Tuesday afternoon, Activision popped in with its latest build of Heavy Gear, its mech title boasting a series of new goodies.

　　To keep them on the right track, Activision hired a Heavy Gear team member whose job was to check out newsgroups and chat with users to find out what they wanted in a new mech game. Activision listened and the 3-D combat-action-sim game now has hot new features (players can drop weapons on the ground and reach down and pick up new weapons from slain enemies), easy to use mech building systems (newbies can simply swamp out legs and arms while hard-core gamers can select everything from chassis to hydraulics), roving camera angles, and multiplayer play via LAN, modem, and Activision's Internet server. Additionally, the mechs can sidestep and crouch - a big plus now that it takes fewer shots to kill an enemy or to be killed by one.

　　The game is set in Dream Pod 9's Heavy Gear universe and is scheduled for a late October release.

　　GameSpot will run a full and complete preview of the title later next month, so be sure to check back.