Unreal 2

[Cantacuzene]

I will be getting this game this evening, as I'm sure many of you all will too. Please post first impressions, reactions etc here.

[LPMiller]

Originally posted by Cantacuzene
I will be getting this game this evening, as I'm sure many of you all will too. Please post first impressions, reactions etc here.

Neat trick for a game that doesn't ship till 2/4.

[sbp]

Apparently gamemakers work for free. http://home.earthlink.net/~sbp777/pics/bleh.gif

[Cantacuzene]

They make their money off me when their game is good enough to make me want to play it online and thus I buy the game. If their game isnt good enough to play multiplayer then it isnt worth money.

[gear02]

Originally posted by Cantacuzene
They make their money off me when their game is good enough to make me want to play it online and thus I buy the game. If their game isnt good enough to play multiplayer then it isnt worth money.

Why does every game have to be online? These guys concentrated on the single player game and apparently turned it into one of the best. Do you want to just have Unreal 1, where it was a collection of levels lumped together to form a playable tech demo?

By the way, I've read that they'll bringing out a patch that will enable online play, so it's not like they didn't want online capabilties. However, just because the game focused on the single player story doesn't mean it's not worth buying.

[Cantacuzene]

I previewed Morrowind and even though its single player only I liked it enough to go buy it. The game was so impressive I felt like supporting the studio. If this game is as good as they say, I may just do the same.

[sbp]

Originally posted by Cantacuzene
They make their money off me when their game is good enough to make me want to play it online and thus I buy the game. If their game isnt good enough to play multiplayer then it isnt worth money. Does that apply to your work also? :dodgy:

[Cantacuzene]

Originally posted by sbp
Does that apply to your work also? :dodgy:

Yup. If I own my own business and I make poor products no one will patronize my business.

[Cantacuzene]

First impressions: Oh my God. The graphics on this is absolutely amazing. When you walk outside for teh first time you will know what I mean.

Controls are a bit weird, but nothing that cant be gotten used to.

[Cantacuzene]

I disagree completely with the Gamespy review. The levels are boring? What is this guy smoking? This game is downright scary at times. It had my heart beating on the first level.

I give it an 85/100. Only points deducted because the replay value isnt so great.

[ProMinx]

Yo Cantacuzene...have you beaten the Arak Queen yet? I can't figure out how to beat the punk-ho. Oh well...I've only been playing this game a few hours. Any tips?

ProMinx

PS - I already found a bug that occurs when running EAX...but disabling EAX removed the crash. Still fun though.

[ProMinx]

Okay, so I killed the queen spider. It just took a longer time than I expected. I must say that one of the major things I miss from old video games is the boss life bar... It is just disillusioning when you have no clue how much you have injured the bosses. Granted, it adds to the difficulty...because you don't know when to run and hide or when to stand your ground and blast those last few health bars away, but there are other ways to challenge players. I also have to say that more frstrating than anything is when you have a boss enemy with a lifebar, but after you drain the entire bar...they come back with another bar. This trick may work in Japan, but in America...we just find it frustrating (hello Panzer Dragoon Orta final boss...).

ProMinx

[Memo]

I installed last nite. The game seemed pretty crappy to me. I soon found out it was because there was a big. I was wondering why everyone lookd metallic....Well, I re-installed Nvidia drivers and Unreal 2 and it works perfectly now. The game is pretty fun. I hvaen't gotten too far, I just beat the first mission out in the clearing after getting the artifact. What kind of framerates are you getting? This game is pretty taxing on the resources? What kind of systems do y'all have?

[ProMinx]

How do you turn on frame rates in Unreal 2? I'm currently running an Athlon XP 2000+ with 512 megs of memory, a Sound Blaster Audigy, and a Geforce4 Ti4600. Reformatted yesterday...

ProMinx

[Memo]

You pull down the console "~" and type in "STATS FPS"

[Cantacuzene]

I don't know my exact framerate, but I'm not having any chop. Even when teh action really heats up I don't notice much of a dip.

AMD 2100+
512 Ram
ti4200 @ 500 core and 257 ram

[Memo]

You guys got everything set on high? What Res?

[ProMinx]

I decided to test the frames per second on Sulferon (one of the outside levels), but had a huge variation in FPS. In general the FPS stayed between 65-145 depending on where I look, but if I looked exactly between the two sulfur smoking areas (with both visible and enemies visible on the other side) the FPS would drop all the way to around 35. This test was run on 1600x1200 with full details except I had shadow detail or something like that turned down on notch (because that was the default and I didn't care all that much...).

ProMinx

PS - Hey Cantacuzene, do you leave your vid card permanently overclocked (like through NVMax) or do you overclock it before you start 3D Aps (like through CoolBits)? I used to go the NVMax permanently overclocked method...but then I made a Ti4200 temporarily unusable by playing around and overlocking it too high. In fact...it was that day I went out and bought the Ti4600. I now have a GF4 Ti4200 sitting in my back-up computer that I never use for games. Talk about overkill...

[Cantacuzene]

I just leave it overclocked. Its a gainward golden sample, so its stable.

I run the game at 1024x768 with everything set to max.

[Memo]

Originally posted by Cantacuzene

AMD 2100+
512 Ram
ti4200 @ 500 core and 257 ram

Sure it's not 257 Core and 500 Ram:confused: :confused:

[Cantacuzene]

Originally posted by UT Memo


Sure it's not 257 Core and 500 Ram:confused: :confused:

You're right.

[ProMinx]

I as wondering the same thing as UT, but it had been a few weeks since the last time I OCed my GF4, so I wasn't sure...and kept my mouth shut to aviod embarrassent.

ProMinx

PS - Good game so far (although difficult at times), but I hear it gets better with every level.

[ski]

I was initially turned off in the opening scene by the fly by of that control tower where you start off... I just got a Radeon 9500 Pro, and it's overclocked to 324/324, so right off the bat, it's faster than all GF4's, but it's still not very smooth!

Think the bottleneck is my CPU? Athlon 1.33mhz
Would I see any improvement by OC'ing the CPU?

The game IS scary! The elevator scene at the beginning... wow.
I disagree with the Gamespot review of 7.1, although they were right with the graphics rated 10. It's getting close to what Doom 3's going to look like, impressive ^_^

[ProMinx]

ski, if you want creepy...just wait until you reach Hell (a research station on an ice planet named hell). The araks are freaking terrifying...and the Queen...enormous and tough.

ProMinx

[apmiller]

Dude...I got to try this game. Quick! I need a bank to rob! :P

[Memo]

I agree, this game IS scary at times. Sound is not something I usually pay attention to in games but in this game it is sweet. I have my Z-560's turned up high while playing this game and you get pretty into it. The level where you and the 3 other marines have to defend the clearing from the Izarians until the ship comes was pretty creepy. Monsters flying at you from everywhere in the dark. The Hell level is freaky too when you hear the little spiders crawling around everywhere.

[ProMinx]

Those spores on Hell were what really creeped me out. They didn't hurt much, but I went around every corner really slowly to make sure I wouldn't be hit from any angle... Good idea on their part. That is an easy way to extend the game without making customers realize they're being delayed.

I'm on the Sulfurus level still (haven't played in two days because I have to write a proposal for my grant to study in Germany), but the defend part of that level seems tough. I only played through it once, but you have three marines (one sniper, one walking tank guy, and I guess the third was a flame thrower) and you have to defend from repeated drops of Ghosts (one of the enemy corporation's elite guards) entering the front and back of the complex. The first time I tried, I sent the flamer to cover the back (figuring there wouldn't be much from that direction and that flames in this game can stop just about anything...excluding snipers), had the sniper cover the front door, the tank guy roam the front wall area, and I went patrolling in front of the front wall.

Because I'm a fairly decent sniper...no one got past me to hit the next two stop gaps, but the forces came in from the back, so I think next time I'll send the sniper and tank to the back, I'll cover the front...and I might send the flamer to the back or to cover the tech in the control room...

The enemies aren't very easy because they're dropped in teams of 5 or 6 with two tank guys of their own (with flames and rockets), a shotgunner, a machine gunner, and one or two snipers per team. This variation in teams keeps you from getting comfortable (and also because they're dropped off all over the place...) in a single rocket/sniper location. The flamer and shotgunner keep you from getting close, but the snipers and rocket launcher keeps you from standing still. You basically have to learn to run-snipe-run in the time it takes a rocket launcher to reload...

ProMinx

[Speedfreak]

Originally posted by UT Memo
You pull down the console "~" and type in "STATS FPS"

Or hit "L" key.

[Speedfreak]

Love the game. I get 60fps 1024x768 everything max. Here is my setup:

Athlon XP 2400+
512 DDR PC2700
Albatron Ti4200P Turbo (275 Core, 555 Memory)

It seems that the AI is pretty good. They seem to shoot where you move to.

I forget where it was, but Ilove the one level that has the room that has a lazer running all through it and there are pieces of wall al over and some are melting because of the lazers and some are like mirrors. Looks very cool. Picture dosen't do it justice.

http://home.socal.rr.com/speedfreak/U2shiny.jpg

The game seems very fluid, also. Some things remind me a lot of Halo.

Ooooh.... Aida..
http://home.socal.rr.com/speedfreak/U2aida.jpg

Look at the poor Skaarj. I got his hand caught in the lift. :D
http://home.socal.rr.com/speedfreak/U2skaarj.jpg

[Memo]

I only get like 30-40 fps (sometimes drops to about 20-25 in outside areas!!) and I have my Geforce4 4200 OC'd to 277/533 Mhz Core/Memory. I have Athlon XP 1800+ and 512 PC2700 Cas2? What's up with that? CPU being the bottleneck?

[sbp]

More of the same, albeit prettier. No real surprises, pleasing and short {12 levels, 10 hours).

Unreal II updated impressions: http://gamespot.com/gamespot/stories/news/0,10870,2909990,00.html

76 on gamespy http://www.gamespy.com/reviews/january03/unreal2pc/

8.2/10 http://pc.ign.com/articles/384/384264p1.html

http://gamespot.com/gamespot/filters/products/0,11114,472314,00.html 7.3
"It has the look and polish of a great shooter, but the gameplay of a merely good one. It's also a fairly short game with no multiplayer support to speak of."

6/10 http://www.3dgpu.com/games/unreal2.php {long review}
"...standard fare shooter."

[Speedfreak]

Ya, I beat it a few days ago, also. There is a lot in it that reminds me of Halo, mostly the fluid feel of it. The bosses were kind of easy.

[Cantacuzene]

I thought the ending was weak. It seemed to end on a downer. I like to feel happy after I beat a game, not like I was kicked in the balls.