On the box:

A SHORT RUNDOWN:

Two hemispheres divided only by boudless hatred. On Terra Nova, the Northern and Southern leagues wage a merciless war both epic in scope and bloodshed. A conflict so savage it was destined to forge the perfect battle machine: the HEAVY GEAR. Your are duelist Edward Scott, an elite pilot of the Nothern Guard faced with mistaken accusations of treachery from yuor squad. Now you must prove your loyalty to the 67th regiment while defending your people, your squad and your honour to emerge as the new breed of warrior.

THE NEW BREED OF WAR MACHINE:

Pilot one of 16 Heavy Gears loaded with specialised weaponry; lasers, greandes, mortars and more. Push the limits of a superior animation system with humanoid gear capabilities such as kneeling, side-stepping and crouching to retrive new weapons.

ADVANCED GEAR CONSTRUCTION:

Utilize the most versatile drag-and-drop construction tool ever! Build a virtually unlimited number of gears from scratch with armour and weapons. Then pilot your exact configurations in the game. Specific gear components allow additional customisation!

PERPETUAL INTERNET WAR:

Wage a global virtual war via the Internet and impact the front lines on a persistant online battle map. Which tracks war statistics, wins and losses. LAN/modem multiplayer missions feature both compedative and cooperative play.

A FULL SCALE COMBAT EXPERIENCE:

Stunning cutscenes and character-based missions develop an epic world war - based on the fastest growing paper role-playing universe. Confront armies of Striders, foot soldiers, planes, choppers and landships on the field.

NEXT GENERATION TECHNOLOGY:

Includes out of the box Direct 3D and native 3Dfx support! Truly 3D worlds let you see the highly-detailed terrain and objects such as sand dunes, canyons and buildings to use to your strategic advantage.

A HISTORY OF TERRA NOVA:

This universe is set around the world of Terra Nova which was discovered in the year 4752 AD as an attempt to find new hospitable worlds as the Earth was dying. In 5790 AD a new Earth government came to power and cut all interstellar shipments, leaving the colonists on Terra Nova to fend for themselves. By TN (Terran Novian) 1524, many city states had been destroyed in open warefare prompting the creation of leagues for trading and allied protection. These included the Humanist Alliance, the Northern Lights Confederacy and the Southern Republic. The advent of the Heavy Gear in TN 1678, mining and construction machines were then turned to combat purposes, the Southern Republic stole the plans for the NCL's Hunter and created the Jager and this gave the Republic the confidence to conquer the entire southern polar region. By TN 1681 all 3 rival southern leauges joined to form the Allied Southern Territories.

Concerned with The AST agression, in TN 1683 the heads of the 3 northern leauges formed the Confederate Northern City-States. After centuries of agression, by TN 1913 Terra Nova was on the brink of a major war between the planets 2 superpowers when Earths newly formed Colonial Expeditionary Force launched an attack on its outlying colonies to reclaim them. The planet Caprice was captured first, the their sights narrowed on Terra Nova. When the CEF captured Caprice, the North and South allied against their common enemy and enetred a 2 and half year war with Earth and sucessfully repelled the Eart invaders. Once victory was claimed the CNCS and the AST returned to a cold war, with covert operations keeping tensions high, Terra Nove is once more on the brink of war.

MY IDEA'S:

Heavy Gear surely surpasses and destroys the Mechwarrior season with many advantages over the lumbering Mech universe. It was proved that Activision can take a genre and make it so much better-Heavy gear is a prime example of their fine work.

In single player you are presented with an absorbing storyline not just a sequence of breifings on a changing situation. There are cutsecenes to really fit you into the role of your character and explain the situation you are in. The constant story, redrawing of the battle lines and changing plot makes you really feel a war is occuring with your tregiment advancing capturing more territory then finding yourself retreating.

In multiplayer Activision have provided us with a setup like Battle.net where people can meet and make games. These games have different modes of play like duel, defend/capture base, battles etc. This really adds some variety into the gameplay. Also depending on your rank you will get access to better gears and weapons which makes the promotion ladder seem real and gives you something to aim for. And the constant battle lines being redrawn gives side supports something to aim for as to recapture territory lost or contine this advancement.

Heavy Gear is the next generation in mech combat and provides the players with many new options to use and new graphics to revel in. A classic game and I'm sure HG2 will be even much greater!