(Resubmitted after Epinions lost the original review)

Loyal fans of Lara Croft may start “Ebaying” their Playstations once they catch a glimpse of Julie, the main character of F.A.K.K.2. Since this game is geared towards the male of the species I may have to throw all subtleties out the door as I write this review. Think of this game as a Tomb Raider with more attitude, more gore, and more skin.

You don’t need to be a fan of Heavy Metal to enjoy this game but then again a fan of the movies will quickly see there is little relation of this game to the movies themselves. You control Julie, ala third-person perspective, who begins her adventure on a planet called Eden. It turns out that the planet’s resources have long halted the aging process of the population and someone wants to crash the party. Julie hasn’t used her fighting skills in 30 years but since she is of the god-slaying type, her instincts kick in and she takes on the role of saving the world. Okay, it is another mindless action game right? Well, duh...but the folks from Ritual Entertainment make it look so damn good! I find myself just panning the scenery at times just to take in all the eye candy. At the start of the game, you are treated to a cliff-side view of the planet, complete with two majestic moons and a luscious valley that you are just compelled to jump into. In fact, I pulled a Thelma & Louise off of it just to see if it was really there. Thankfully, there is a quick-save and quick-load feature that lets you restart from the last stupid thing you did.

The character animations are impressive with hundreds of subtle movements. For example, have Julie hug a wall to traverse a narrow ledge and you’ll see her head automatically look about. Another example is how Julie’s hips follow her torso when you twist her into a turn. The attack movements are also quite graceful and you’ll be amazed with the hit combinations you can perform. Wielding weapons can involve having a gun in one hand and a sword in the other and also various other combinations too numerous to list. Armaments include slingshots, flaming swords, uzis, C4s, and other exotic weapons to rip your foe asunder. Let’s just say that this game sports a very nice shade of red.

In addition to the animations, the 3D model of Julie is both smooth,and I hate to say it-- bouncy. I have to admit that it is quite distracting to watch Julie shake in certain places as I have her attempt a teeth-clenching, leap-of-faith jump. Having the ability to move the camera in every angle when Julie shimmies up a wall is certainly a game-pausing experience. Nonetheless, the attention to detail bolsters this game as both sexy and sexist.

F.A.K.K.2 is powered by the Quake 3 Engine, which is technology that iD Software licenses to other companies for creating awesome games. In addition, the "Sky Portal Technology" adds a nice touch with weather effects like lightning. All this juice does come at a cost though as people with 64mb of RAM or lower and those with older video accelerator cards will suffer from lower frame rates and even random crashes. However, lowering the amount of visual details in the options screen should hopefully minimize these problems.

All in all, F.A.K.K.2 achieves a grand step up from your average 3rd person action/adventure game. Complimented with an edgy rock soundtrack, this game is well worth the forty bucks I spent on it. The only real downside to this game are the somewhat easy levels and the make-a-sandwich-and-come-back-later load times.

Recommended: Yes