| 📰 Title: | Heavy Gear II (with LIFLG installer) | 🕹️ / 🛠️ Type: | Game |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🗃️ Genre: | Adventure & Action | 👁️ Visual: | 3D |
| 🏷️ Category: | Adventure & Action ➤ FPS ➤ Fantasy & Sci-fi ➤ Misc. | 🏝️ Perspective: | Third & First person |
| 🔖 Tags: | FPS; Shooter; Arena Shooter; Mecha; Robots; Vehicles; Action; Fighting; Stealth; Simulation; Destruction; Sci-fi; Open World; Classic; Online Multi | ⏱️ Pacing: | Real Time |
| 🐣️ Approx. start: | 1999-06-18 | 👫️ Played: | Single & Multi |
| 🐓️ Latest: | 1999-06-18 | 🚦 Status: | 04. Released (status) |
| 📍️ Version: | Latest: 19990618 | ❤️ Like it: | 9. ⏳️ |
| 🏛️ License type: | 💰 Commercial | 🎀️ Quality: | 7. ⏳️ |
| 🏛️ License: | Commercial | ✨️ (temporary): | |
| 🐛️ Created: | 2010-08-20 | 🐜️ Updated: | 2024-06-22 |
| 📦️ Package name: | ..... 📦️ Arch: | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| 📄️ Source: | ..... 📦️ RPM: | ||
| ⚙️ Generic binary: |  |
..... 📦️ Deb: | |
| 🌍️ Browser version: | ..... 📦️ AppImage: | ||
| 📱️ PDA support: | ..... 📦️ Flatpak: | ||
| ✨️ Not use: | ..... 📦️ Snap: |
| 📰 What's new?: | 👻️ Temporary: | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| 💡 Lights on: | 🎨️ Significant improvement: | ||
| 👔️ Already shown: | 💭️ New version published (to be updated): | ||
| 🎖️ This work: |  |
🚧️ Some work remains to be done: | |
| 👫️ Contrib.: | goupildb & Louis | 🦺️ Work in progress: | |
| 🎰️ ID: | 11388 |
| 📜️[en]: | The sequel to the eponymous game, and an FPS and Mecha (giant robots, called Gears) fighting game in which the player embodies one of the elite special operations robot pilots of the planet Terra Nova. The explosion of an anti-matter bomb in the Badlands caused by the New Earth Concordat (NEC) prompted the city-states of the North and South to join forces and create a squad of elite Gears pilots (of which the player is a member) who were sent behind enemy lines to the planet Caprice, the closest base to the NEC, in order to investigate its plans and fight back. | 📜️[fr]: | La suite du jeu éponyme, et un FPS et jeu de combat de Mechas (des robots géants, dénommés Gears) dans lequel le joueur incarne l'un des pilotes de robots d'élite des opérations spéciales de la planète Terra Nova. L'explosion d'une bombe antimatière dans les Badlands causée par le New Earth Concordat (NEC) a incité les villes-états du Nord et du Sud à s'allier et à créer une escouade de pilotes d'élite de Gears (dont fait partie le joueur) qu'ils ont envoyé derrière les lignes ennemies, sur la planète Caprice, la base la plus proche du NEC, afin de s'enquérir de ses plans et riposter. |
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🎲️ Gameplay: (202xxx♺), (202xxx♺), [fr](202xxx♺),
🏡️ Website & videos
[Homepage] [Dev site] [Features/About] [Screenshots] [Videos t(202xxx♺) t(202xxx♺) t(202xxx) g(202xxx♺) g(202xxx♺) g(202xxx♺)] [WIKI] [FAQ] [RSS] [Changelog 1 2 3]
💰 Commercial
• [Amazon]
🍩️ Resources
• Linux Installer For Linux Gamers (LIFLG, require the commercial Windows game): [Binaries (Mirror, thanks to HOLaRSE)] [Dev site]
• Linux demo: [Lokigames (Linux demo)]
🛠️ Technical informations
[PCGamingWiki] [MobyGames]
🦣️ Social
Devs (Activision [fr] [en]): [Site 1 2] [MobyGames] [Chat] [mastodon] [Facebook] [PeerTube] [YouTube] [PressKit] [Linkedin] [Interview 1(202xxx) 2(202xxx)]
Devs (Loki Software [fr] [en]): [Site 1 2] [Chat] [mastodon] [PeerTube] [YouTube] [PressKit] [Interview 1(199908) 2(202xxx)]
The Project: [Blog] [Chat] [Forums] [mastodon] [PeerTube] [YouTube] [PressKit] [reddit] [Discord]
🐝️ Related
[Wikipedia (Heavy Gear II) [fr] [en] [de]]
[Wikipedia (Heavy Gear) [fr] [en] [de]]
[The Linux Game Tome] [HOLaRSE [de]] [Mod DB]
📦️ Misc. repositories
[Repology] [pkgs.org] [Generic binary] [Arch Linux / AUR] [openSUSE] [Debian/Ubuntu] [Flatpak] [AppImage(author's repo)] [Snap] [PortableLinuxGames] (✘ Tested, does not work) [My Abandonware]
🕵️ Reviews
[metacritic]
🕊️ Source of this Entry: [Site (date)]
🦣️ Social Networking Update (on mastodon)
🕹️ Title: Heavy Gear II (with LIFLG installer)
🦊️ What's: An FPS and Mecha (giant robots, called Gears) fighting game
🏡️
🐣️
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📦️
📖 Our entry: (homeless)
🥁️ Update:
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📌️ Changes:
🦣️ From: 🛜️
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🎲️[fr] https://www.youtube.com/embed/
🎮️ https://www.youtube.com/embed/
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🐧https://www.youtube.com/embed/
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🕶️
📚️ Name is a
📜️ "An FPS and Mecha (giant robots, called Gears) fighting game" 📜️
Mod DB:
Heavy Gear 2, based on the pen-and-paper RPG Gears, takes place during a cease-fire in the Interpolar War between the Confederated Northern City-States and the Allied Southern Territories, now allied against a common threat. A squad of elite pilots is given the mission to go behind enemy lines and discover the enemy plans for invasion. As one of these pilots, you are among the finest warriors in our history, and you will be outfitted with top-of-the-line Gear equipment to match your elite warrior status.
My Abandonware:
Robot bores
In the future, all wars will be fought in big giant robot things. At least they will if you take any notice of games like Mechwarrior 2, Heavy Gear, and the fair few robot orientated board games floating about. Giant mechanoids will stride across the land, laser blasts will scorch the earth, and missiles will scream through the sky, as these metal titans engage each other. At least, that's the theory. Presumably, the people who write these games have never seen the rather sub-par Robot Wars on BBC2. This program, a watered down version of the somewhat superior US robot combat tournaments, hosted by a variety of shouty presenters--and Phillipa Forester. This program showcases a somewhat different view of robot on robot combat, consisting of various home-made and somewhat less-than-giant robots, running around obstacle courses, getting stuck on small spikes, and being nudged around by the blatantly more powerful house robots. If in the future all robots are like this, then regular soldiers won't exactly have much to worry about. It'd be less a case of "Run! If that giant stomping robot steps on us, we'll be history" and more "Hey... look! I can flip this one over with my foot! Look! It's flailing around on its back and it can't get up!." Future warfare will never be the same again.
Blast-a-rama
The robots in Heavy Gear 2, Activision's latest robot combat game, are a little more impressive than those in that rubbish BBC2 series, but they're not as massive as those featured in Mechwarrior 2. In terms of destructive power, they come somewhere between Gordon Freeman from Half Life and the giant mechs in Mechwarrior 2. In fact, the game itself comes across as a sort of cross-breed--the result of a drunken liason between Quake 2 and Mechwarrior 2. But first things first--you can't have a big scrap between heavily armed robots without there being some sort of underlying reason, even if it is just because one clan leader spilt the other clan leader's pint. The premise behind Heavy Gear 2 is that a long time ago, a group of colonists settled on a planet known as Terra Nova. Time passed, they grew in numbers and strength and eventually declared independence. However, the Earth forces became somewhat narked with this and have been unofficially at war with the Terra Novans ever since. Most recently, they planted a bomb which blew up a central Terra Novan city. This, understandably, has not pleased the Terra Novans; they resolve to strike back and defend Terra Nova, and this is where you come in.
Missiles Away
You play a Terra Novan squad leader given the task of following the trail of terrorist and terran activity that leads away from the bombing, tracking down the culprits, making sure that Earth ceases its anti-Terra-Novan activity and generally kicking enemy arse. In order to do this, you're provided with a 'gear', one of the aformentioned fighting robots, which you pilot round a variety of missions blowing things up with a variety of weapons. These gears are not only smaller than those featured in Mechwarrior 2, but also more maneuverable, and able to use their fists and hand-held blades in additition to the standard array of ranged weaponry. On top of this, you can crawl and bend down on one knee, jump, strafe from left to right and generally do all sorts of things you can't do in the Mechwarrior games. In fact, whereas the robots in Mechwarrior are effectively tanks on legs, the gears are more like people in robot suits. But while the gears are fast, they're also less well endowed in the weapons and armour department than Mechwarrior 's mechs. The gears can only fire two weapons at a time at most, and also can't take as much of a battering as mechs. But fortunately, since this game is set firmly in the Heavy Gear universe and not the Mechwarrior universe, you'll mainly be running into other gears, each with similar advantages and disadvantages--a piece of good luck, that.
Fire and forget
Given the size of your gear, and its special abilities, there's another factor that comes into play in Heavy Gear 2 --one that can be used to your advantage--stealth. Displayed in the bottom right hand part of your HUD is a small green meter with a line in it. The stealthier you are, the further to the right this line goes. Your stealth rating goes up if you edge your way along on your knees, and goes up even more if you crawl, or use the passive radar mode (which is less effective at detecting enemies than active radar). Conversely, your stealth rating goes down if you use active radar, walk straight into a battlefield, or use tank track mode which lets you zoom around using the wheels on your gear's feet. When you come into range of an enemy, your stealth bar turns partially red. The further the red bar is along, the more sensitive your enemy is to other presences. Should the red bar go over the green line, in other words, should the enemy's awareness rating be higher than your current stealth rating then you'll be spotted. If you do manage to make it in closer without being seen, you can usually lob in some missiles or laser blasts (which is a lot simpler if you have a sniper facility on your gear), and gain a considerable advantage in combat. Somewhat unusually, and this is the only flaw in the otherwise well done stealth system, the amount of ground cover you have does not appear to affect your stealth rating. Therefore you have as much chance of being seen crawling along behind a ridge as you do crawling over open ground.
Robo-pagga
Combat itself is a heated affair, as you'd expect. At least it is when your enemies see you. As in the Mechwarrior games, you can twist your torso to keep your weapons aimed at baddies, as well as look up and down, jump and, if you're equipped with jump jets, you can zoom into the air and blast at your opponent from above, though you don't really have enough control to come crashing down on his head. Your gear is equipped with a fair amount of armour, which protects you from major damage--but it's depleted whenever you get hit. Also, if you take enough damage in one go, you'll recieve a critical hit, which could mean losing part of your gear, or at the very least, some of its functionality. It's not uncommon to see enemy gears dragging their legs after you hit them hard, or to find that after a hit, you suddenly move rather slowly. The weapons you employ in both single and multiplayer mode are entirely down to you; before each mission you arm your gear (in single player mode you can't change gear after your choice at the start of the campaign but you can reconfigure it), adding bits and bats such as extra armour and extra weaponry, until you reach the threat limit set for that mission. The threat total is similar in some respects to Mechwarrior's tonnage system; each item adds a certain amount to your threat potential, and once you reach the mission allowance you can't go any further. The 'threat' system works well in multiplayer mode but is a bit strange in single player mode--why shouldn't you carry all the weapons you can? Unless of course the leaders of each side rung each other up before hand and agreed on a certain threat... all in the name of honour, don't you know...
Geared-up
You're not entirely alone in single player mode as you roam around the various battle areas, killing gears, defending bases, taking out enemy targets, taking over space-ships. Yep, there's even a few missions set in zero gravity. In some missions, you can pick squadmates, arm them up, and then command them to aid you in your endeavours. They're reasonably intelligent too, and will mostly obey your orders while also reacting to any enemies they bump into, who themselves are no thickies. But for real intelligence, there's nothing like real human players. Well, mostly, anyway--there are one or two exceptions. So it's handy that Heavy Gear 2 features a Gamespy style game search facility, so you can track down games on the Internet. There are several types of games you can play, including capture the flag, duel, and all out deathmatch. When I tried logging on, I found a couple of players on the UK server (this was about 7:00 in the evening), and so was able to get a decent game going. I tried the highly populated US server but that was so lagged the gears popped about like the cast of Chorlton and the Wheelies. Multiplayer Heavy Gear 2 is surprisingly entertaining. Given the fact that the gears are less durable than Mechwarrior's mechs, multiplayer combat is generally swift, though not compared to Quake 2 ; conflicts are often over in a couple of minutes or so. And watching your enemy smoking, trying to get up from the floor while you blast him with your machine gun is disturbingly satisfying.
Target
Overall, Heavy Gear 2 is highly playable and rather entertaining. It's an interesting game to play, albeit one that may not be to everyone's tastes. If you're a Mechwarrior fan you may find the smaller size of the gears a bit off-putting at first. However, if you perservere, or if you're just a general arcade fan then you'll find that Heavy Gear 2 has a fair bit to offer--especially in multiplayer mode. Heavy Gear 2 is a fun and strangely addictive game that just goes to prove that small can be beautiful - in a blowing someone's mechanical face off with a rocket kind of way.
Review By GamesDomain
🌍️ Wikipedia (Heavy Gear II):
Heavy Gear II, known in Europe as Heavy Gear II: Mission Caprice, is a mecha based first-person shooter video game. Set in Dream Pod 9's Heavy Gear universe, the game was developed and published by Activision in 1999 for Microsoft Windows; it was ported to Linux in 2000 by Loki Software. It is a sequel to the 1997 video game Heavy Gear.
Plot
An atrocity caused by the New Earth Concordat (NEC) — the destruction of the Badlands city of Peace River by an antimatter bomb — leads to a formal cease-fire between the Northern and Southern Leagues. A team of elite Special-Ops pilots from across the planet, equipped with advanced prototype Gears and a newly unveiled intersystem assault shuttle, are sent through the interstellar Tannhauser gate to the planet Caprice, the nearest NEC base, to find out more and strike back at the enemy.
🌍️ Wikipedia (Heavy Gear):
Heavy Gear is a game universe published since 1994 by Canadian publisher Dream Pod 9. It includes a tabletop tactical wargame, a role-playing game and a lesser known combat card game (Heavy Gear Fighter). The setting is also known through the PC-game incarnations published by Activision in 1997 and 1999, developed after Activision lost the rights to the Battletech/MechWarrior series. It also spawned a 40-episodes, 3D-animated TV series in 2001, which featured a much simplified version of the universe developed in the role-playing game.
The background universe of the game is extremely detailed: several million words have been published to date in more than a hundred books and game accessories. A continual epic storyline runs throughout all of the game's material, with new publications moving chronologically along the timeline. Heavy Gear is best known for its humanoid combat vehicles (or mecha): the 'Gears' and 'Striders' used by the military forces in the setting.
Plot and setting
Heavy Gear is set on a distant, fictional planet called Terra Nova around 4,000 Earth Standard Years from now (AD 6132). Terra Nova was once the pride of the United Earth Government's colonies. However, an economic collapse forced the UEG government to abandon Terra Nova and all its other colonies centuries before the period depicted in the game setting, leaving Terra Nova in a dark age. Eventually, City-states rose from the ashes and either through treaties or tyranny, united to form national unions called Leagues. These Leagues would in turn ally (again either peacefully or forcibly) to form the superpower blocs that dominated the temperate southern and northern hemispheres of the planet.
The planet's geography is primarily land containing deep underground water reserves, but few large bodies of open water, and no oceans. This is unlike Earth which is covered by 70% ocean. The planet has its own existing ecosystem of plants and animals, though most animals are reptilian in nature, such as the bison like Barnaby used as livestock, and the prolific Hopper which is the equivalent of Earth's rabbit. The single dominant land feature is a massive mineral rich, hot, desert belt around the equator of the world known as the Badlands. This territory is not dominated by any one political group, and is considered open territory to everyone, and contains many bandit groups known as Rovers. Most people live in the northern or southern polar regions where temperatures are more acceptable to human life, and other terrain types such as forests, grasslands, swamps and jungles can be found. Small ice caps with arctic conditions and glaciers are found on the true north and true south poles.
As the setting is primarily the backdrop for a series of strategy, roleplaying, and video games the military and weaponry are the main focus. One of the most popular weapon systems of the various groups on Terra Nova are the machines known as Heavy Gears that give the universe its name. They are 12- to 20-foot-tall (3.7 to 6.1 m) bipedal, armored, single occupancy military combat units. The Gears are less heavily armed and armored than main battle tanks used by the Terra Nova armies. However, the Gears provide a mix of capabilities that prove effective as the setting/game rules typically allow victory through maneuver warfare and place less emphasis on raw firepower and armor.
Several major wars take place over time, including the War of the Alliance. A new dictatorial government on Earth attempts to re-take its former colonies by force using its own advanced war machines such as hover tanks and armies of purple skinned GREL super soldiers (Genetically Recombinant Expeditionary Legionaries). In this war both the North and the South cooperate to fight off the Colonial Expeditionary Force, which during their first defeat and withdrawal abandon many personnel (both human and GREL), who eventually settle Terra Nova and form the city-state of Port Arthur.
As of 6132 AD (TN 1936, local calendar), the Confederated Northern City-States (CNCS) and the Allied Southern Territories (AST) are recovering and rebuilding from the War of the Alliance. Despite the looming common threat posed by the eventual return of Earth's colonial armies, the polar superpowers have great fear and animosity for each other, an analogy of the real world NATO and Warsaw Pact, while the independent City-States of the Badlands simply try to survive the crossfire.
Confederated Northern City-States
The political situation on Terra Nova has three major nations of the north polar region banding together to form their alliance called the Confederated Northern City-States to oppose the Allied Southern Territories from the south pole.
Northern Light Confederacy
A large nation known for its devotion to the major religion of Sorrento Revisionism based on the teachings of an early wandering desert colonist prophet named Mamoud. Sorrento Revisionism is a sect that preaches conservatism, and the necessary use of force to make the world a better place. They are most often motivated to conflict by that reason, and even incorporate chaplains into military units.
Mercantile Federation
An industrial power that puts a price on everything, including buying and selling votes in their political system, and has a keen interest in exploiting the untapped resources buried in the sand and rock of the Badlands.
Western Frontier Protectorate
A region of open plains and ranching that promote family, hard work, and patriotism by military service. Indeed, the WFP requires a person to be a reservist in the Protectorate armed forces in order to be elected to high office, and only military veterans may vote.
Allied Southern Territories
The south pole of Terra Nova likewise has an overall political grouping known as the Allied Southern Territories. Unlike the three nations forming the CNCS, which are generally on an equal level with one another politically, the Southern Republic dominates over the other three southern nations in order to field the strength necessary to meet Northern aggressive policies towards them.
Southern Republic
The real power of the southern pole. They are the largest nation on the planet with both territory and population, and dominate the other southern nations by military force if necessary. They are openly free with many individual rights of expression, a high level of art and culture, and legalised vices, but with the major exception of freedom for political dissent. The government is intolerant of dissent and opposition groups, and employs secret police. Prisoners often form poorly trained and equipped military units.
Mekong Dominion
A nation of manufacturing, money lending, and corporations as government. They are also minimally armed, using their small military as a dual purpose police force and often hires outside forces to supplement their own when necessary.
Humanist Alliance
This nation uses science and technology to structure their society in an attempt to create harmony and utopia. This ideal has almost attained religious status in their people. They place citizens into castes based on aptitude testing and are highly educated at all levels. Research and development, and an efficient skilled work force are some of their greatest assets.
Eastern Sun Emirates
A fractured nation of individual City-States that are almost nations unto themselves. They are led by hereditary monarchs known as Emirs who rule over their common citizens with no middle class in between.
Minor powers on Terra Nova
Along with the major polar regions, several smaller factions exist on Terra Nova.
Peace River
An independent city state in the Badlands of Terra Nova. They are an industrial nation capable of sophisticated, but practical manufacturing. This nation is home to Paxton Arms, one of the few independent corporations outside the two polar regions to build military hardware, including Heavy Gears of their own design. Peace River is the largest independent nation in the Badlands. The Peace River military also tries its best to defend other bandland nations from encroachments by either polar League, but is often stretched thin to cover such a vast area. Their other major conflicts involve Rovers, the bandits of the Badlands.
Port Arthur
The remnants of the failed expeditionary army sent by Earth to reconquer Terra Nova, Port Arthur was one of their primary staging bases in the Badlands. Over one-hundred thousand human officers and GREL (Genetically Recombinated Expeditionary Legionaries) super-soldiers were abandoned by the Earth fleet concentrated on Port Arthur. From here they have established a nation for themselves, and benefit from the high technology of the Colonial Expeditionary Force (CEF) hover tanks, and GREL infantry to safeguard their territory.
Rovers and independents
Most people in the Badlands owe their allegiance to no nation. They live as families, gangs, or individuals. Small facilities of human habitation known as Oasis Towers are spotted around the Badlands at any available surface, or shallow wells of water, and small-scale agriculture can even be attempted. However, most Badlanders make their living as miners or caravan traders. They ply back and forth between the polar regions and far flung industrial sites of the Badlands selling and buying goods.
Rovers are the criminal element of the Badlands. They are groups of local outcasts, criminals escaping the law, deserters fleeing their homelands, simple runaways, or even hereditary rovers born to other rovers who live in the wilds of the badlands and prey on local trade caravans, independent miners, and homesteaders.
They are a common problem in the lawless Badlands. Rather than work for their living, they take from others. Most Badlanders protect themselves in some fashion, though an unwritten code has developed over time where Rovers only take enough for themselves, and will not leave their victims destitute or without the supplies to survive. However, the cruelty and/or humanity of the Rover bands runs the full spectrum of decency. Many Rover bands even operate Heavy Gears salvaged from forgotten battle fields, stolen, or even bought on the open or black markets.
Mysteries and oddities of Heavy Gear
The Heavy Gear series has a number of unresolved mysteries in the setting. A few of these are listed below. It is unknown if any of these will be revealed due to the developer turnover at Dream Pod 9.
• Stoneheads: The planet of Terra Nova is sprinkled with large round stone heads similar to those of Easter Island but with a much more Asian style. These date back to the earliest colonization of the planet or possibly before and the meaning of the giant markers is unknown.
• The Koreshi, or sand-riders, are a culture of desert-dwelling nomads similar to the Fremen of the Dune series. Their existence on Terra Nova is a mystery.[1]
• One of the CEF's fleets disappeared when sent to the colony world of New Jerusalem.
⚬ (The fate of this fleet is touched upon on the Return to Cat's Eye book for Heavy Gear Blitz!.)
• The Eastern Sun Emirates saw massive changes during the published Storyline Books culminating in the launch of an ancient spacecraft. It is unknown where that spacecraft went.
• MacAllen cave network: Much of the water on Terra Nova is subterranean. The MacAllen network of caves contains most of it, and is nearly a worldwide phenomenon. Natural artesian springs appear all over the globe, even occasionally in the deep deserts of the Badlands. Most of the network is deep underground, often thousands of feet below the surface. Even whole ecosystems of life exist in some of the airless and perpetually dark areas of the network. The extent of the cave system is unknown.
• White Sand: One of the more unusual hazards of the equatorial deserts of the Badlands is the phenomenon known as white sand. This sand is highly corrosive and dangerous volcanic ash. It is so corrosive it can destroy machinery and can slowly eat through most metals chemically. It is even used as weaponry in the form of bags of sand thrown into air-intakes or to be inhaled.
• Bowser: A near sentient ONNet computer installed into a CNCS heavy gear that has run away from its military base without a pilot. Sightings of Bowser occasionally filter in from the Badlands.
⚬ (Bowser is known to be piloted by Sadie "Boom Boom" Toepfer in the Heavy Gear Arena book.)
• Landships: Unusual magnetic properties of the planet Terra Nova allow for large ships able to hover a few feet off the ground known as Landships. They form the equivalent of a "wet navy" that other planets with surface water would have. A minimum size is necessary to take advantage of this unexplained property, so all Landships are the size of oceangoing vessels such as frigates, destroyers, battleships, and aircraft carriers. Because of their cost, they are uncommon.
• Order of the Blue Crescent. A religious group based on the teachings of the desert prophet Mamoud. Blue Crescent Adherents typically shave their hair bald, tattoo a blue Crescent on their foreheads, give up all personal property beyond what they can carry, and must visit the major locations that Mamoud once lived in the Badlands during their life. They are noted for being generous, friendly, and often volunteer for civic duties and charities, but are not pacifists. Blue Crescent Adherents can be found serving in the military of many of Terra Nova's Leagues.
Heavy Gears
The namesake machines of the universe setting are the Heavy Gears. They are 12- to 20-foot-tall (3.7 to 6.1 m) machines usually weighing between 5 and 12 tons, that resemble robotic humanoids. They seat a single pilot inside the chest and head unit. They provide a flexibility to the battlefield of Heavy Gear setting that make them more useful than most other units, though they do not dominate. They can traverse more difficult terrain faster, and change direction swifter than tanks, which is important to a setting that emphasizes mobility, and not just firepower, to succeed in combat.
They are powered by a unique piston engine called a V-engine mounted as a backpack. This is different from most science fiction settings, which use some form of nuclear power or a more obscure or invented power source. Confusingly, this V-engine is not the same design as a modern V-engine, but an alternative working design invented by students at the University of Colorado. The engine works by having two rotating cylindrical engine blocks with multiple chambers in each block. The blocks somewhat resemble large scale cylinders from a revolver handgun. The two rotating cylinders are set approximately 90 degrees from each other, and shared between each rotating block are several solid V-shaped rods that serve as pistons. As the blocks rotate inside their static housings openings in the sides of the rotating and static portions of the engine will line up and act as intake and exhaust ports, and also electrical contact connections trigger the spark plugs. The rotation of the cylinder blocks can then be tapped for electrical power generation or directly for hydraulic pressure.
The computer system that enables the machines to move and operate fluidly are called Optical Neural Networks, or ONNets for short. They are learning computers that work, in many ways, similarly to an organic brain and are trained to perform advanced tasks instead of being programmed with software. They operate using light instead of electricity, and use microscopic crystals to form logic circuits for the light to pass through. New connections are made over time by the computer and allow it to learn new instructions. This factor leads the ONNet computer to develop traits, instincts, and habits over time based on the pilots that operate with them. Some functions become automatic as the computer tries to predict what the pilot wants and has used in the past in similar situations. This allows faster reactions in most situations, but can sometimes also cause indecision on the ONNet's part if tactics or patterns change in an unusual situation. Heavy Gear pilots tend to form a bond with their Gears' ONNets, or at least recognize the efficiency that an experienced ONNet provides; pilots forced to abandon a damaged or disabled Gear often take with them the ONNet unit from beneath their seats.
The weaponry of the Heavy Gear is usually lighter and less powerful than a main battle tank, as Gears themselves typically weigh only a fifth (or less) the weight of a tank. They typically have one automatic cannon carried as a Gear sized hand held assault rifle. They also typically have a shoulder mounted multiple-launch missile launcher rack, as well as a small anti-personnel fragmentation grenade launcher for use against infantry. However, variants of many machines, especially heavier models, can carry or mount a wide variety of weapons, such as heavy mortars, bazookas, guided missiles, larger hand-held grenade launchers, field guns or cannons, and even advanced directed energy weapons.
Heavy Gears can walk, run, crawl, and generally mimic most of the mobility of the human form, on which they are patterned. This flexibility affords the Heavy Gear many of the advantages of an infantryman, such as the ability to traverse difficult terrain and make effective use of cover, while at the same time having the resilience and firepower of a light armored vehicle. Most Gears also have a secondary movement system consisting of wheels (or tracks for heavier gears) fitted to the soles of their feet, powered either by efficient electric motors or a drive train connected to the V-Engine. The use of the alternate movement systems afford a higher speed and increased fuel efficiency on roads or flat terrain, and reduce wear on leg joints when traveling long distances. However, the wheels sacrifice maneuverability and cannot be used in heavy terrain due to their relatively small size, requiring the Gear to switch back to walker mode which excels at the task.
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Video games
Main articles: Heavy Gear (video game) and Heavy Gear II
Faced with the loss of the BattleTech-MechWarrior property, Activision's Production Executive, Frank Evers (CEO), spearheaded the acquisition of the video game license in 1995. The first game, Heavy Gear, was released in 1997. The second game, Heavy Gear II, was made in 1999 for the Windows 98 operating system.
After years of the franchise laying dormant a licensing deal was announced on August 1, 2012 between Stompy Bot Productions and the owner of the franchise Dream Pod 9. A Kickstarter campaign for Heavy Gear Assault was launched but eventually cancelled in 2013. The game relaunched in 2015 in early access. The game is developed by MekTek Studios and published by Stompy Bot Productions for Windows and Linux. It's being developed with Epic Games' Unreal Engine 4 and is scheluded for a full release in 2016.
Un jeu de combat de Mechas (des robots géants), par le studio Activision, portage Linux par le studio Loki Software).
Heavy Gear II (HG2) est la suite du jeu éponyme, et un FPS et jeu de combat de Mechas (des robots géants, dénommés Gears) dans lequel le joueur incarne l'un des pilotes de robots d'élite des opérations spéciales de la planète Terra Nova. L'explosion d'une bombe antimatière dans les Badlands causée par le New Earth Concordat (NEC) a incité les villes-états du Nord et du Sud à s'allier et à créer une escouade de pilotes d'élite de Gears (dont fait partie le joueur) qu'ils ont envoyé derrière les lignes ennemies, sur la planète Caprice, la base la plus proche du NEC, afin de s'enquérir de ses plans et riposter.
🌍️ Wikipedia :
Heavy Gear II est un jeu vidéo de simulation de mecha développé et édité par Activision, sorti en 1999 sur Windows et Linux. Il s'agit de la suite Heavy Gear.
💡️ Commentaires généraux:
Le distributeur TuxGames ayant fermé ses portes, ce jeu n'est plus disponible à la vente (et en rupture de stock sur Amazon).
Il sort donc de la comptabilisation des jeux Linux. Néanmoins nous conservons cette fiche dans l'alternative où il serait ré-édité en version Linux (Gog.com ?).