Gamesmack have posted a preview of the alpha of Unreal 2 that has leaked on to the net. Check it here.

"The weapons present in the alpha were a pistol, an assault rifle (similar to the one in HALO), a sniper rifle, a flamethrower, a rocket launcher, and a weird grapple-beam-thingy built into your powersuit. Most of the weapons had an alternate fire or special mode; the pistol had a laser sight, the sniper rifle could zoom in, etc. The weapon effects were top-notch - when firing the pistol in the corridors of the Atlantis, sparks flew when the bullets hit the floor plating; when firing the assault rifle outdoors, the bullets kicked up puffs of dirt where they hit. Compared to Unreal Tournament's environments, Unreal II feels more than just a generation ahead. Awesome stuff."

They've also posted some screenies here. I've heard good things about the alpha, but hey, it is still Unreal :-)

Update: Looks like GameSmack could get in a bit of trouble for this, as the Unreal guys are not happy about the leaked version of the game. See Term's post in the comments.

Which would mean it's awesome?

this game looks coolby.

Based on the previous Unreals, of course he means it's awsome...

I do hope the new engine pissed off for good Microsofts DirectX bulls*** (and Loki make port of it to Linux). The Unreal Engine was a bit clunky considering it was developed for Glide (and then 3Dfx died), so they had to make 'wrappers' which didn't do a very good job. Why can't everyone just use OpenGL ffs [I mean everyone not just Carmack, which is the undisputed 3D engine coding god (although the actual games content may differ)].

actually i think you will see 90% of new games using d3d from now on, it used to be crappy but with the later versions of direct-X d3d is now pretty much taking over from ogl in games.

Thats what worries me.

haha, asif you'd write a preview that basically says "yes, I illegally obtained a copy of your software"

Yeah, DX has improved but the other big selling point MS have now is that your game will be easy to port to xbox.

As a dev/publisher what would you prefer, possible easy linux support or easy xbox support?

So are you saying that OpenGL isn't supported by the XBox?

gg gamesmack, possibly the most stupid thing you could possibly do, check this out:

Alright, people, listen up. Here are the FACTS about the past few days.

1. The build that we took to show at E3 has been leaked somehow. It is not a "beta". It is not an "alpha". It is not a "pre-alpha". It is a highly specialized build designed to show off specific things--NOT a build for people to randomly take screenshots and post them all over the web.

2. This was not done intentionally. We would not release something half-finished, and give people the opportunities to do what has been done over the last few days.

3. The crackdown begins NOW. From this moment forward, anyone who posts screenshots, links to download sites, or anything else details-related about this build will be immediately banned.

4. Any help you guys could provide us would be very much appreciated. If you downloaded the files from this site or that site, give me the site URL.

This is NOT a case of "Well, it's a publicly released demo, I have the right to download and play it." No, you do not. I've heard this situation compared to Napster. "They're both kinda piracy, what's the difference?"

Well, for one thing, Napster never went from record studio to record studio and stole recordings from musicians that were not even half-finished.

That is all, gentlemen. Don't expect me to be Mr. Nice Grant about this. If you make my job harder than it is right now, there's going to be trouble

Based on the previous Unreals, of course he means it's awsome...

AHAHAHhaHAhahhHAhAHHAHHahha.ahhahahhahahha....ahyahhahahahahahahhahahahahahhahhh!

Ah...

It's funny, I was just looking at the bottom of the Unreal Tech page, when I saw their strategic alliance link buttons. In order:

Epic Games (them)
GT Interactive (died, bought by Infogrames)
3Dfx (died, IP bought by NVidia)
Aureal (died, no buyers)
MPlayer (died, merged with Gamespy)

Need I say any more?

yeah that has a lot to do with how good the game is

"Aureal (died, no buyers) "

Aureal killed by creative, their new Audigy contains botched versions of the stuff the Vortex 2 had 2 years ago.

(Not really important, just being an arsehole)

(I've heard) The screenshots don't do the tech demo justice. (I've also heard that) It's a fairly resource hungry beasty, but no doubt it'll be tuned up and trimmed down a lot before it's even in Alpha stage. I'm looking forward to it muchly - Halo can go and have gheysechs with a stapler AFAIC.

wow
Thats looking pretty nice from where i stand - lets hope the whole game is as cool as the pics.

lol @ epic whinging about it being leaked. Anyone else remember the IHV of q3 being leaked, did id go on a website manhunt?

Unreal was a bit of a sad game really, the only thing impressive about it was the graphics and they were only good because they were designed to run on systems that hadnt been released yet.

UnrealII screens have boobs!

i thought the original Unreal was quite a good game, nice and long and a good story to it.

looks cool. shame its a space shootem up alien thype game, i was never a fan of those.

but on a different note, how f***ing awesome does that site look?

Lol, sif these engine makers know how to make games. It's the mod Authers that know how to make a good mod.

look at all the people playing Quake 3 Arena. or Half-Life or whatever, almost every populated server is a mod based from the engine...

And Hal0 has taken wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy to loooooooooooooooooooong to spit out so its gunna be a crap game I rekon ( compared to what will be availiable) ...

yeah cause mod authors make things like cs

SprayNwipe your a f***gin idiot, your little list doesn't prove anything, the number of games taht contain both GT interactive and Aureal logos and 3dfx logos on their boxes would be neumerous, it proves nothing.

what does prove something is that Unreal was imensley popular and made HEAPS of money.... or do you disagree.. was unreal a successful game? the answer to that is what says it all. the ONLY people who have anything agaisnt unreal are ID devotees who think that it should be ilegal for other companies to try and creat a first person shooter game, becasue that is somehow carmacks exclusive game making right. your a f***gin moron.

as for anyone saying that unreal was just an engine and not much of a single player gaming experience... well i spose your entitled to your opinion, but i thought it was awesome single player, and the most atmospheric fps game since doom.

i agree with axis totally, it is one of the better single player games i have played, and i think Unreal 2 is in capable hands being developed by Legend Entertainment who developed the mission pack for Unreal and Wheel of Time. And i thought Wheel of Time has excellent gameplay.

was that pointed at me BOB??

if bob annnoys you just look at him at qgl and you'll feel better.

If Axis annoys you, just laugh at him. It'll hurt his self esteem and he'll go cry.

And the sign was supposed to be pointing at Axis, but you posted, so now it's pointing at you.

i dont get annoyed on forums.

That makes two of us!
You can still laugh at Axis though.

y should i do that?

And remember: do NOT offer to give bob a lift to Subway with you. Its asking for trouble.