Unreal Championship 2: The Liandri Conflict

Unreal Championship 2: The Liandri Conflict is a first-/third-person shooter video game part of the Unreal series of games. It was developed by Epic Games and published by Midway Games for an April 18, 2005 release on the Xbox game console. It is a direct sequel to the 2002 game Unreal Championship, which itself is a console version of its PC counterpart Unreal Tournament 2003. Unreal Championship 2, to a much larger degree than its predecessor, is specifically designed from the ground up for the Xbox console and takes full advantage of the Xbox Live gaming arena. The game is now backwards compatible on the Xbox 360.

Gameplay
In the game, a player can choose from fourteen different characters from the Unreal universe. Unreal Championship 2 features the new gametypes Overdose and Nali Slaughter, new weapons including the use of never-before seen melee weapons and more adrenaline moves than ever before.

Unreal Championship 2 attempts to combine the genres of first-person shooter with third-person fighting games like Soul Calibur. To aid in this new kind of combined gameplay. The Thunder God Raiden from the popular fighting game series Mortal Kombat, is available as a secret character. The game's use of third-person perspective when using a melee weapon affords the player greater control in combat. The game's use of third-person perspective when using a melee weapon affords the player greater control in combat.

Players can use mêlée weapons only in third-person mode (choosing them will change the mode automatically), but can switch between first- and third-person mode on the fly while using firearms. Many players learn to use guns in third person because of the extra sense of their surroundings it gives, as well as the ability to switch more easily to mêlée mode which can literally deflect bullets. In fact, one can redirect a rocket or sniper bullet directly back to the person who shot it.

The game also features, in addition to the classic multiplayer, a single player story spiced up with cut scenes, story specific missions, and tournament ladders for each character in the game. All of the characters have the adrenaline moves "Speed" and "Nimble", as well as race specific moves, started with a sequence similar to a combo. The player can modify gameplay with mutators such as "High Speed Mode", "Low Grav", "Vampire" and others.

Gametypes
The game features a similar multiplayer mode to other Unreal titles and additions in the series, allowing players to compete over Xbox Live, across a Local Area Network or in splitscreen mode.


 * Nali Slaughter: Invented by the Skaarj, this game simply involves the players slaughtering as many Nali as they can for points.
 * Overdose: An enhanced version of Bombing Run, using 2 sets of coloured ball white and gold. A player who holds the ball for a certain amount of time will be rewarded with an increase in weapon power, speed and will also become invisible for a short period of time upon reaching the goal.
 * Survival: A 1 person vs 1 person deathmatch, in which the losing player of each round must wait in line with other players to return to the fight, while the winner remains. The winner is the first player to reach a predetermined score.
 * Deathmatch
 * Team Deathmatch
 * Capture the Flag

Ascension Rites
Ascension Rites is a single-player campaign mode for Unreal Championship 2: The Liandri Conflict, in which combatants of many races and types take part in the Grand Tournament, sponsored by Liandri Corporation. In the particular game year featured, the Grand Tournament is held in concert with the Nakhti Ascension rites. Ascension Rites take place on the Nakhti homeworld, where the strongest fighter will be crowned Emperor. The main character is Anubis, and players will only be able to use Anubis throughout the single player campaign mode.

Anubis is featured in the Ascension Rites storyline as the main character. Anubis ran away from an older tournament taking place a number of years ago, and also abandoned the woman he was to marry, Selket. For ten years, he has served and trained in an isolated military outpost. Now he returns to the capital and to the Grand Tournament. He had no choice but to participate on the Liandri tournament, because Selket was to be made emperor if she wins the Ascension Rites; her family only wants the Emperor's scepter but not the duty and responsibility of the throne.

Tournament
Tournament mode is just like Ascension Rites, but without videos or cutscenes. This mode allows the player use any character, provided that it has been unlocked by succeeding with another character in previous Tournaments. The tournament storyline takes place after the Acsension Rites.

Challenges
Challenges invite the player to take part in exceptionally difficult scenarios, dubbed "near-impossible" by the in-game text description, typically involving a dramatic disadvantage for the player, such as a Team Capture-the-Flag match in which you play on a team of heavy characters against a team of light characters who have only one flag capture to win while your team requires three. The characters are already chosen for the player, though the player my choose their weapons. Completing all of the challenges unlocks Raiden for play in other modes.

Rosters
Throughout the Unreal Universe, several species, each with different skills come to fight in the Liandri matches. Characters have different fighting styles which can be classified as follows:
 * Light: High speed, little health, does little damage
 * Neutral: Between the other two classes
 * Heavy: Slow speed, much health, does much damage

Reception
Critics of the game have pointed out that it suffers from many imbalances found in other first-person shooters, such as the ability of players to commit suicide (and simultaneously kill their opponent) by launching a rocket at point-blank range. Furthermore, the game suffers from many other perceived problems in gameplay that relate to its unique features, such as:


 * The inability for a player to protect themselves from rockets fired at the environment around them, since only shots fired directly at the player can be deflected.
 * Players are able to abuse the game's powerful melee system to aggravate others.
 * Certain characters in the game have much greater melee ability than others, seemingly unbalancing them significantly at first glance. Although this is countered by the game's character system. Strong, hard hitting melee characters are also slower and less nimble than the (physically) weakest characters, who happen to be the most agile, and quick characters in the game. Those characters with balanced stats fall in the middle on strength, agility, and health.
 * Locked-on shots are inordinately difficult to avoid, making weapons with the ability to lock to their target very difficult to overcome. - An issue also very prevalent in the third PC game of the series, Unreal Tournament 2004
 * Unlike the Unreal Tournament series, you have to pick one explosive weapon and one energy weapon that you use throughout that whole level.

Trivia

 * The game's Coup de Grace move is a reference to the Fatality move in Mortal Kombat.
 * The game refers to gaming culture in its use of the word "n00b".
 * The player may choose between the normal Unreal announcer and Mortal Kombat's announcer Shao Kahn.
 * One of Raiden's taunts is "You fight like Johnny Cage!"