Metalheart: Replicants Rampage

After the space cargo ship crashes in an asteroid belt its captain Lanthan and first pilot Cheris are the only crewmembers who landed on the unknown planet in the life-saving shuttle. Now they must walk the way full of danger and mysteries, and their main goal is to get out of the violent world they turned out to be in. As time goes by, Lanthan and Cheris get to know that the planet is called Protion and is the Galaxy's one and only source of priceless mineral Tactonium, deposits of which are controlled by an almighty Empire. Protion is completely isolated from the outer world and all the races that populate it work in the tactonium mines under Imperial oppression. On their way back home Lanthan and Cheris must get in contact with the mysterious race of Nomads that secretly struggles against the Empire, unite the people of Protion and organize a rebellion…

Metalheart: Replicants Rampage is a role-playing game with a turn-based combat system, a huge gaming world, and a cyberpunk style. The characters act in dark postapocalyptic world, populated with humans, mutants, cyborgs and nomads. Player can recruit up to six characters of any race to his party, and for completing some of the quests and going through the storyline party may require experts like engineers, snipers and even welders. One of the key features of the game is the well-balanced system of implants that change the characters' skills and attributes. Relationship with the races is the important part of gameplay—player can ally, break the union or go to war with any of the races, choosing his own way to the unpredictable and shocking finale.

This was one of the games in which the Fallout community had set high hopes, after Interplay dropped Van Buren and developed Brotherhood of Steel instead. In July 2004 an inofficial demo was leaked, and there was lots of excitement. When it was finally released in 2005, it went mostly unnoticed, or maybe I just wasn't reading Fallout boards at the time. In any case it was a disappointment.

Reviews

• If this is what a 2005 follow-up to Fallout looks like, there probably won't be another, Michael Anderson thought:

  Metalheart seems finished and well put together unlike other recent European imports. However, it just isn't fun. The story is reasonable, but the pacing and lack of depth in quests made it a chore to play for any amount of time. I cannot recommend this game even at a budget price, unless you are a really big fan of Fallout who will endure anything to recapture the feeling of that game. Just to be sure of their value, I went back to some of those classics like Fallout and Arcanum. I still love those games, and when I returned to Metalheart, I still found it fell flat.

• Overall, MetalHeart is badly flawed, with moderately good looks and pretensions of greatness, is Iain McCafferty's verdict:

  In all seriousness, it's hard to find much to commend: it does have that certain car crash value, in that you want to play it just to find out just how bad it gets. However, even for people as bad and broken as I am, you can only derive a fleeting thrill from watching the carnage. Before too long you'll be glad it didn't happen to you, and that you can just cruise away into the distance before it gets too painful to look at.