StoryYour Mission: You are a crew member of Vortex Rikers2, which will get a signal from the planet (Na Pali). The message came from 3 survivors of the old Vortex Rikers, the prisoner ship that crashed on the planet some months ago. Now you will be let down on the planet to rescue these 3 survivors. Unfortunately you were sniped down by a Skaarj right after you landed. New mission: Rescue your own ass. You are in a Skaarj prison, they destroyed all your equipement. You'll have to try to get out of the prison and find the old Vortex Rikers. If you are lucky it's computers are still working and you can send a message to your mothership, so they can come rescue you.... Overview Operation Na Pali is one of the best Single Player mods out there, with great detailed landscapes, intense fighting sequences, and great Cut-Scenes at the beginning and end of the mission, detailing what has exactly happened too you. There is a total of around 40 maps in the story, taking you to Old, Ruined...
This is just stunning. Between stellar level design, great length, visuals that even today can offer some truly impressive vistas, fact that authors implemented genuinely surprising gameplay elements like basic squad control mechanics, flight sections, or later on a teleporter device... this is in many ways what proper Unreal 2 should have been. Only flaws are related to writing - specifically to the main character. He is sadly neither a cool badass nor a successful parody of one, instead he comes of as annoying, rather dumb and sometimes downright malicious. Voice acting isn't helping one bit. Other flaws would be a couple of weak maps toward the end of the campaign (tbh, authors are honest about their quality from the get go, any player is later rewarded with truly stunning floating island environment for the finale), and relative abundance of gameplay-interrupting cinematics. Still, those are all minor flaws compared to the length and quality of most of the campaign.
In short, this IS a real Unreal 2.