One of the selling points of the Xbox is the ease of porting high-end PC quality graphics to the machine. After taking a look at the Xbox version, that claim is a little hard to swallow. First off, Unreal II does not look that bad. The scenic vistas and unique architecture that made the PC version great are still here. Yet, at the same time everything feels very watered down and does not even come close to matching up to the PC version. A number of special effects, such as reflections and bump mapping, were lost on the way to the Xbox. The texture quality is pretty blurry and murky. This leads to flat looking characters that look almost like they were ripped from a poor-quality MPEG and placed in the game. Animations are also lackluster and animated about as smoothly as a Strongbad email (or other Flash cartoon). Consistent frame rates are also a roll of the dice as well.
Sound is well-done, but doesn't stand out as something special. This is not a soundtrack I'll be adding to my collection anytime soon. The voice work is okay and does a good job of setting up characters. The young tech that leads you through the first level sounds as green as the characters make him out to be in their descriptions. At the same time, the voice acting just isn't there due to dialed-in performances.