Unreal II:The Awakening

Here's Unreal II: The Awakening in a nutshell: The player is John Dalton, a kind of outer-space sheriff who's tired of "patrolling the ass-end of nowhere" and would rather join the marines and go where the action is. He's a jarhead who wants nothing more than to blast a motley assortment of aliens using a motley assortment of weaponry. He gets his wish when a mysterious alien artifact turns up in his jurisdiction and a bunch of silly-looking extraterrestrials come searching for it. Thus begins J.D.'s campaign of shooting, switch finding, shooting, and yet more shooting. When every last alien antagonist is dead, the credits roll.

The game's first few hours are dreadfully boring, full of genre clichés and pointless firefights. Later on, the kill-em-all wandering gives way to more intriguing missions, like protecting friendly scientists while they repair some doodad or unlock a door. Awakening sure could have used a little more personality during the first few missions; as it is, many FPS veterans will stop playing long before the story's twists make it anywhere near interesting.

The game's designers seem to rely on a plethora of guns (each with an alternate firing mode) to keep us playing. Indeed, half the mission briefings are spent lovingly describing the optimum range of an alien plasma gun and how many rounds fit in the clip of this imaginary assault rifle. At first, all those guns are more or less interchangeable. But when the game's goals eventually graduate to more purposeful action, rather than simple massacres, choosing a weapon begins to matter more.

Luckily, the game's multiplayer modes are quite worthwhile. It's just more fun to play through the story cooperatively, even though the tale remains as unevenly paced as ever. So if you must experience this critter hunt, enlist a friend to tag along.

Copyright © 2004 Ziff Davis Media Inc. All Rights Reserved. Originally appearing in Xbox Nation.