A F.A.K.K. ing Shame (Heavy Metal - F.A.K.K. 2 (PC))

Member Name: Ian Proudfoot

Product:	Heavy Metal - F.A.K.K. 2 (PC)
Date:	10/03/02 (129 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Nice Graphics, It's not a heavy metal simulator

Disadvantages: Too short, Unresponsive controls, Glitches

Heavy Metal F.A.K.K 2? By the name you would be lead to thinking it was some kind of rock version of Dance E- Jay and how wrong you would be. Instead Heavy Metal F.A.K.K 2 is a Quake III Engine powered action adventure in the Tomb Raider style based on a series of graphic novels and animated films which originate from the 1970’s.

The basic premise of the game is to save the peaceful world of Eden from a sinister alien attacker who goes by the name of Gift. You play as the scantily clad Julie, who manages to out do Lara Croft in the lack of clothing and size of digitised mammaries stakes. As Julie you explore various areas of Eden whilst fighting off hordes of radioactively mutated critters or strange alien creatures, jumping over various gaps of different sizes and solving rudimentary puzzles that are as about as difficult as tying your shoe laces, which may only present a problem if you used to wearing sandals or slippers.

Graphically Heavy Metal F.A.K.K 2 is a gorgeous peace of eye candy. The Quake III engine creates a environment that is reach in detail and vibrant colours. Julie, the enemies and the non player characters are all beautifully rendered and animated, moving with grace and poise around the exquisitely constructed level. The levels set in the valleys outside Eden’s main city are a particular wander to behold, with their elaborate fauna and water effects full of reflections and movement. These levels also give you a real feeling of openness and depth. Standing on some of the higher cliff faces gives you a feeling of vertigo as you peer into the abyss below. Other outstanding graphical features include the fantastically realised and automated massive machines that appear in several of the games levels. Pistons pump and mechanisms click and turn in the background and it really feels that you are living in the heart of one gigantic machine at times.

However gorgeous the game looks like and how well the Quake III
engine deals with moving the graphics Heavy Metal F.A.K.K 2 is massively flawed in many ways. Firstly the game suffers from the problem that haunts all 3rd person perspective games, the camera view. Most of the time the camera follows the action of the game extremely well allowing for you to see all that is happening around you, which is an imperative when you going under attack hordes of mutants as if often the case. However as equally as well as the camera view helps you it also frustrates in equal measures. More than often you view gets obscured by the surroundings or disorientates you completely, which is incredibly annoying on some of the later levels which involves timed and precise movement. The number of times I had to reload a save game because I had accidentally fallen off an edge because of the camera suddenly and unexceptionally changing angle were numerous.

The second big problem with Heavy Metal F.A.K.K 2 is that the game is unresponsive on occasions, which in a game that involves making a large number of accurate nail biting jumps is incredibly frustrating and beggars disbelief that it wasn’t picked up in the play testing. This problem really slows the whole game down as the only way to deal with the problem is to save the game before every jump and hope that the game responses to your command to jump in time. To make things worse the graphically detection around objects is also flawed meaning that sometimes you get stuck on objects whilst trying to make a simple move or found an invisible wall around other angles.

Although Heavy Metal F.A.K.K 2 suffers from the above problems it is still an enjoyable if short term romp. There is a lovely selection of different weapons to choose from which is helped by having a two hands two weapons system which makes it possible to use a combination of different weapons. My favourite being the Uzi and Lightening sword combo. Then again the potential to make the dual weapon system something
unique is really a wasted opportunity as most of the time you stick to using the same weapons whilst completely ignoring others. For instance I never used the gas bombs or the two handed axe as they were surplus to requirements as well as being fairly ineffectual and pointless.

Heavy Metal F.A.K.K 2 is also too short, it took me less than a week to complete the whole thing. Which in comparison to similar games like the Tomb Raider series or Alice is rather disappointing, and to be honest your probably better of buying either of those titles if you want a 3rd person arcade adventure game that is free of annoying glitches and offers a real challenge.

Heavy Metal F.A.K.K 2 could have been a great game if the flaws in it had been ironed out and it had offered a challenge that wasn’t just about controlling your anger at it’s limitations. Heavy Metal F.A.K.K 2 does have some plusses the graphics being the major one and may be worth picking up if you can find it cheap and are willing to swear at the annoying glitches.

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