360 owners not familiar with the Unreal franchise but experienced in Gears Of War will feel right at home. The baddies look like Locusts with longer snouts and the heroes look like tattooed and pierced versions of Marcus Phoenix and 'Cole Train', with some feminine charm tossed into the mix. The game also has the same biting 'prison-yard charm' to the smack talk the characters spout at each other and the enemies. The levels themselves even look vaguely similar to the washed-out grey and brown landscape of the first Gears title, albeit with better design and variety. With how similar the games look to each other, comparisons are inevitable. Sadly, despite being the newer title, Unreal looks like the older of the two, and lacks the visual 'wows' Gears provided when released.
This release marks the first time the franchise has offered a story, but Unreal has its roots so deeply set in the multiplayer world that they struggle to provide a decent one. While the campaign does not lack depth in terms of how long it will take you to conquer it, the flimsy story and the gameplay itself is disappointing. You are in charge of a small unit mounting an assault on the Necris, as well as other 'teams'. The levels are your opportunity to brush-up on your skills before taking on oxygen-breathing competition over Live, as each level is essentially the same you will face online. The start of each mission gives you a briefing that amounts to a lame excuse to play the online modes against bots. Unreal has an even less compelling storyline than Gears, if possible.
They explain Capture The Flag by claiming that stealing their flags will shut down their 'respawners'; which is a whole other bit of hilarity on its own. Team Deathmatch contests are delivered with the concept that you just need to hold off the other team until they run out of respawns. The levels so mimic the online version of the game that you see a scorecard at the end of each, showing each npc's performance with your own, along with individual names for your enemies. The advantage of so closely shadowing the online modes is that the campaign serves as better training for the Live community than most titles.
Thanks to some occasionally shoddy A.I., that training includes dealing with stupidity; a rampant issue in online games. Both your team and enemy computer-controlled characters seem to have lapses of intelligence in the midst of otherwise smart play. Your teammates will occasionally call out for help when there is nobody remotely close to them, and certainly no gunfire going off. It makes it hard to tell when your team is crying wolf versus when you really need to assist. You eventually learn to follow the action on the mini-map as a guide to the real action, rather than relying on the audible chatter. The enemy characters will occasionally stand still in one spot until you begin shooting at them, or just run away from your fire as if you are not shooting them. Since the A.I. is mostly solid, especially when covering the flag-carrier in Capture The Flag mode, it is a relatively minor complaint.
The game occasionally awards 'cards' to give you an advantage in later battles. The cards are a nice boost, offering bonuses like additional members on your squad or offering additional health when you respawn. Once you earn a card, you have the opportunity to play it just before selecting your next mission. When played, cards are gone for good, so saving up the more powerful cards for the more difficult missions is a good idea. The game does an excellent job of balancing even the bonus cards, so levels never feel like a complete cakewalk, unless you ratchet the difficulty all the way down and play a powerhouse card on a simple level. It is entirely possible to loose a level where you played a card, if you do not play wisely.
The biggest issue with the campaign mode is the use of 'respawners'. Early on, the story explains that 'war has not been the same since'. That is putting it lightly. They work much in the same way you are used to in an online multiplayer game, though it makes a little more sense in that context. In a campaign mode, it feels strange to have death no longer burden you as a deterrent for your stupidity. They keep you in a full-seed-ahead pace at all times, which keeps your heart pounding in an effort to get the objective completed first at all costs, but removes most of the strategy from the game. There is also an 'Instant Action' mode, though it is more of the same in a less-structured environment. You set these games up much in the same way you would set up a new online match, selecting the map and mode to play.
