Unreal Championship 2 : Games : Web Wombat

Set in the futuristic Unreal universe, this game is neither plain old 'Unreal' nor 'Unreal Tournament', but is of 'Unreal Championship' stock. Confused? Excellent…

The simplest explanation of this game would be: "A first-person shooter with distinct close-combat action".

The single player side of the game is good fun while it lasts, and though it has a weak story about Anubis battling the evil Liandri corporation to regain his Ascension Rites, this doesn't detract from the fact that UC2 is a very energetic and violent and rewarding game.

Once the single player carnage has finished, you'll be open to a whole new world of multiplayer goodness, one that just wouldn't be the same without Xbox Live and a million other gamers waiting to be vaporised.

But before I get ahead of myself, let me explain one of the fundamental features in UC2, the close combat. Sure, you can go all Black Ops chicken shit and chill back from your foes, plugging away at your foes with one of many fascinating futuro-guns, or you can get nasty on your foes, up close and personal for some "I'm gonna tear you a new one" sort of action. This idea of close combat works remarkably well, and it surprised me greatly that it all operates so seamlessly and intuitively.

The game can be played from either the first or third person view, and being an FPS veteran from the PC era, I'm a big fan of first-person shooting, even though I understand that the third-person 'over the shoulder' camera gives you a wider viewing angle, thus an advantage.

So, there I am, waltzing along with my Shock Rifle in traditional first person mode, looking for some poor soul to gib into many tiny fragments of flesh and ichor, when out of the blue I realise I'm all out of ammo. Woe betide me, eh? Not quite, tout le monde! I just hit a button on the Xbox controller and blammo! I've changed to my melee (close combat) weapon and the camera smoothly zooms out to the third-person perspective.

Here we see a plucky young man taking on
a much larger and stronger opponent up close

There are 14 characters to choose from in Unreal Championship 2 (UC2), and each has a unique melee weapon, be it a pair of laser swords, plasma axes and any other focussed energy/old school weapon combination you care to think of.

There are also special moves called adrenaline moves that affect the tide of battle by changing combat modifiers in terms of speed and power and stuff like that.

The characters in the game are very acrobatic too, and once you get a hang of the control scheme (which works very well even in its default setting) you can really bounce around the levels, jumping off walls and sailing through the air, making yourself "Hard to Kill" (Steve Seagal would kick Chuck Norris's arse any day).

The single player is pretty sweet for a short time, essentially a tutorial from the outset, teaching you how to use your melee weapon to best effect. In addition to the obvious moves, such as hitting out and blocking with your melee weapon, you can also pull off gravity defying moves, good for evasion, and you can even strike projectiles (bullets, rail gun shards, roast chickens etc) back at your would-be killers if your timing is right.

With all these close-combat additions, it's clear that Midway and Epic Games didn't just add the hand-to-hand weapons as a quick gimmick to beef up the features list on the back of the box - it's well executed (pun intended) and somehow suits the mood of the game too.

Close combat also has it's advantages, least of which is having to front up to your foes, going toe-to-toe when they may be packing more serious heat than you. There are devastating almost-instant kills if you can pull off the special melee combinations, and when there are long range weapons that hamper or even freeze your foes, these combos come in handy.

It's obvious that Midway's involvement in the production of the game has produced these one-shot "fatalities" of sorts, and they create a tenuous connection between the Unreal and Mortal Kombat franchises. And while I'd like to say it was pure marketing, nothing but an exercise in branding and a flimsy inclusion, it all integrates so well and plays so nicely that I have to praise the decision to include melee combat.

As I rambled on about earlier in the review, the single player game will be over in one Saturday afternoon session for many gamers, especially those who don't work on Saturdays, which leaves the multiplayer side of the game to pick up the slack, or at least try its best.

Nice get up, loser, flaming pantaloons
went out of fashion in the late 2100s!

But in hindsight, I will say that the multiplayer part of UC2 is ultimately why you should buy this game (followed by the cool weapon selection and ultra gore). Though it may not be on a PC, there may be control pads instead of ergo keyboards and optical mice, this is still a very good online shooter.

There's plenty of game modes to choose from, including deathmatch, team deathmatch, CtF and some mildly amusing diversions in the form of Nali Slaughter and Overdose.

Snooty PC-only gamers - especially the ones who look at consoles as childish and built solely for kids devoid of any personality - will scoff at the maximum players online: eight (system link permits 12). But it really isn't that bad.

In fact it works well and proves again just how thorough the Epic Games team were in coding the new game engine. I shudder to think about the blood-spattered walls if 32 players went the tonk concurrently…

I believe that one of the reasons for keeping this exceedingly playable and addictive shooter to a maximum of eight players online are the graphics. This is one very sexy game. It has larger-than-normal levels with heaps of detail, thoughtful designs and don't even get me started on the stunningly cool weapons effects. This is sci-fi heaven folks; enter and prepare for some seriously colourful eye candy.

The level of detail on the textures is really quite impressive, even for a latter-day Xbox game, and the rate at which everything moves is likewise quite remarkable.

In finishing, I must say how impressed I am with the way that Epic Games has blended the melee combat in to the FPS game engine, and at no expense to the ranged-weapon aspect of the game. Everything you loved about Unreal Championship is still there, only this time there's more scope, more moves and more obliteration. Lovelorn Russian taxidermists rejoice!

Game: Unreal Championship 2: The Liandri Conflict
System: Xbox
Players: 1-8
Online: Yes
Developer: Epic Games
Distributor: Red Ant

Rating: 90%

(Ratings Key/Explanation)

Unreal Championship 2: The Liandri Conflict is on the shelves now.

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