Heavy Metal: Geomatrix

"And people complained about SPAWN?"

I remember when SPAWN: IN THE DEMON'S HAND came out. Everyone tore the game apart because of the camera problems. When I finally got around to picking up the game, I loved it, and it quickly became the four player game of choice around here. Then I heard about HEAVY METAL: GEOMATRIX, another 4-player game from Capcom that used the SPAWN engine and similar gameplay elements. My friends and I began drooling. After 2 months of delays, the game finally surfaced, and let me tell you, if you hated SPAWN, stay the heck away from this one.

GAMEPLAY:
The first major disappointment came when I looked at the box and it said 1-2 players. After all the talk of it being a 4-player game, I was ticked. Capcom had removed the 4-player option and rushed the game out as a 2 player game. Well, if the rest of it played well, no harm no foul, right?

WRONG! The game's camera system is awful. Gone is the ability to go first person like in SPAWN (which was useful only to correct the camera's position, and is badly needed in HEAVY METAL). Now you are stuck with an uncontrolable camera that always seems to place itself where you need it least. This means if an enemy is attacking your from in front, your camera will poition itself between you and your enemy, looking at you. Therefore you can't see your enemy to fight them and they destroy you. Sure there is a lock on option, but it just doesn't work very well and the enemies easily avoid your attacks.

The only other way to describe the gameplay is simply VIRTUA ON for the Saturn, but without any kind of usable camera system.

GRAPHICS/AUDIO:
Well, despite how poorly the game plays, it does look and sound pretty cool. The graphics seem much more detailed than the ones in SPAWN, and the heavy metal soundtrack is actually tolerable (and this coming from someone who doesn't like heavy metal music).

REPLAYABILITY:
Well, there are 12 characters (no hidden ones I found after beating the game several times in different modes of gameplay), so if you do want to torment yourself you can beat the game with each character.

BUY IT/RENT IT:
Save you money and do neither. I got the game for $10 and it still wasn't worth it, luckily I got $10 trade in for it at another store.

While this game may use the SPAWN engine, it is nowhere near as playable as SPAWN was. If you hated SPAWN, HEAVY METAL is definitely not for you. However if you did like SPAWN, HEAVY METAL is still not for you, unless you need a coaster to set your drink on while you play SPAWN.

Reviewer's Score: 1/10, Originally Posted: 09/22/01, Updated 09/22/01