Xbox

Unreal Championship 2: The Liandri Conflict

Unreal Championship 2: The Liandri Conflict is a first- and third-person arena shooter video game developed by Epic Games and published by Midway Games. It was released in April 2005 for Xbox.

Shooter

Achievements: No trophy list
Time to beat: about 4 hours

Overview

Unreal Championship 2: The Liandri Conflict is a first- and third-person arena shooter video game developed by Epic Games and published by Midway Games. It was released in April 2005 for Xbox. The game is part of the Unreal franchise, and is a direct sequel to 2002's Unreal Championship (itself a port of the PC game Unreal Tournament 2003). Unreal Championship 2 was designed from the ground up to take full advantage of the Xbox Live gaming service.

Unreal Championship 2 features 14 different characters from the Unreal universe, plus extra characters released in a bonus pack via Xbox Live. Other additions include the new gametypes Overdose and Nali Slaughter, new melee weapons, and more adrenaline combos than in previous games.

The story mode has players take the role of Anubis, who left the previous Ascension Rites tournament for the title of Nakhti emperor, and has now become a soldier in the military. He returns to the tournament when he sees his former betrothed, Selket, announcing her intention to win the Ascension Rites tournament after the previous winner has fallen gravely ill and must abdicate the throne. Selket has made a deal with the Liandri Corporation to broadcast the tournament to the rest of the galaxy. Players progress through various modes as Anubis, interspersed with voice acted in-game engine cutscenes that explain more of the story as they make their way through the game.

Unreal Championship 2 began development after Unreal Tournament 2003 was released, and a planned sequel was in the works for the PC. The title came as a result of a possible console port of Unreal Tournament 2005 (which was instead changed to Unreal Tournament 3 after the branching off). Epic Games decided to move the game over to the consoles, and became a three-game contract between Midway Games and Epic Games. With the Midway publishing deal, Raiden from the Mortal Kombat series of games, which Midway owned before its bankruptcy, was added as an unlockable playable character. Additionally, players could switch from the normal Unreal Tournament male announcer to the announcer from the Mortal Kombat games being published at that time.

Unreal Championship 2 has received a score of 85 of 100 on Metacritic, indicating "generally favorable" reviews.