Heavy Metal: Geomatrix

"Killer Music AND Killer Weapons? Sweet....."

Well Heavy Metal: Geomatrix is another Capcom fighting game though it isn't like any Street Fighter or VS game. It's fully 3D and has no hyper (or alpha or super or whatever you wanna call them) combos. Read on to see why this is a original and great fighter.

STORY: 7/10

Well a story never really makes a good fighting game but here it is anyways. In the future, people can travel into cyber space and live in a perfect world. They live it just as they would in real life except they have no fear of sickness, disease or nature's wrath such as floods. Over time, most of the world begins this fad and totally forget about the real world. In the mean time, a comet hits the earth, causing the polar caps to cause flooding and the destruction of nearly everything. Few people survive and those who do must fight for land against gangs and murderers. It has become every man for himself in the fight for survival. A really good concept of a storyline but kinda hard to follow.

CONTROL: 8/10

This is kinda tricky. You only have two attacks. A melee attack, depends if you have a sword or your fists and a fire button which will fire your gun if you have one. If you dont, you will perform a roundhouse kick. There is a dash button to help dodge enemy fire and a jump button to help get around. Like I said, tricky to learn, but once you do, it's very easy to control your fighter.

SOUND: 10/10

Now here is where this game ROCKS! A heavy metal soundtrack with bands such as Halford (former lead singer of Judas Priest), Entombed, Dust to Dust and my personal favorite band of all time, Megadeth. All songs are played while fighting and really set the mood for you and nuke your opponent straight to hades. The gunfire, taunts and sounds of your fist cracking your opponents skull sound great and can still be heard over the music. It's balanced where you can hear both and enjoy the guitar solo's and your opponent screaming in pain.

GRAPHICS: 10/10

Now to me, graphics never make a game though I still enjoy to see good looking games. Heavy Metal's are great. Guns release smoke when firing shots, your mouth moves as you taunt and it doesn't get choppy at all when up close. The fire looks real when it's on a burning corpse (Muhahahaha) and the levels look detailed as well. Very nice in this area.

GAMEPLAY: 8/10

You have 12 fighters to choose from, 3 from each of the 4 teams. Each team has a male leader who is average in stats, a female who outruns everyone but cant take a beating and a cyborg, who has a bit more life but is slow as hell. This is one exception to the team called the Metal Heads who has two males and no cyborg. Each start off with a different weapon or in some cases, 2 weapons. Other than that, its basically a personal choice as everyone has almost exactly the same moves. As you run outta ammo for your weapon, you can pick up another from a pistol to a control that you can use to fire rockets from the sky. Very cool weaponry and easy to control to help you nuke your opponent.

REPLAY: 6/10

The reason this only has a 6 is that there is no secrets to be found. No hidden weapons, characters or levels. Now that number can be 10/10 if you have a couple friends over and you enjoy fragging each other around. It's always a good sight to see your best friend as a burning corpse.

OVERALL: 9/10

Overall, it's a great game for $20 at your local gaming store. My advice is get some friends over, get some soda's (or beer if you must), some nacho's, crank the volume on the TV and have a frag fest.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 02/27/02, Updated 08/10/02