Heavy Gear Bitz

     
     

With headlines like that I should have pursued a career in tabloid journalism! Well maybe not, I have morals and scruples and I hear those sorts of thing get in the way of being part of the lowest 'profession' in western society. Any way what the hell am I talking about? I'm not sure, my brains still a bit scrambled and I haven't exactly been keeping my blogging skills in shape over the past month or so. Many of you I'm sure will have already heard the news that there will soon be another Heavy Gear computer game on it's way to market as Stompy Bot Productions and Dream Pod 9 link up to bring the franchise back to computer games. You can read the exceedingly bland and dull official press release here. Actually, can somebody explain to me why all press releases read duller than ditch water? A team of scientists could find the meaning of life and it'd still read as boring as hell in press release form... I'm getting side tracked again aren't I?


Now I don't normally cover computer games on this Blog, or any other Blog for that matter and I'm not about to start here, but I am a bit of a fan of Mech games, and I actually did play the first Heavy Gear games from Activision. I also had the second game too, but it never really played that much. It wasn't a bad game, it's just that at the time I had many other things going on in my life and computer games weren't the be all and end all right then. However, they were pretty good games from what I can remember and I enjoyed them loads, so with my new found love of Mech based wargames, and in particular Heavy Gear Blitz, I'm actually really looking forward to seeing what Stompy Bot Production get up to with the franchise, there's certainly more than enough source material to work from. Thing is I've never heard of Stompy Bot Productions, so I have no idea what sort of quality they are able to produce. Hopefully it'll be up to scratch.

The reality is Stompy Bot seem to be a relatively new company, with little or no track record to speak of. Obviously there have been companies that have come from nowhere in the past to release tip top computer games, but it is sadly getting rarer in the games industry now given the vast amount of resource companies have to chuck at a product to bring it up to scratch. Obviously previous track records are no guarantee of future success, but it would be nice to see what sort of products staff members at Stompy Bot have worked on in the past... you know, just to alleviate those sorts of nagging doubts. No platforms have been announced yet, nor has a release date or how the game will be distributed. The only news is that there will be a game at some indeterminate point in the future, on some form of computer based hardware. Perhaps I'll be cheeky and contact Stompy Bot to see if I can get more information out of them.

In other Dream Pod 9 related news, the guys from Canada will be attending Gen Con 2012, which fact fans starts tomorrow I believe. Gen Con is in its 45th year, which is pretty damn amazing if you ask me, and to celebrate those guys at Dream Pod 9 will be taking something special with them. You can see the picture of the miniature above, it's the Razor Fang Black Mamba, which is the command variant of the Southern Factions Black Mamba. It's a precursor to the Southern Factions Field Guide book "Forged in Fire: The Southern Field Guide". The Razor Fang will be available in strictly limited number though, so if you want one and you're lucky enough to be going to Gen con I'd swing by Dream Pod 9 ASAP to ensure you get one, it'll set you back $25.00USD on its own or $10.00USD if purchased with a Task Force Deal. You can read some more about what Dream Pod 9 will be getting up to at this years Gen Con by reading this article on their website. Peace Out!