By Steve "Shepard" Martin

  An odd addition to HG2 is the Secondary Movement System or SMS. The SMS is basically skates for your Gear. When you use SMS, you can travel much faster than walking. The sensation of speed while using SMS is quite a rush! The SMS is used when you need to get to your destination quickly. This also helps speed up the time required to move from destination to destination.

Other movement features in HG2 are the ability to drop and pick up items. If you destroy an enemy Gear, you can pick up his hand held weapon. If you are low on ammo, this might mean the difference between life and death. While the Gear's movement is a little too human for my tastes, the movement is still great.

Multiplayer Action

Multiplayer action in Heavy Gear 2 is as simple as hitting the multiplayer button and creating a new callsign. The connection to the Activision multiplayer servers is automatic and simple enough for a 6 year old to accomplish.

Once connected to the server, you will find yourself in the lobby where you can choose from any game in progress or you can start you own. You can engage in duels (1 on 1), deathmatch, capture the flag, and strategic combat where you simply guard your base while destroying the enemy base.

Playing the game in multiplayer is quite an experience. Combat is FAST and furious. Before you try multiplayer, be sure you know how to upgrade all of the components on your Gear. You can always spot a newbie in multiplayer as the guy with a Threat Value of 700 while the veterans have Threat Values of 50k or 90k. Usually people play with no threat restrictions and anything goes. Beware! These games are not for the faint at heart. I took a pounding for a while until I learned the ropes.

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Capture the Flag is self explanatory. However strategic is a little different. In strategic play, you are tasked with guarding your base or trying to destroy the other base. Every building has some strategic value.

Certain buildings do certain things for your team. Communication facilitates inter-squad communication and sharing of sensor data. While this building is intact, your team shares sensor reading and thus expands your radar coverage and allows Gears to remain in passive radar mode in certain situations. Other buildings like the repair bay have immediate advantages when used. Regardless of the type of multiplayer missions, you will an adrenaline packed game.

To sum things up, Heavy Gear 2 has just about everything you could want in a mech-type simulation. The game itself is rock solid. I did not have a single lockup the entire time I played. The user interface is top notch as well. The developers of Heavy Gear 2 put a lot of love into their game and it shows. So if you're looking for some fast and furious combat with the most beautiful graphics and effects, then you only need to look for Heavy Gear 2.

Ratings

• Gameplay: 97
• Graphics: 96
• Sound: 97
• AI/Intelligence: 90
• User Interface: 96
• Fun Factor: 95
• Learning Curve: 1.5 - 3 hours

Overall Rating: 95

For overall excellence, we award Heavy Gear II our Top Pick! To download the demo (46 MB), click HERE.

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