GameOver Game Reviews - Heavy Metal F.A.K.K. 2 (c) Gathering of Developers, Reviewed by - Wolf

Game & Publisher Heavy Metal F.A.K.K. 2 (c) Gathering of Developers
System Requirements Windows 9x, Pentium II-233, 64MB Ram, 200MB HDD, 3D Accelerator
Overall Rating 80%
Date Published , ,


Divider Left By: Wolf Divider Right

With the recent disapproval of the endless "Tomb Raider" series, it might not sound like a very good idea to release a Tomb Raider clone. Of course that never deters any game developers from going ahead and doing so anyway. Heavy Metal F.A.K.K. 2 is, as you might have guessed, a Tomb Raider clone. Of course, you have all already glanced at the percentage mark at the top of the page, and most of you might then have bothered reading up till here even, so I will now go through why this isn't that bad a game. Just a note, I have no idea what the Heavy Metal comic book is, which is what this game is based on, therefore I can't draw any similarities.

It starts out with an incredibly lame story about some woman who killed a big evil guy, blah, blah, blah, backed up by a very useless in-game scene of rocks floating in space. If anything is going to put you off, it will probably be this intro. The developers probably considered that and hoped that the main menu's half-naked woman might keep you interested long enough to skip past the lousy intro and start playing, where you will then be occupied through the next few boring minutes by the bouncing breasts of our heroine, and the fact her ass takes a few seconds to catch up with the rest of her body while turning.

I'm starting off rather negative here, but that's because being critical is much more fun that saying how good a game is, so to balance up my criticism a bit, once in the game you will notice that the graphics are actually quite nice. In fact the graphics through most of the game tend to be quite detailed and colorful, though the engine does have its problems. For one thing, while the engine seems to be able to do transparencies fine, as the water in the towns show, in all caverny bits (there's quite a few of them), the developers seemingly decided, 'who needs transparencies?' All water in such areas is simply a blue texture where you wade through, no rippling, no see through, nothing. Another letdown of the engine, or the graphics artists, is the fact that it doesn't seem any good at deforming meshes. Like when a big bad guy gets "squished" he simply blinks out of existence, very unsatisfying stuff. One last note about the engine is the fact that, although people's expressions and all are very nicely done, in that they have distinct faces, all quite detailed, they never quite seem to *work*. Half the time the characters seem to be looking just over each other's shoulder as they talk, or sometimes just in the plain wrong direction. Other times they might be looking at each other, but it looks so wrong because they have absolutely no expressions, simply blank stares leveled at each other while they chatter. Despite these letdowns though, the graphics engine is adequate enough and it is far more colorful than your average Tomb Raider engine.

The beginning of the game sees you fighting loads of extremely irritating flies, that is, giant radioactive green flies, *cough*. Yes, it's a bit corny, I know. Of course, you also have to defeat the..*sigh*..giant radioactive green mother fly. Well, past that it does actually get a bit better; you fight weird giant spiked demon things and then green gun toting things with two-meter long spines. There are some hilarious priest robot type things going around converting people to aliens. Must be from the comic book, because it felt really out of place in this game, which seems to really be trying to take itself seriously (which is what makes it a bit boring too). It's a good comical touch though I guess.

The assortment of weapons is well done and there are far more weapons than most other games. There are a variety of swords, axes, pistols, Uzi's, shotguns, explosives, crossbows, slingshots, and piles more weapons. Also, every now and again, your character wears different clothes. Every time she changes, she seems to be more scantily clad than before, perhaps rewarding the player for completing a difficult section of the game.

While the game might not sound too good with all the criticism I have spouted out this review, it's all still quite a bit of good fun most of the time. Finding better weapons and skimpier clothing is all rewarding enough to keep going, and hacking up big bad guys with even bigger weapons is entertaining. This title has nothing really special to offer, but it's different enough to be good, and of course it's better than your latest installment of Tomb Raider.

See the Game Over Online Rating System

Rating
80%
 
  

  
Screen Shots
Screen Shot

Screen Shot

Screen Shot

Screen Shot

Screen Shot

Screen Shot

Back to GameOver