Storyline On a future devastated Earth, powerful, corrupt corporations control remaining technology and rule what's left of society. Pacification Squads, a brutal private police force, maintain order for the corporate syndicate. The only hope for freedom is a small group of Resistance fighters made up of gang leaders, mercenaries and ex-military operatives. As the Resistance leader you must assemble your army and travel the globe, restoring peace and sanity in a very dangerous world. Highlights Next-generation Unreal® Engine coupled with the MathEngine Karma™ physics system provides dramatic visuals, ultra-realistic object physics, rag-doll deaths, and user-friendly mod tools. Hollywood-style explosions and in-your-face special effects showcase awesome particle physics including explosive headshots, flowing water and blood, amazing weapons effects and realistic fire created by the amazing "OFX" VisualFX system with full hardware T & L support. Incredible next-generation...
One of the best replays I ever had, this game also includes a hidden difficulty that only gets shown after the end credits roll so don't quit the game, start the game on the new difficulty instead which is called "Insane". Originally developed as UT expansion pack and later spinoff/prequel to the Unreal series and it's still felt in the game with various references. The maps are not overly linear like many unreal 2 maps ended up to be so there's some exploration and interesting ways to complete the maps. The middle of the game gets a bit dull but otherwise this is underappreciated game that has some issues here and there but also a lot more attention to detail than similar games of its kind. Its obvious some parts were rushed more than the others but given the complex developement cycle I can only give kudos to the team pulling it off in the end even with smaller budget than it would have had if it was still official Unreal title.
A postnote:
Overall I think it is a better title than some of the other ones that were in developement. Pariah even though headed by DE and being more polished as such, was worse game than this in the end, even though Pariah probably started as a singleplayer addon for otherwise multiplayed oriented Unreal Warfare (which ended up as Gears of War anyways), since Pariah was officially in developement since 2002 but kept under tight wraps. Since a lot of warfare content ended up in ut2003 bonuspack and ut2004 that game can be counted as something of a star trek phase II like deal for Unreal series and other related games. And Devastation ended up using its engine after all. It was also warfare that had the "slow walking speed" that crept into unreal 2's style, after it had to switch to that engine which was a mistake in my opinion as they would have fared better off with backporting features while using their own and often better enhancements.