I beat Unreal II this weekend. It’s funny, I played the game almost non-stop the weekend that I got it, got pretty far along into it, then stopped playing as other games distracted me. This weekend I fired it up and finished the game in like 10 minutes. I had no idea I was that close to finishing it, though I did know I was near the end.

All in all the game is a big letdown. I solved the first unreal and while it was something of a mixed bag, all in all it was a solid FPS in solo play. Unreal II is way too short, suffers from stupid-plot-itis, and a lack of compelling mechanics. The game is absolutely beautiful to look at. This is it’s most compelling feature, along with a couple of cool missions (most notably the ‘defend the ship while I fix some stuff’ mission in the mountains, but the poor quality of the enemy AI detracts from the enjoyment. Additionally, the game is a complete system hog, it’s the first game to really make me feel like I need to upgrade.

Overall I would give the game a C+. It’s gorgeous to look at and has a few cool missions, but it’s a system hog, it’s over before you know it, and they stripped out the multiplayer so as not to compete with UT2k3. If you find it for $20 it would be a maybe – at full price, skip it.