When Activision lost its license to FASA's Mechwarrior license some time ago, many thought that meant that the company was out of the giant robot game business. Activision surprised everyone by licensing Dream Pod 9's Heavy Gear role-playing universe as an action series. Heavy Gear wasn't a highly appreciated title, although I personally loved the game. The sequel brings a lot more complexity to the series, advances the plotline, and sports a beautiful new 3D accelerator-only engine.
The conflict that the first game was based upon is over. The Northern and Southern leagues that were the basis of conflict have been forced into an alliance against the Earth forces that have come to reclaim their territory. The Heavy Gear universe is a complex one, and the background story is very rich and detailed. In fact, it is one of the game's strong points - action games that do not have a solid story tend to lose my attention. Heavy Gear II does not suffer from that.
Powering the game graphically is Activision's new "Dark Side" engine. This is a hardware-only game, and boasts some very impressive visuals. Without having to retain support for software rendering, more attention may be paid to the accelerated effects that you will find throughout the game. Lighting, smoke, fog, shadows, and other impressive features are all well executed within this game engine. One of the most interesting features is the use of weather. The very first mission takes place in swampy terrain, and the haze and rain effects are incredible. Gone are the cheesy video clips that propelled the plotline between missions in the original game. Some of the cut scenes are done in animated video, but the prologues and epilogues to the missions are done with game engine graphics. This method worked well in Activision's Interstate 76 and additionally, this game engine will power the sequel to that game as well. Sound effects are also very well done; the sounds of weapons and explosions are quite realistic. The music is dramatic, and provides a good background to the action.
Control of the game is very detailed; there are a large number of options available to pilot your gear. This is where people new to the genre might get a bit turned off to the game at first. There is a fairly steep learning curve to the controls, simply because there is so much to absorb. Controls are configurable of course, and that helps a bit. A decent set of tutorial missions are included and nicely executed. Still, learning the basics doesn't prepare you for actual game combat. I urge anyone overwhelmed by this to stick with it, even to the point of repeating the tutorials if necessary. Once you master the controls, you will find playing the game a very rewarding experience. On the downside, there is no way to save your game while in a mission, meaning that you'll be repeating the more difficult ones over and over from the beginning.
Graphics and control aside, the missions are the meat of the game and are nicely detailed and worthwhile. Not only are there weather effects to deal with, but this game takes you and your gear into space to combat in three dimensions. Control changes quite a bit when you enter the vacuum of space, and can cause a little confusion. The diverse natures of these missions are more than worth the trouble.
One of the problems with the original game was embedded right into the storyline. A conflict in an early mission caused you to become an outsider far too early in the story, requiring you to undertake missions solo throughout most of the game. Squad-based missions were almost non-existent. All of that has changed in Heavy Gear II; here you are a stalwart soldier leading a squad through mission after mission. There is a healthy mix of solo and group missions in this game, and that is something that makes a huge difference in gameplay. You're given total control over the outfitting of the gears and squadmates in your team. The other soldiers have distinct personalities, so picking and choosing becomes quite interesting. Since you're not saving money and buying equipment for your team, a different method of control is placed upon you. You have a threat factor that you may not exceed on any particular mission. It works like this: you and your squadmates each have a numerical value associated with them to determine their threat. Equipment, gear type, and experience all add to this number. Each mission has a maximum threat associated with it, and you may not exceed that number when configuring your squad. This method gives you more flexibility to create a squad, but is also more difficult.
As the squad leader, a tactical overhead map is also available to you to help you manage your squads. On this map, you may detail navigation points and give orders to your team. It may also function as a crude automap but that is not its intention. What the first Heavy Gear game lacked in squad-based functionality, this game more than makes up for it in mission structure and tools.
This game is more than a worthy successor to the first Heavy Gear game. With all the competition out there right now in the form of Mechwarrior and Starsiege, it's interesting to find that this game keeps right up to them in terms of quality and sophistication.
