Unreal Championship 2

[BWS-1]

Melee action ... AT LAST!!!!

Not to mention more then decent 3rd person action. Think Prince of Persia: SOT only boosted with the guns, unreal style.

O yes it will own

for your eyes and ears only: http://www.unrealchampionship2.com/main.php

Almost makes me wanna buy an xbox

[RivaOni]

didnt the original unreal tourny have a 3rd person view in it?

i cant imagine playing it in 3rd person, itd feel wierd, thats possible the only reason i wasnt keen on fur fighters on dc

[RuneLateralus]

[Nogrick]

I just hope the 3rd person view gives you a reticle to use guns effectively, like JK2

[BWS-1]

As far as I can tell, the best FPS with a 3rd person view mode I've played was Outtrigger on dreamcast ^^;

Whether they have a reticule or not in 3rd person view, I'm sold to the idea that they finnally included some melee weapons! And from the movies I've seen, the 3rd person view seems much better then the previous attempts in unreal games. It appears fit for close combat!

[reaper]

Its actually not all 3rd person. Its a FPS for when you got a gun, you can use 3rd person with a retical if you want. But it switched to 3rd person when you are brawlin. So never fear it looks like the unreal we all know and love, but on crack.

Much like a PC game I played a while ago, forgot the name though. I really liked it though and thought it was a awesome game. This looks 10x better than that one soo heres hopeing.

What I am most excited about are the adrenalin moves though, cause they say you will be able to bust em out allot.

[Motts]

If you have any love for yourself, you'll go out and buy the March issue of OXM, the one with Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory and Unreal Championship II demos. I swear to god, Unreal Championship II stole my heart, plus it's live enabled, so it'll keep you occupied until this April. It's, in my opinion, -the- best Live enabled game for the Xbox. Uh, to avoid dispute, I didn't like Halo 2 so, don't bring it up, for my sake.

Brief overview!
The demo provides you with three character choices.
A skaarj fellow who has an obscene amount of health but minimal agility. He uses a pair of Skaarj claws that are able to shoot those annoying green blobs of death we all remember from the Unreal series.
While Lauren, a Necron lassie who has a large amount of agility but little health. She's got a pair of nasty long-swords and a pair of enforcers she uses akimbo.
Anubis, the star of the story-line is a run of the mill jack-of-all trades with twos down the board. Anubis has a staff and a pair of scorpions with an obscenely powerful freezing secondary attack.

Anyway, before you begin the game, you select your character very much as you would a fighting game, as I displayed above, each character has a unique melee weapon and a basic pistol/backup weapon, both have unlimited ammo but the side arm requires time to recharge.

Instead of picking up weapons on the map you select an explosive weapon (Only the ripper and the rocketlauncher are available in the demo) and an energy weapon (Sniper rifle, or the equivilant of a chaingun.) and pick up ammo as you go, corresponding to the weapon, Explosive or Energy. Which is actually a nice change from spawning with a wimpy assault rifle before being pummled into oblivion by a redeemer.

Anyway, they've ridded the game of remembering the adrenaline combos. It actually took me forever back in UT2003 to figure out exactly what was happening when I heard "SPEED" and started running twice as fast :3
Regardless, when you hit X, it'll bring up a neat little menu, you press either L, A or R to select a power, you can also hit X again to bring up the next three selections. Very handy, quick and well done.

Okay, seriously though.. The acrobatics are so nuts in this game, especially if you've had practice in Unreal Tournament 2003/4. Only now there's no limit to the number of wall jumps you can do and there's an adrenaline power up known as nimble which allows you to soar through the air for a rediculous amount of time.

We all know what the shooting is like in the unreal games, right? Pretty standard... So, I won't bore you, but I will entice you with the talk of melee combat. You've got your standard attack (R-trigger) and your high-damage/slow attack (B) right? Pretty basic, but you're able to deflect bullets with the L-trigger, there's nothing more satisfying that destroying a sniper's face with his own lead, particularily when he's been terrorizing you for far too long. Also, if you hold both the L and R trigger you emit a forward shield protecting you from harm in the direction you're facing. If you jump into the air and press B you can pull a pounce attack that has your rocket through the air towards your target, very similar to the charge-uppable attack that the basic attack pulls when you're in the air but much more damaging due to it's stamina costs.

Graphically, this game is sensational. It's rare when it drops beneath 60fps, the levels are so details and complex it blows my mind, it's such an improvement from Unreal Championship I... The models and textures are top notch as always.

Needless to say, go buy this magazine, play the demo, buy the game.

And for the more masochistic of you, add Motts01 to your gamertag list and hit me up for a game if you want a smashing.

[BWS-1]

[Motts]

[BWS-1]

Yeah ... AND THAT'LL BE ME! You best be watching yourself out there!

One word, momentum. With that, even the slowest moving thing in the universe can be the deadliest.