Unreal Championship 2: The Liandri Conflict Special Edition - Xbox

Game Reviews

Scot enters the championship.

Designing a first-person shooter for a game console has always been somewhat of a worrying proposition, and it's not hard to see why. Unreal Championship was a classic example of an outstanding game held back by limitations of a control system. Unreal Tournament 2003 – the game Unreal Championship was based on – was a fast-paced, twitch-based shooter built on foundations laid by hundreds of PC shooters before it. It required a level of reaction and accuracy that just wasn't possible on a controller, and as a result, the game lost a lot of its hardcore appeal in the transition.

So, in order for Unreal Championship 2 to be successful, it needed to be built from the ground up exclusively as a console game. It needed to take full advantage of the console and its market, using the controller as a method of improving the overall experience as opposed to holding it back with its limited functionality. What they needed was a change of perspective. As it turns out, this is exactly what Epic went out and did. Unreal Championship 2 introduces, amongst a whole manner of other game-shaping aspects, a new third-person viewpoint to give the action a more casual, console-based feel and, somewhat unsurprisingly, it holds it all together extremely well – even if it doesn't necessarily feel like it from the beginning.

trademark hardcore ballistic action

This is because the shift from the old to the new will take you by surprise, throwing you into an arena that feels so much more heated than Unreal Championship, fuelled by constantly-recharging adrenaline meters, gravity-defying abilities and weapons that never seem to inflict the same colossal damage as absorbed by you. There's often so much happening on-screen at once that it's difficult to comprehend just how you're going to cope with all of this, and the wider viewing angle doesn't lend much of a hand when the sheer bewilderment sets in. It's a whole new learning process; one that will have you questioning the decision to take the series in this extreme yet fascinating new direction, yet one that will implore you to explore deeper as you slowly uncover the game's many nuances.

It may take a while, but it will happen. Once you forget that you're not technically playing a first-person shooter anymore and embrace it for what it is – a third-person action-shooter – then you'll start to settle in, feeling more and more comfortable the faster enemies come at you. The melee combat, which again requires a lot of patience to understand its importance and unlock its potential, ties in wonderfully with the series' trademark hardcore ballistic action, and will soon have many true tournament professionals mastering the art of deftly switching between the two systems and making use of Unreal Championship 2's increased manoeuvrability.

Ramped up

It does feel as if everything has been ramped up for the console market. You can now jump further, stay in the air longer or even float around the map at times with the help of an adrenaline power-up. You can bounce limitlessly off walls, eventually climbing up to heights unreachable on your own. The whole thing feels a lot more unrestrained and a lot less… well, limited thanks to its perfect marriage to the control system. Parts even feel a lot more streamlined than before, forcing you to pick your weapon before you enter the arena rather than scavenging whatever you can find during play. It's an aspect of the game that will shake up original combatants to begin with, but once they realise the benefits from this – namely the small strategic edge it adds, as well as the increased emphasis on pure action – they'll be a lot more forgiving.

For all its differences over previous Unreal games though, one thing remains – the superlative graphics engine, in terms of its gorgeous visuals and aesthetic style. Far from just looking great, the designs of the maps take it one step further, creating not just wonderful neon-doused arenas, but also some fantastic battles thanks to the stellar level design which compliments the control system accordingly. It's an area that's so crucial when designing games of this stature, but most of the levels have been handled with scrupulous care, each perfectly modelled to encourage tight-knitted confrontations with rarely any place to escape and hide.

Unreal Championship 2 is a massive step in the right direction for Epic; delivering a determined and flourishing multiplayer experience that so few titles on the console are capable of matching. There are minor control issues that could have been ironed out, but not much here can harm the bulk of the game, which, if nothing else, proves that knowing your audience and system limitations go a long way to creating a fine end product. It will require time to settle in, but once adrenaline combinations and battle controls are committed to memory, and the initial learning curve is overcome, Unreal Championship 2 will proudly sit lodged in your console for months to come.