Heavy Metal F.A.K.K.2, Comin' At You?

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While I’m on this kick of looking back over the years at old games that are still mega-popular, I also want to look at games that maybe nobody remembers, or even knows about. No, I’m not talking about Daikatana. That game is pretty cool, and I’m pretty sure it’s also very well known. I’m talking about Julie and Heavy Metal F.A.K.K.2, a game that came, then said, “Hey!” and subsequently vanished into the ether of game development … seemingly, forever.

A game built on the Quake 3 engine, based on / a sequel to Heavy Metal 2000 (a movie, release July 10, 2000), and developed by the now defunct and erased Ritual Entertainment (see: SiN, SiN: Emergence).

If you asked me, “Nova, why do you think this game failed?” I don’t think I’d be able to answer! It’s a fantasy style boobs, guns, and swords sorta game (you know how the late 90s and 2000s were in regard to gaming) that was trying to be Ritual’s version of Tomb Raider. I emphasize the boobs part, because, as you got damaged in the game, so did Julie’s outfit.

The synopsis was as follows:

F.A.K.K. 2 stands for “Federation-Assigned Ketogenic Killzone to the second level”, and is the alias both of the heroine, Julie, and also her homeworld. Before the game begins, we are told that Julie has previously killed a tyrant and “would-be God” named Lord Tyler (during the events of Heavy Metal 2000), and brought the remnant of her people to a planet called Eden. The people of Eden have made a startling discovery: the waters of the planet grant an eternal life to those who drink it, and they have restored ti-rural paradise, pasturing ‘creepers’ (large bull-like creatures) and peacefully going about their business.

This planet is camouflaged by a F.A.K.K. 2 beacon and made to look like a biohazard-strewn wasteland in the hope that it will remain hidden from any threat. However, a creature named Gith, who appears only as a disembodied cybernetic head, runs a hyper-corporation called GITH Industries whose “employees” are little more than slaves. He scavenges the universe in a ship composed of three-quarters of a planet, and is headed for a place called Na’ChThraThull, or the “place of the soft machines”, which turns out to be Eden.

Julie resides in the town of Eden with her sister Kerrie, who is pregnant. She interacts with various citizens, including her brother-in-law, Germain St. Germain. Peace is suddenly disturbed by the appearance of hostile insect-like creatures called Vymishes. Julie springs into combat, killing many of the creatures and saving a pregnant creeper in the process. She also kills a Vymish Mama, a queen-like Vymish. Afterward, Julie heads into town and meets Otto, the town’s gunsmith, who she gives a glowing green asteroid to for examination. Another asteroid knocks out the shield, and Julie, accompanied by Jared and Eon, is tasked with resetting the shield generator. Underground, Julie’s accomplices are killed by creatures called Grawlix, and she is forced to continue alone. She eventually resets the shield generator, but is too late to discover that GITH has arrived, and he teleports troops in to destroy the generator.

Julie returns to town to find it under siege by GITH’s forces. Many citizens are dead, while others are hypnotized. Julie finds Otto, who has recovered a mysterious object from the asteroid. It turns out to be a message for Julie from the “Belphigoreans”, warning her that Gith is seeking the “Heart of the We”. Otto tells Julie about the Heart of the We, and tasks her with finding a native of Eden named Gruff. Julie leaves the besieged Eden, then journeys through the Mooagly swamps to find Gruff, who unlocks the path to the Temple of the We for her. She then overcomes the four challenges of the We before entering the final temple where the Heart of the We is kept. However, GITH is waiting for her, and he steals the Heart and uses it to bring Lord Tyler back to life, so he could have his revenge on Julie. However, Julie fights and kills Lord Tyler and wins the Heart, banishing GITH. She returns to town only to find out that her pregnant sister is kidnapped by GITH, who returns in a giant space station.

I may have beaten this game, I actually don’t even remember. What I do remember, is my parent’s Pentium Gateway wasn’t powerful enough to play it at 60 FPS. In fact, I think I had a lot of issues just playing it. Which boggled my mind, because the PC ran Quake 3 very easily, and pretty well.

Hey, maybe that’s why the game isn’t really remembered all too well. But, it could also be because Ritual Entertainment sold themselves to a mobile game studio and then vanished, never to be heard from again.

But when it did work, it was a cool game. Running, gunning, slicing, platforming, and wild cinematics. Back in the day, I was a pretty big fan of the Heavy Metal magazine, and all the art that came with it. I think I remember watching Heavy Metal 2000, and trying to figure out how it fit into the timeline of the game … only to realize I glossed over the part where they say the game’s like, 30 years after 2000. It kind of makes me want to try and get it running on a modern Windows system, just to play through it one more time, so that I can clearly remember everything. And I say “Windows system,” because I already tried using Wine and Proton to make this game work on Linux, and it refused.

But this is just a long line of games from Ritual that are lost to history, and nearly lost-media. Just like SiN, and Emergence. I think the two latter games are more known and memorable, and some may even still be waiting for their continuation, but if you’re interested in preserving history, and gaming history, like me, you’d probably like to know this game existed at some point, and it should be resurrected. If only to have a spot on the internet archive.

Oh! It does have a spot there!

As of writing this, the internet archive is currently down due to a low-life who hacked and took the system down, but should be recovered at some point in the near future, so that my link to the FAKK 2 archive works.

I write about this, though, partially, because I still miss the era of mid-90s and 2000s era gaming very much. Not for the porn-y aspects of gaming that were all over the place back then, but just because games were released faster, and there were so many different concepts, things people and studios were willing to try … until the never-ending profit machine of our modern society decided to generic-ise everything.

Anyway, what the FAKK?