Unreal Championship 2 Update

[bapenguin]

TeamXBox (http://news.teamxbox.com/xbox/8998/Unreal-Championship-2-New-Downloadable-Content/) brings word that Unreal Championship 2 for the XBox console has received an update via XBox Live. The new update includes 4 new maps and 10 new characters.

Has anybody been playing this on Live? How's the gameplay? How's the community?

[SaintArnold]

Supposedly the most important part of this update is a patch that fixes the horribly laggy play on Live. Unfortunately, said lag seems to have killed this game on Live- it hasn't been out that long and it's not even in the top 25.

The price is plummeting as well, so I'll probably try it out pretty soon.

[Morratut]

I've played the demo and i didn't like it(i was looking forward to it). For me the control wasn't very good. IE moving the crosshair to your target didn't feel good.In my opinion the game basically felt like i needed a mouse. A console FPS should never make me feel like that.

In 'another xbox fps' ;) it feels natural i'm using the pad. Please don't start another debate of pad v mouse.

Shame because the graphics and ideas that are behind it are good.

[emperordahc]

I'll pick it up used at a pawn shop sometime.

[Ka_Feosh]

I've played the demo and i didn't like it(i was looking forward to it). For me the control wasn't very good. IE moving the crosshair to your target didn't feel good.In my opinion the game basically felt like i needed a mouse. A console FPS should never make me feel like that.
I got that same feeling from the demo. The controls turned me off to the game. It had a lot of spiffy stuff to it, but after a few demo deathmatches I decided to pass on it.

[peeweejd]

I have it an love it. My kids and I play it all the time. The live play is a little laggy though.

The addition of melee mode adds an incredible amount of gameplay and was done awesomely. The moves you can do while in melee mode make up for hte lack of ranged attacks. You can use your melee weapon to reflect any projectile attack back at your opponent. This is called "rejection" and is quite fun. You can even reflect a sniper shot back for a rejection headshot.

You can only carry 3 "gun waepons": a pistol type that you cannot choose (it comes with your character), your choice of 3 explosive weapons (grenade launcher, UT rocket launcher, ripjack) and your choice of energy weapon (bio rifle, shock rifle, sniper rifle). The weapons all have alt fire options as well.

The controls definitely take some getting used to, but I think they are very tight. There is a lot of skill involved in the controls too (especially with the melee mode).

The game ships with about 30 maps on the disc. The map selection screen sorts them very nicely into categories for you (small, med, large, highly mobile, etc)

They nailed the adrenaline moves perfectly in this game and they are actually useful. You push X to bring up a menu and then hit a button to select one (kinda like they way teeam orders are handled in xbox games). The characters have different moves to, but they all basically have a offensive move, shield/regenerate, an agility one, etc. After you get used to a character, you can easily start to learn the button combos for quickere access. Each character has a total of 8 adrenaline moves.

There is DM, TDM, CTF, a vriation of onslaught called nali slaughter where you run around and slaughter hordes of slow moving creatures. There is also an improved version of bombing run too.. Its basically grab the colored ball, and take it to the matching colored base.

There are tons of great mutators to use to vary the gameplay, but unfortunately you have to unock them by playing single player mostly.

I hope thye can add vehicles to this game in the future. That would kick ass.

I would easily rate this game a 9. I dont understand why it didnt catch on in popularity. If your tentative, rent it and give it a couple hours of play time to get used to the controls before you decide.

edit: this content has actually been out for a while already. Maybe 1-2 months.

[Frogleg Special]

I dont understand why it didnt catch on in popularity.

2 Games. Halo 2. Unreal Tournament 2004.

[Demo_Boy]

I have this game and did not find it to be laggy at all.

The single player is enough to teach you the game, but you'll want to play online to enjoy properly.

I think the design for this game is excellent.

You choose a character from like 20 or so. Characters have varying speeds of movement and hitpoints. Each character comes with a unique sidearm (2 firing modes), melee weapon (or akimbo weapons) with light and strong attacks, a repetoire of 4 special moves + 2 basic supermoves.
Then you choose one explosive weapon with 3 firing modes, (eg Rocket L, Flak, ...
and one energy weapon with 2 or three firing modes (depending). (ASMD, Sniper Rifle, chaingun).
There's a ton of combos in the melee system as well, with lunges (strong and light), dodging, double jumping...

So yeh there is a lot going on.

What I find is that players that are better than you are insanely better. Online players have a rank denoted by bars so you can see relative skill level.
no bars is a newb
1 bar is a newb
2 bars is a decent player
3 bars you cannot come close to defeating this player one on one
4 bars - never seen one.

Overall you never feel like "what just killed me?!?!?", but frequently you know that you cannot beat the ringer on the server. This causes a fair amount of server jumping till you find a moderately equal level server, until someone with three bars comes on.

The game would benefit from a mutator that limits the higest skill that could join a particular server.

Anyhoo, certainly worth owning for anyone on Live.

[Setzer_83]

I love this game. my brothers and i play it all the time. we have been going to bed at like 2 every night for the past couple weeks.
i didnt like it when i played the demo but do yourself a favor and buy it is worth the 20 bucks.

[Draknodred]

I definitely enjoyed this game, the singleplayer was pretty fun, and the character choices were fun also...

The controls were very tight as peeweejd said and I felt right at home with them after a few adjustments...

Melee is fun, everyones pistols are QUITE useless though, except for the stun attack although most real people can get out of that real fast...

I also agree about the adrenaline, it's much easier to do and works better although for half of them I can't figure out what they do, I just use speed shield and more damage... I hated all the other UT games where you would see people backing up four little times or making these weird patterns a bunch of times... and then they would run off in a burst of speed =)

I thought it was a pretty fun take on Unreal... it was definitely a nice change from UT, which on xbox all we got last time was a clone

[agentgray]

Isn't this the 3rd person game? It got such high marks on GameSpot as well.

Go figure.

[divinechaos]

This game is awesome. When i played the demo i was a bit dissapointed cause it wasnt the Unreal i grew to love. But after playing the full game i loved it. Playing with Raiden has got to be the best feeling ever, and to perform his Coupe De Grace, ahh....so beautiful. Do urself a favor and pick this game up, u wont regret it.
Now, about the new maps, is this gonna b an only-Live update or will it come with the demos that the magazine ships?

[LilAbner]

I have it an love it. My kids and I play it all the time.

...and how old are said kids?