Heavy Metal: F.A.K.K. 2 Impressions

Ritual Entertainment, the maker of the first-person shooter SiN, announced yesterday that it has completed Heavy Metal: F.A.K.K. 2. GameSpot has already received a final copy of the game, and we've had a chance to quickly play through the early sequences and report back.

Heavy Metal uses the impressive Quake III engine to generate its colorful, 3D graphics and its realistic skeletal animation. The main character, Julie, moves fluidly throughout the lush, highly detailed environments in the game. Heavy Metal was influenced by other third-person action games - such as Tomb Raider by Core Design and Heretic II by Raven Software - in that Julie is capable of many different maneuvers besides just running, jumping, and shooting. For instance, Julie can climb certain surfaces, shimmy side-to-side while hanging from ledges or monkey bars, and climb hand-over-hand across hanging pipes and such. She jumps fast and high, and can wield most of her weapons ambidextrously - that is, the player can equip Julie with a sword in her right hand and a pistol in her left, and many other such combinations. However, some weapons require both hands for proper use, but most of these have two different firing modes to compensate. There appears to be a wide variety of different weapons in Heavy Metal, and being able to use them in different combinations gives the player even more options.

No matter which weapons players use, combat seems to be fast and responsive. Julie maneuvers easily using a combination of the mouse and the keyboard, and her weapons either auto-acquire targets or have a range of attack that's broad enough to let players target their foes easily from the game's behind-the-back perspective.

Heavy Metal begins with a fair amount of noninteractive story sequences and also integrates an optional tutorial that teaches the player how to fight and maneuver. Once the action starts, the first several scenes involve Julie saving her village from a strange invasion of alien bugs that attack from all directions.

Heavy Metal: F.A.K.K. 2 seems like an effective combination of action and adventure elements. The game also looks quite good visually, both because of the Quake III engine and also because of the game's creative design, as inspired by the fantasy art from the popular comic-book magazine. GameSpot will have a full review of Heavy Metal: F.A.K.K. 2 by the end of next week, but until then, have a look at these new screenshots to see what's in store.