Chebo's Reviews 1 - Heavy Metal FAKK 2

Hello and welcome!
This is going to be a series of articles where I review mostly old games, I'd like to dedicate my first article to my first and favorite game. It is a real old one. Feel free to share your thoughts, questions and criticism about my review and the game, I will try to respond and listen to in in order to improve my content. Without further a do, let's get to the bottom of it.Story

The story of the game is futuristic and a direct sequel to the movie, Heavy Metal 2000, which was released in April 19th, 2000, while the game released later in the same year in August 4, 2000. I won't describe the movie much, cause this is about the game. It follows the main protagonist, Julie Strain, who is a FAKK 2 ( Federation-Assigned Ketogenic Killzone to the 2nd level ). After the events of the movie, Julie has created peaceful life for herself and others, they call the place where they live Eden. They all have immortality, thanks to the Water of Eden ( Watch the movie to find out more about it, but it is for 18+, so you have been warned ). Eventually things start to escalate "eternal peace-wise" and this is where the gameplay kicks in.

Gameplay Mechanics

Here it is, the best part. The game contains a lot of weapons and monsters, and you'll soon see why it is ahead of its time. 



First of all, we have this lovely health bar located in the top left corner of the screen. The red is obviously health, but you might be wondering what the blue is. Armor? Yes, to an extent. It is a water meter. The more water you have, the less damage you take, and water is required for weapons like the Fire Sword to have full power. Water also increases your overall agility, you see that stripe near the full water meter? It's when Julie has the maximum strenght water-wise. After just approximately 3 seconds of sprinting, she will start sprinting much faster than without high water, and can jump further and higher in that altitude. Health can be restored by health "kits" like fruits, coming in a handful of forms, or a Potion of Life, which fully restores health. Water can be restored with vials, they are randomly found across the game, there are 2 sizes; a small one and a large one, but there's also Potions of Water. However, be very sparing with them, you can only obtain 3 throughout the entire game from what I remember, and I played through the game many times.

The selected weapon is located and displayed in the top right corner. This is a two-handed weapon, the meter on the right is primary ammo, and the meter on the left is secondary ammo. Some weapons don't have two ammo types, so both meters just drain at the same time, while two-handed melee weapons have no ammo, besides one exception which I'd rather not spoil, cause it's a very unique weapon.


This is what the weapon display looks like when it's in one-handed mode. You can use two individual weapons at the same time. In this case, it's a typical sword and shield combo, but you can also combine things like double uzi, shield and uzi, pistol and uzi, or even sword and uzi. Combinations with swords have yet another unique element, you can perform special moves which you'll learn more about in the tutorial ( training ) level of the game. 



Here's an example of the platforming. Just like in most platformers in third person games, you have to platform to find secrets, progress through the game and to solve some situations easier. There's not much to say here, so here's examples: monkey bars, ropes, ledges, climbable walls. Sounds like Tomb Raider maybe? Sure, a common comparison. However, I don't think the game deserves to be considered a Tomb Raider clone, due to the huge difference in plot and combat.

Puzzles are not very common, most of them are also just obvious. The review will talk a little more about the puzzles in the beta section.

Sountrack

Not much to say here either, the game has a decent own soundtrack like most games. Here's the menu theme, for a peek:


Visuals

The game is gorgeous for 2000, just have a look at some screenshots:



Monsters

As I already mentioned, there are many of them. They all have names that can be found in the game's forums, but most can't be found inside the game.


Beta

Here it is, the beta section which I mentioned earlier. Not much is known about the game's beta, but it was supposed to have more complicated puzzles, and Julie looked kinda weird compared to how she looks in the final game, I have managed to find this trailer that seemingly contained beta footage of the game: 


Facts

-The game does have an unofficial expansion called Between Heaven and Hell, it was uploaded by a former developer, it contains 3 levels, the rest of the levels aren't available. I found it today during my additional research, and I will play it as soon as possible. Thank you for making me find it, GameHag. It's what I was hungering for.
-The game does have easter eggs. By enabling the console and using noclip, you can find various easter eggs like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
-The saddest fact... The game was supposed to have a sequel, but there was no budget... You'll see why this is enraging if you play through the game yourself. It's a shame, the game looked awesome and very advanced, and yet it barely got any attention, and was never successful.
-Julie Strain, the voice actress and who the character model is based on is the real person's name and she was also voice actress in the movie which is animated, and even has her own movies which are live action.