Unreal 2 wasn't designed to use Anti Aliasing properly, if you have a NIVIDA Geforce card you can force Quincux 16x anti aliasing but this will seriously degrade overall performance as it's not smart on what and what not to anti alias...

Forcing settings worked for me though so I don't see exactly what your problem is unless you're not doing it properly... Unreal 2 overall has no "high res" textures, neither does any other game. They just fake it using bump maps and other post processing effects, but the average texture size is either 512x512 or 1024x1024...

I appreciate the interest, but I ended up uninstalling it a few maps in when I found it just wasn't entertaining to me.

I found Unreal 2 to be a decent way to kill time, and some parts were kinda fun (for me at least). It's a terrible Unreal game but it's at least a halfway decent Halo-clone (Yes, I called Unreal 2 a Halo clone. What of it?)

It's a good game, although its possibilities are endless, it's just that those who only play it can't understand what they could do with the engine itself. For example, with the dialog system and such, you could even turn it into a good RPG.

I personally feel that Unreal 2 is the result of shortsighted planning and a lack of vision from Epic as a business. To throw another "could have" into the mix, Epic could have viewed the Unreal universe as a franchise to build upon. Instead they tossed away the development of the sequel to a third-party who, despite any different opinions about the quality of the game, most fans don't feel as if it fit within the atmosphere created by Unreal or that it's a "true sequel." I think that RTNP should have given Epic warning signs that Legend simply didn't have the talent to handle a full sequel to their franchise, and Unreal as a series could be in a completely different place had the proper effort and skill gone into the development of Unreal 2.

Valve software released Half-Life in 1998, the same year that Unreal was released. Sure they had some bumps and bruises along the way, but I use them as an example to point out that it's possible to have a franchise still going strong for over a decade with fans still anticipating the release of the next Episode. And just this month Infinity Ward released their sixth entry in their flagship series, and I believe I read its sales are strong enough that they might break records. If Epic had kept the development in-house and maintained the standards Unreal created, Unreal would be more profitable and we as fans could be awaiting the release of the third, forth or whatever entry using the latest technology to push the limits of what Unreal brought to us originally.

Finally I'd say that Epic could have scaled their development team with their profits and expansion plans, and wouldn't have had to abandon their Gears of War development if they had hired new people to take over the development of Unreal. All they'd have to do is maintain QA over the project without losing any place they're at today. GoW people would have their game and we'd have ours. Oh well.

Atari went from being a nice home console company in the 80's to a completely B$ publisher today... Screw them..

Warhammer 40,000: Fire Warrior ripped off from Halo so many things you'd be surprised.

Halo is a very generic game, I would say it's gameplay is slightly above unreal's but not by much. Even halo 3 is basically the same as halo 1, but looks better. I don't understand why people like it so much. and yeah I have played it.

Metroid prime is a superior game through gameplay, immersion and lore. And I believe the metroid series was the first to have a protagonist in some sort of powered armor or some such.

Unreal 2 is better than halo by a large margin, but Unreal 2 as a sequel fails miserably.

It's just like Deus Ex vs Deus Ex : IW. a total disappointment.

GreatEmerald wrote on 11/17/09 at 15:05:55:

I just noticed that that comment in itself is bitter-sweet, but that's not the reason some people weer mad at Unreal 2. Its atmosphere was vastly different from Unreal 1's. Unreal 1 could almost be compared to Metroid Prime in atmosphere, whereas U2 felt more like Halo  (OH SNAP. It's Metroid vs. Halo all over again!!).

In U2, we visited almost nothing but industrial areas (not including the second half of Sanctuary, nor the massive planet-covering thing's stomach, etc.) and fought more humans than aliens. All throughout this, someone's speaking to you through your suit's receiver. The Drakk Homeworld did a VERY good job IMO with the lonely, alien atmosphere, but that was it.

In Unreal 1, as we all know, the areas are kept fresh by varying between modern, mechanical settings (the ships, mines, etc.), ancient areas (ruins, temples, the castles, etc.), and outdoor areas (the villages). Every human we saw was dead, and our only enemies were nothing BUT alien life-forms. You were alone on the planet with no one to help but the Nali.

Unreal might not be about atmosphere, but atmosphere is what made the first so great, not to mention the gameplay. Unreal 2 no doubt was going to have an atmosphere at least hinting towards Unreal 1's (The underwater planet, that one area with the psychic guys), but Atari had to be an ass and force Legend to dumb the game down and make it less awesome. RTNP felt VERY Unreal-like, whereas Unreal 2, made by the same people, of course, does not. I think the fault here lies with Atari or whatever they changed their name to.

I'd agree that comparing two separate games with different gameplay goals is mostly fruitless, depending on the conversation. Arguing with someone that one is "better" in gameplay terms is liken to argue with someone that they should like chocolate over vanilla because it is "better," even though one has no control over the other's taste buds.

However, I think that GT Interactive/Epic/Legend made comparisons between Unreal and Unreal 2 fair game as soon as Unreal 2 was given the Unreal branding. A sequel, as far as I'd argue, is supposed to expand and improve upon the original's strengths/story line/style; while keeping some of the original's own plot within it. And while I won't say that Unreal 2 is a game that its fans shouldn't enjoy, I just wonder why it was given the Unreal name at all, other than trying to capitalize on the IP. To me, it felt like Legend had finished creating their own game using the Unreal Engine 2, with its own game universe and unique plot, when they received a memo from management stating that it was supposed to be a sequel to Unreal. So they then changed a few names and modeled a few Skaarj, put into the game and called it Unreal 2. I felt like they tried to shoehorn a completely different game into the Unreal canon rather than carefully form a game around what the original established.

And that's what I was saying when I said I felt like Epic abandoned Unreal's singleplayer potential, and a series they could build upon/profit from, by allowing Legend to create such a different game. It was like they told Legend "We've got this Unreal Tournament thing going and it works for us, so do whatever you want." And I admit that I don't know about what Unreal 2 was supposed to be as much as some of the other posters here, but why couldn't it have been its own IP? Instead I'd assume that Unreal 2 ended the singleplayer series in a way that left most people with a bad taste in their mouths and not very excited about the notion for Unreal 3. And just so I don't come across as too negative, I'm glad for those of you that like Unreal 2.

But at least we've got Firestorm coming, which I think will be a better Unreal 2 than what Unreal 2 turned out to be, in terms of plot, atmosphere and homage.