Based on the popular White
Wolf pen-and-paper game set in the World of Darkness, Hunter: The Reckoning blends
shoot-em-up action with an RPG. Evil walks the world, but most folks cant see it, at
least until something truly outrageous happens. When somebody witnesses a supernatural
event (like zombies rising out of the ground or the appearance of a possessed monster) it
is called the Reckoning, and those folks usually end up as Hunters. Hunters roam the world
taking out the manifestations of evil, and they are doomed to be outsiders because many of
the innocents they come across never actually see that the "people" Hunters are
taking out are actually evil incarnate. Its a dirty job, but somebodys got to
do it, and in Hunter: The Reckoning, that somebody is you.The White Wolf game is a
complex scenerio. Vampires secretly rule the world in order to dominate, and it is up to
the Hunters to help out humanity (at least, those of us not in league with the dark ones).
The story of Hunter: The Reckoning begins a year before the game starts. Four innocent
people witness an execution in Ashcroft prison that goes horribly awry. The inmates of the
prison are possessed by evil spirits and demons and break out. The four main characters in
the game help nail down the evil to contain it within the prison walls. The prison is
barracaded and the Hunters leave Ashcroft to embark on evil-smashing forays in the rest of
the world.
A year later, a group of kids breaks into the prison to hold a huge rave on the
anniversary of the execution. The techno dance beats awake the evil spirits (big surprise
there) and the ravers are decimated. Although the evil ones dislike of electronica
is completely understandable, the four original Ashcroft Hunters return to set things
straight. A burly biker guy, a Catholic priest, a teenage raver and a former cop make up
the core Hunter team. They represent four different "Creeds", which are very
much like classes in most RPGs: Avenger, Judge, Martyr, and Defender. Each of these
different Creeds endow the characters with different types of "Edges", which are
pretty much magic.
It
all sounds good so far, and when you begin playing Hunter: The Reckoning, it all feels
really good. Up to four players can play on the same screen, a switch that is very welcome
in console games. The controls are very handy, set up in much the same way as Smash TV or
that old Neversoft game, Apocalypse. You use the left analog stick to move and the right
stick determines your facing. That means that although Hunter uses a third-person
perspective, it is still very easy to navigate for maximum destruction. You can run
backwards, strafe, go on a crazy bezerker rampage in circles, whatever. You have two basic
weapons a projectile weapon and a bladed weapon. Your basic projectile weapon never
runs out of ammo, which is a good thing. In addition, you have your magical Edges at your
disposal as well as any other weapons you might pick up (including a shotgun, machine gun,
flamethrower, etc.). The weapons you pick up have limited ammo, and you can only cast your
Edges so often before you must recharge your Conviction (which are pretty much just magic
points). The controls are pretty tight and definitely lend themselves to some insane
combat.
The
gameplay is pretty typical. You begin by getting off the train coming into town. You must
read blue glyphs to get information about the game (things like how to move, fight, and
recharge health). Another kind of glyph recharges your health and a third kind of glyph
recharges your conviction. These glyphs are located on the ground at different places, and
they only carry so much charge, so a full crew of four players each using a glyph once
will usually wipe it out. Early in the first stage you are tasked with rescuing enough
innocents to repair the train so the town can escape alive (at least those townsfolk who
arent already possessed or dead), and thats how you get the good ending.
As
you play through you encounter loads and loads of baddies zombies, vampires,
bizarre possessed statues, and a lot more. There is no shortage of enemies to kill, too
they keep coming and coming and coming. In fact there are so many of them and they
respawn so quickly that it can really hinder your progress, but more on that later. Along
the way youll be asked to escort NPCs, find keys, and accomplish other assorted
goals drawn straight from the videogame cliché box. After a few intense segments of
fighting through typical zombies and monsters youll face a level boss. The bosses
range from utterly typical to pretty cool, although the puking teddy bear from early in
the game remains my favorite. And, of course, there are cutscenes to suture together a
barely-there story about how you must destroy the evil, what bizarre connections some
folks have to the evil, etc., etc.
This could be a remarkably fun game, and I had all of my friends stoked to play
it when it came out. Unfortunately, its not very much fun and theres not very
much to it. The first hour of play is great, and then it nosedives. Hunter: The Reckoning
is a classic example of developers just not listening to gamers, and whats even
worse is that its the second example of Interplays failure to bring the same
high quality to their console titles as they were able to bring to their PC endeavors.
When I first met with Interplay to see Hunter, I believed that it would be a great game,
and I had hoped that given Interplays PC experience they would be able to help
mature the console gaming experience. I was wrong.
Theres
the camera. A lot of folks cite this as the games worst flaw, but its not
actually as bad as all that. Sure, you constantly have to yell at your buddies to
"come left," or "back up," in order to get unstuck from behind an
obstacle or to reach the baddie who is pummeling you. It forces you to coreograph your
actions and come up with some squad battle tactics, which isnt necessarily a bad
thing. It would be nice if the camera could zoom out a little more, but forcing you to
fight as a group is OK with me.
However,
what further complicates the camera issue is the "continues" issue. You begin
the game with a set number of continues and you earn continues for rescuing innocents.
First off, this is a concept that should have been eliminated ages ago. In the recent Game
Developer magazine there is a whole column dedicated to the "new" idea that
developers should allow gamers to save, start, and stop at any point in the game (Hunter
also does not allow you to save your game except at scripted points, usually at the
beginning/end of a level). That concept should already be common sense. I bought the game
I paid $50 for the thing and youre going to tell me how much I can
play? Or how often I can continue? Guess what, theres nothing in it for the
developers to create continue systems like these they arent getting any
quarters out of me and my Xbox. This is the thing that PC gamers complain about in console
games, and that console gamers just complain about. Think about it you begin with a
number of continues, and then you earn one for each innocent your rescue. The number of
continues you can or will get never changes, whether you are playing alone
or with the full four characters, and there are just not enough innocents to rescue. That
means that the continues that got you through the first eight segments of the game may
only get your four person party through the first four segments. When you have four people
playing (and when at least one of them is always at a bad location for the camera to allow
movement, attack or defense), those continues go quickly, and youll find yourself in
the later levels unable to proceed because you cant continue. Whats the point
of having a game that supports four players if you can only really get through it alone?
Now,
lest you think Im a big videogame wuss, let me affirm that Im not. And let me
also affirm that there are other ways around this issue. Although you have a pretty decent
number of weapons at your disposal, none of them are really tough. Where are the big bombs
and such? Your basic missle weapon is almost completely useless, regardless of which
character you play. Magic (the Edges) is severely limited by how much Conviction you have,
so you cant use it too often, and many of the Edges are just plain lame (woo-hoo, I
can run faster to avoid the monsters for a few seconds). Firepower is a serious issue
here. Furthermore, the health and Conviction recharging glyphs are barely useful when
playing with four characters.
Also,
theres the constant respawning of monsters. One thing that I loved when I played
this game a year ago was the huge numbers of zombies we mowed down. Of course, that was
with invincibility turned on, and we couldnt really proceed because the game was
unfinished. On the other side of things, I really hate the fact that monsters respawn at
an infuriating rate. Youll mow down 30 of them and another 30 will be on you before
you know it. More firepower would have made those teeming seas of zombies fun to kill,
more continues would have made it a matter of patience, but as it is youll find
yourself running past targets in order to survive and proceed. I hate to criticize this
aspect of the game, but somethings got to give.
In
addition to all of this, theres the issue of difficulty. You have one difficulty
setting really freaking hard. And when you beat the game you unlock a harder
difficulty setting. Obviously this is some kind of ploy to hit the "hardcore"
gamers out there, but it misses completely. Even "hardcore" gamers appreciate
variability in difficulty. And when you beat the game dont believe that all of your
hard work in levelling up your character pays off in the Nightmare mode. You start from
scratch all over again. As a matter of fact, I assumed on my first play through the game
that it must be something like Baldurs Gate: Dark Alliance where you could restart
the game with your higher level characters. That made a twisted sense to me play
better with your buffer character and youll have more continues when you need them.
However, there is nothing like that in Hunter, and the omission is tragic.
If I had
my druthers, Id like to see more firepower and infinite continues in the game along
with some difficulty settings. I mean, come on give us a prize for beating the game
with no continues, but dont stymie us from playing in a group. Hunter is beatable,
and perhaps if each of the four people youre playing with have beaten it on their
own, then you may stand a chance of beating it in a group. But the limitations imposed by
the game just kill the fun, and thats a real crime. If anyone ever figures out the
code for invincibility (Interplay has confirmed it exists, but is unwilling to leak it)
Hunter could become a really fun party game like Loaded on the PSone. Lots of folks will
love Hunter in spite of its flaws, which I take as a sign that the Xbox needs some good
multiplayer titles. Just like I felt after beating Dark Alliance, Im sad that Hunter
didnt live up to the hype, and Id really like to see Interplay take another
shot at it.