Ritualistic

Heavy Metal FAKK2 Facts Genre: Third Person Shooter Publisher: Gathering of Developers Released: June 2000 Engine: Quake III, enhanced with UberTools Development time: 1 year of full production. Team size: 10 full-time members.

Heavy Metal FAKK2 starred Julie and one of the most intricate combat systems ever.

Julie was modeled on real-life Penthouse model Julie Strain.

Ritual put a lot of work into creating the township of Eden. As a result, it very much feels like a place that could actually exist.

The art team frequently met to ensure a consistent style among the game's environments.

Julie was able to pull off powerful combos that literally ripped enemies to shreds.

Even more meetings.

One of countless moves Julie could perform. The action was frequently broken up with puzzles and climbing.

Art Director Robert Atkins catches some downtime with Sally.

Dual UZIs quickly became a fan favorite among FAKK2's arsenal.

Levelord's infamous FAKK2 CPL shirt.

In the third act, FAKK2's level design threw the conventions out the window and led players through some truly stunning environments.

Ah yes, those. Admired for their audacity during the very first E3 demo in 1999, these ... statues didn't make it into the final game.

There is a lot that matters about FAKK2, a lot that’s worth knowing, but sadly has gone unappreciated. It was a game just as unique as Max Payne and a good deal more innovative than Rune, it was one of the few excellent third person shooters on the PC and was definitely better than what Tomb Raider had to offer in 2000. But let's start at the beginning.

Most adults living in the U.S. today are familiar with Heavy Metal Magazine. Originally from France, Heavy Metal is packed with adult sci-fi / fantasy stories told in comic form. In other words, guns, guts and ... boobies. Naturally, the concept was an instant hit in the uptight U.S. of A. and, 30 years after it first crossed the pond, is still going strong.

The idea of a Heavy Metal game came up in 1998, when the second Heavy Metal film began production by Threshold Entertainment. The game was going to coincide with the theatrical release of the movie, titled Heavy Metal 2000 in North America, feeding off its hype and becoming a huge multi-platform release that would reach a variety of audiences and give Eidos’ Indiana-Jones-With-Boobs a run for her scant shillings. Both the movie and the game would star Julie, modeled on Penthouse model Julie Strain - who also happened to be the wife of Heavy Metal owner Kevin Eastman.

"It was really cool to work with people like Kevin Eastman and Julie Strain," recalls Ritual's Richard "Levelord" Gray. "On top of rubbing elbows with these two celebs, they are both nice people to know. Kevin Eastman, as most know, created the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and owns Heavy Metal magazine. Julie Strain, …well, …she’s Julie Strain."

Initially, there were all different kinds of plans for the Heavy Metal game, but the final design did not come about until 1999, when the team of just ten switched to the Quake 3 engine and both began and finished development of a new game in essentially less then a year. The end result was Heavy Metal FAKK2, and all things considered that result is quite spectacular.

The game was originally planned to be a major, multi-platform release, coming both to Sega’s Dreamcast console, as well as the PC, but when Threshold changed their strategy to a video release, a much lower scale project was called for on the part of Ritual as well, though for different reasons. Sega had decided to discontinue the Dreamcast and publisher support for the platform was rapidly waning. In light of this, FAKK2’s publisher Gathering of Developers decided that the game would be a PC-only release, pulling the plug on the Dreamcast version of the game. This severely limited the exposure that the game received, and thus hurt its sales incredibly.

As a result few people got to appreciate what Ritual did, but what they did do was nothing short of incredible. FAKK2 was first and foremost made in mind as a competitor for Tomb Raider on consoles, but it turned out to be a great, well-performing PC game as well, thanks to the excellent, stable Quake 3 technology – there would be no accidents this time like with Sin, FAKK2 shipped with solid code, resulting in the vast majority of users having a bug-free experience.

From there, things only got better. Heavy Metal was a loud and violent, but also rich and vibrant, universe, which fitted Ritual just like a glove. Levelord remembers: “The FAKK2 property was especially appealing as a foundation for an action game. It had a great universe in which to build the story, it had a great cast of characters, and it had a female hero.“

After meeting with Ritual several times, Kevin Eastman decided to give the studio complete creative freedom for the project, and the team decided that the game would be a sequel to the movie. FAKK2 would star Julie on her quest to defend her homeworld from a galactic entity only known as GITH - a godlike creature traveling the stars in a massive spacecraft and bent on merging itself with Julie's planet.

The visuals that the experienced and talented Ritual art team created in collaboration with Kevin Eastman were beautiful, highly detailed, and varied, pleasing the eye and keeping the player interested. The game’s Eden Town levels, where the protagonists of the story live, can be appreciated even today for its high levels of detail and top notch texture work that’s full of intricate patterns and unique detailing, so that Eden feels like a place with its own culture and visual language, and not just another loud and colourful game level.

The strong visuals were a functional boon as well, besides just being eye candy and creating good atmosphere, it was also thanks to them that the game’s storytelling component worked as well as it did – along with the specifically developed scripting technology, the highly detailed, cutting edge art helped to develop a variety of unique characters that stuck in the players mind. Ritual took full advantage of the technology at the time to create reams of cutscene-specific animations and details like different expressions to allow the characters to carry the story better. The results were impressive, and FAKK2 was one of the best storytellers on the PC at that time.

FAKK2 was first and foremost about new ways to play a third person shooter. With a design motivated by a desire to show up the console third person shooters of the era, the guys at Ritual made a game that took combat, player movement and puzzles and turned it up to 11. All of these features were made more intricate, more involved, more sophisticated, sometimes they were completely overhauled as to not resemble anything found in other third person shooters at that time. To begin with, Julie could shimmy, hop, climb, roll, dodge, grapple and even combine these skills, giving her a complexity of movement only exceeded by the best of platformers. In all, there were some 7000 frames of hand-drawn animations just for Julie’s various moves. But some improvements made went beyond mere elaboration.

This specifically applies to the combat system. FAKK2 had a very complex, and totally unique system of dual wielding weapons, combo moves and melee combat. Different guns functioned differently and did different kinds of damage. Likewise in the melee area, the different swords and shields available to Julie had different powers, like electricity, fire and a special chainsaw sword. Now, add into the mix a variety of combo attacks that put the target on the defensive and increased damage, special blocks, and the acrobatic tricks that Julie could perform, and combat became an elaborate, gib-happy dance that the player could hone to a razor edge.

“The combat system in FAKK2 was brilliant,” reflects Levelord. “We still talk about reinstating the system in one of our coming games. The system added an entire dimension to the ordinary fighting of contemporary shooters.”

The game’s enemies could be very tough, and their weaknesses were quite specific, so the player who mastered FAKK2’s combat was well rewarded with quicker, less costly encounters. This gave the game an unexpected depth and tactical dimension that is even to this day uncharacteristic of an action title – few games have taken advantage of a combo, dual-wielding oriented combat system like FAKK2’s to make the action element of their title more interesting, with the possible exception of Bungie Studio’s Halo 2, which features a dual-wielding system simular to FAKK2’s own.

Musically, Heavy Metal FAKK2 also delivered thanks to Zak Belica, who crafted a fantastic soundtrack for the game. Much like SiN, each area had its own, unique musical feel, and Zak used everything ranging from wailing electronic guitars to thumping techno beats to provide players with a soundtrack matching the intense action in the game. An original title song called "Heavy Metal Fire" was also created for FAKK2 - a tradition that would be continued with SiN Episodes.

Like the original Sin, however, Heavy Metal FAKK2 was not a commercial success, but it is a game Ritual can be proud of. The game looked great and played well – you’ll be hard pressed finding a hardcore gamer that didn’t have a positive experience with this hidden gem. In fact, that might have been the game’s downfall. “We made the game too gamer-centric,” reflects Levelord. “We made a game for the dedicated game enthusiast. I know some of the puzzles I made for my levels were ridiculously difficult for the common game player.”

But, in a way, this served Ritual, because with this concentrated appeal FAKK2 drew in its own share of devoted diehard fans, and Ritual rewarded them by continuing their tradition of supplying the community with extremely powerful editing tools.

The game ended with a cliffhanger that has yet to be resolved, but a sequel is as yet unseen, largely due to the game underperforming in terms of sales. Will Ritual ever return to the Heavy Metal universe? Levelord chimes in: “Heavy Metal FAKK2 is definitely one of those games of Ritual’s yore that we would love to revisit. We usually see Kevin and/or Julie at E3, and this is usually a topic of discussion.“

Related Links:
· Heavy Metal FAKK2 game section
· Heavy Metal FAKK2 forum
· Heavy Metal FAKK2 editing wiki
· ÜberTools for Quake III
· Ritual Entertainment