Ceci est une ancienne révision du document !
Website: https://huntdown.com/
Price: $19.99 USD
Blurb: “In the mayhem-filled streets of the future, where criminal gangs rule and cops fear to tread, only the bounty hunters can free the city from the corrupt fist of felony. Lay waste to the criminal underworld and make a killing in this hard-boiled action comedy arcade shooter.“
Before we do anything, I’d like to point out that the game script is 345MB and the soundtrack is 800MB.
While I could rag on about the lame title, I won’t. The game loop is simple, a run-and-gun a lá 90’s arcade. Skin it slightly differently and you could be playing Robocop from 1989. Heh, one of the characters IS a robot. But I will play the dude with the builtin harmonica – I want to imagine mirrorshades built in. This throwback to old school gaming even has punks as the enemy. Yes, punks. One thing I can say without hesitation is that the game is easy to grasp and play; no manual required. This could easily be an Atari ST or Amiga game.
There are a lot of cutscenes and story woven in, bully for Easy trigger games. With Cyberpunk 2077 out in the wild, this Cyberpunk dystopia stays with the flavour of the year. That doesn’t mean there is a lot of story here, but it has a lot more than most I have played. At first, the graphics are amazing, bang on the money for an old-timey arcade game. But if you play it for longer than five minutes, you realise that it is very generic. By that statement, I mean that they don’t really stand out, not that they are bad. In fact, the animation is brilliant. The backgrounds are great, the sprites are great, just your main character is a bit unremarkable. Games like this would be - Contra, Army Moves, or Midnight Resistance. Earthworm Jim or Ruff n Tumble, or Metal Slug, on the other hand, had really interesting lead characters. Like a story in a book, we need to identify or get attached to our main character to maximize our enjoyment.
As a bounty hunter, you battle through waves of well animated cannon fodder… to get to the sub-boss… to get to the boss, then to repeat the recipe. There are some interesting weapon pick-ups as well as hidden loot. Though this is a game, it feels more like a Hollywood action flick. (Queue Robocop again.) Gunfire, explosions and inept cops help immerse you into the movie… erm game.
Movement is slick and the controls are responsive and on the money. When you duck into cover, there is no doubt, and when you shoot a punk it is immediate. When the screen is full of enemies, not once did it feel like the game was going to slow down, even on my potato laptop. I did say there was a story, and the dialogue is very cheesy. This is because there is some humour built in, like the ambulance-thingy checkpoint (Tony’s surgery and repairs) that will kick you out on your backside after you die. Some things are just stupid though, like the name Anna Conda. Speaking of which, some of the references have been changed slightly and won’t make sense to new players; for instance, Duke Nukem’s “Hail to the King baby!” is “Hail to the Queen, baby!”
The music is great. It does not get in the way of the game, but it adds to the aesthetic. Hey, I have the soundtrack playing while I am writing this. I will probably turn the volume down slightly and go to sleep with it playing.
But wait, there’s more… (as they say in the commercials). The SFX and voice acting are also A+ quality. Yes, this alone makes the game wear a red peak cap. Make the game sound great again. So don’t be shy; pump up the volume. There has obviously been a lot of effort put into the game to make it shine, and it shows. The level layouts are great and provide their own challenges. Even the stereotypes are great!
The game is a little short, but magic nonetheless. I can’t wait for DLC (I can’t believe my own ears saying this!) or for Huntdown II, the next chapter.
If there is one thing lacking in the game, it is the multiplayer. While the game supports local co-op, it does not have online multiplayer. This would not have been an issue in 1980, when all my friends lived in a five mile radius, and it was awesome to have them over to play on my Atari 2600, whilst sharing peanut butter and apricot jam sarmies; today, most kids’ friends are further away.
Simple mechanics, easy controls, great design and satisfying boss fights make this title easy to recommend. It is by no means perfect, but it has a LOT of potential to be a really awesome game. If ever you see a game advertise “retro arcade action” - they need to be compared to this.