Wednesday 15 August 2012

Heavy Gear Bitz

     
     

With headlines like that I should have pursued a career in tabloid journalism! Well maybe not, I have morals and scruples and I hear those sorts of thing get in the way of being part of the lowest 'profession' in western society. Any way what the hell am I talking about? I'm not sure, my brains still a bit scrambled and I haven't exactly been keeping my blogging skills in shape over the past month or so. Many of you I'm sure will have already heard the news that there will soon be another Heavy Gear computer game on it's way to market as Stompy Bot Productions and Dream Pod 9 link up to bring the franchise back to computer games. You can read the exceedingly bland and dull official press release here. Actually, can somebody explain to me why all press releases read duller than ditch water? A team of scientists could find the meaning of life and it'd still read as boring as hell in press release form... I'm getting side tracked again aren't I?


Now I don't normally cover computer games on this Blog, or any other Blog for that matter and I'm not about to start here, but I am a bit of a fan of Mech games, and I actually did play the first Heavy Gear games from Activision. I also had the second game too, but it never really played that much. It wasn't a bad game, it's just that at the time I had many other things going on in my life and computer games weren't the be all and end all right then. However, they were pretty good games from what I can remember and I enjoyed them loads, so with my new found love of Mech based wargames, and in particular Heavy Gear Blitz, I'm actually really looking forward to seeing what Stompy Bot Production get up to with the franchise, there's certainly more than enough source material to work from. Thing is I've never heard of Stompy Bot Productions, so I have no idea what sort of quality they are able to produce. Hopefully it'll be up to scratch.


The reality is Stompy Bot seem to be a relatively new company, with little or no track record to speak of. Obviously there have been companies that have come from nowhere in the past to release tip top computer games, but it is sadly getting rarer in the games industry now given the vast amount of resource companies have to chuck at a product to bring it up to scratch. Obviously previous track records are no guarantee of future success, but it would be nice to see what sort of products staff members at Stompy Bot have worked on in the past... you know, just to alleviate those sorts of nagging doubts. No platforms have been announced yet, nor has a release date or how the game will be distributed. The only news is that there will be a game at some indeterminate point in the future, on some form of computer based hardware. Perhaps I'll be cheeky and contact Stompy Bot to see if I can get more information out of them.


In other Dream Pod 9 related news, the guys from Canada will be attending Gen Con 2012, which fact fans starts tomorrow I believe. Gen Con is in its 45th year, which is pretty damn amazing if you ask me, and to celebrate those guys at Dream Pod 9 will be taking something special with them. You can see the picture of the miniature above, it's the Razor Fang Black Mamba, which is the command variant of the Southern Factions Black Mamba. It's a precursor to the Southern Factions Field Guide book "Forged in Fire: The Southern Field Guide". The Razor Fang will be available in strictly limited number though, so if you want one and you're lucky enough to be going to Gen con I'd swing by Dream Pod 9 ASAP to ensure you get one, it'll set you back $25.00USD on its own or $10.00USD if purchased with a Task Force Deal. You can read some more about what Dream Pod 9 will be getting up to at this years Gen Con by reading this article on their website. Peace Out!

12 comments:

  1. I'm not that much of a gamer as I used to be, but it seems I'll have to keep an eye on this. My Southern task force and armour deal arrived a week or two back and I'm really loving the Heavy Gear Blitz universe right now.

    And, according to beastsofwar.com, they'll also have the Southern gear-strider with them.. And it looks amazing!
    http://www.beastsofwar.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/Heavy-Gear-Drake.jpg

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    1. Well I'm glad you're enjoying it all... especially as it was me who convinced you to buy the stuff. *breaths a sigh of relief*

      ...and yes... that Southern Gear Strider thing looks OK...

      Alright it looks fracking amazing!!!

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  2. For liking Stompy Bot's fan page you can get a free copy of the Heavy Gear Arena rules. So even if it is for a few minutes, it's worth becoming a 'fan' if at all interested in Heavy Gear Arena.

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    1. Ooohh. I did not know that. Top tip Sunfyre and thanks.

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  3. By the way of computer games, I'd recently stumbled upon a soon to be released free-to-play titled Hawken, which so far has impressed me quite a bit. So if you like computer games, and big stompy robots, then a look-see may in order.

    Just sayin' :)

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    1. No cheers. I'd been keeping a beady eye on Hawken for sometime. There are a few mech heads in the blogging community who have been writing about Hawken actually. It looks pretty sweet if you ask me.

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  4. There's also Mechwarrior Online coming soon. Its also a free-to-play game and with some rather nice redesigns of the sometimes suspect BT mechs. Looks to mainly be PVP, arena deathmatch-style gameplay so far though - no sign of the campaigns of MW2 etc. But if its big stompy robots you want, they don't get much stompier!

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    1. Mechwarrior Online I have again heard about, but honestly not seen or read much about it. It'll be one I'll look up though for sure... I mean who doesn't like big stompy robots? They're like the dragons of teh sci-fi world... and dragons rock!

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  5. I have a few mates that are on the Beta for MechWarrior Online and after watching a few matches I must say they are doing a brilliant job. Stompy Bot does look very new, and I hope that they are able to bring the DP9 world and game play into the land of video games. Be it a 1st person cock-pit style with some small squad commands (ala Ghost Recon 1) or a squade isometric style like the Mechcommander Series the folks at Stompy Bot have some big shoes to fill. The Mecha-Fan communuity has in the past voted hard (with their coin) when it comes to video games. Heavy Gear 2 was a fantastic game and really did well and took in some excellent scores. It seems that many of the old RPG and Tabletop favorites are comming back to the land of video games. I just hope the need to produce doesn't take front seat to the desire of quality or these projects will enter in the 90's cloud of the forgotten

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    1. Yeah I agree. Stompy Bot won't have the mech arena (hehe see what I did there?) all to themselves. Plus as you say they've got some pretty big shoes to fill. It'll be a tough line to follow for them. So I hope they have some seriously experienced staff, and that they get a good product out the door that does the Heavy Gear universe justice. Fingers crossed eh!

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  6. Meh.
    Hawken is coming.
    That will be the mech game to rule all.

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    1. Yeah... until the next mech game to rule them all comes out!!! I will definitely be sampling Hawken when it comes out.

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