.</font>