First impact with Heavy Gear Assault

Proven at GDC 2013, the alpha version of the game of mech.

The Heavy Gear brand has existed for nearly twenty years, including role-playing games, wargames, card games and various licenses, but it was unusually little exploited to date in the field of gaming, with just two outputs signed Activision dating from the end of last millennium. The mech originally created Canadian publisher Dream Pod 9 are back in action, however, in digital format, thanks to the efforts of the team indie Stompy Bot Productions, who is working on a project free to play also based on the user support (you can shedding their mite selecting between different "cuts" on the official website and will soon be launched a campaign on Kickstarter).

At the Game Developers Conference 2013 Heavy Assault Gear was present in the form of a demo very small and clearly "extracted" from a version far behind in development, but useful for showing something concrete. The attractiveness of the location set up by Stompy Bot Productions in the GDC Play, then, was also in the fact that they are the only ones in the entire fair to be able to touch a demo created by Unreal Engine 4. The team consists of industry veterans (people who worked on Mechwarrior 2, Heavy Gear 2, Far Cry, Crysis, Mortal Kombat, Stranglehold, Splinter Cell) has narrowly missed the world record absolute, since a few days before, at PAX East, there was a playable demo of daylight , but it was still a novelty interesting, as it is interesting that the first to give a glimpse of next-gen two teams are indie.

To be sure, from the graphical point of view, as proven by Heavy Assault Gear does not exactly a miracle, indeed. But, probably, it was really just to show something concrete and offer a first impression with the game. The title of Stompy Bot is a game of action and fighting between mech inside arenas, based on a concept of fighting sports, gladiatorial arenas and an organization that mixes the style of American professional leagues. Try to imagine a NASCAR race and you'll have some idea of the look that we can expect: as far removed as possible from aesthetics "guerraiola" a Hawken , in short, in favor of a colorful look, with mech-hued linked to their 'team "sponsors and stuck a little 'everywhere.

The idea is just to groped a different approach to the game of mech. The gameplay will revolve around a championship battles between robottoni and the need to increase their increasing popularity (not just winning, but winning "good"), in order to get the best sponsors, earn more money and to have access to the alloys the most prestigious. It will all be added to a system based not only on the action in the arena, but also on the managerial, with among others the opportunity to influence the conditions and rules of the match, bet on the outcome or make available sizes of this or that opponent, to address the behavior of the contenders.

The combat phase you will be based on a system of control quite classic, with legs and torso of the mech to handle as separate entities, tank style, and fluidity of movement from fast-paced action (in this, however, Heavy Gear Assault can remember and how Hawken). The various mech will enjoy different kinds of upgrades, firearms and melee, removable wheels to move faster etc ... There will also be a system of localized damage to the various parts of the body, with the ability to knock out the management of the movement, maybe cut off an arm to the opponent and so on, it being understood that to bring down the enemy we must destroy the nerve center of control, typically located in the torso.

The project, as mentioned, and as evidenced by the rest of the fundraising still far from the target, is far behind and tried the demo at GDC was truly a taste. More than that, intrigued by the concept and the intention to create a superstructure aritcolata, with all the possible types of arenas and match (capture the flag, etc. ..) that we can expect. Obviously play a key role the online multiplayer, as befits a title meant for distribution free to play. The economic model provides for purchases related mostly to the aesthetic - not essential, but useful view of wanting to create spectacular impact mech and then appealing to pick up their popularity - and there are also subscriptions dedicated to users who want to access to funzionalutà "pro" as the use of dedicated servers and the creation of custom arenas. If all goes well, by year-end is expected to start closed beta, followed by an open beta in 2014. So there is still a long way to wait. And hope.