Headhunter Preview

Headhunter was unfortunately one of the last of a handful of Dreamcast games that never saw a stateside release. Developed by Sega's in-house development team Amuze, and released only in Europe, it received a warm reception and delivered a tight game that had many comparing it to Metal Gear Solid 2 or Winback. Acclaim has decided to pick up the rights to the game and release it in the US on the PlayStation 2 this spring.

The game takes place in a futuristic vision of Los Angeles and a world that has taken a turn for the corporate. Law enforcement has been entirely privatized, with the reins being taken up by the Anti-Crime Network, or ACN. In addition to facing hard time, criminals also face paying out hard currency, since they owe the ACN for each crime they commit. Their crimes can be tracked publicly via the Criminal Exchange, which is a market of sorts that displays the amount of money they currently owe the ACN. Their debt is viewed as their value to the Headhunters, who are essentially the stars of the ACN, going after the more dangerous criminals. Headhunters receive 10 percent of the current Criminal Exchange value if they can capture the criminals and bring them in with minimal physical damage.

There's a catch in all of this. The amount of money that most criminals owe is far more than they can afford. The ACN is more than happy to take an organ or two in payment, however. Human organs have become a sort of currency in this world, and the weapons you'll use in the game reflect this. All conventional firearms have been replaced with electric neural projectile weapons, or ENPs for short. The ENP fires an electric pulse that scrambles the subject's nervous system and results in brain death. This ensures that all of the organs will remain intact and can be harvested by the ACN and used for police funding. This also allows the game to avoid blood and other visual gore, despite the somewhat gruesome idea of what will eventually become of your foes. All organs are sold to the well-behaved masses, ensuring them long and happy lives if they stay out of trouble and buy genuine ACN organs.

The game revels in its satire. Frequently, between missions, you'll be treated to some odd FMV cutscenes that involve a pair of news anchors who report for a fictional Los Angeles TV station. The two characters are real, which is to say that they are human actors who were filmed for these cutscenes. It can get a little strange, however, as they start reporting on events in the game, all of which are shown as prerendered CG FMVs. The combination of the two has a strange effect, to say the least. It's pulled off well enough though, and both of the characters are painfully cheerful. They play their parts to the hilt, acting overly gleeful, facetiously dramatic, and often blissfully ignorant of sexual innuendo that crops up later on as they discuss human organs. Most of their dialogue is quite funny and pokes fun at the fictional society in the game. The whole premise of the game seems to be a humorous comment on the future of our modern society and feels like something you'd expect from a Paul Verhoeven movie such as Robocop or Total Recall. There are also propaganda posters and advertising for you to enjoy during loading times, and these are pretty entertaining as well.

Once you start playing, you'll take the role of Jack Wade, a Headhunter who was once the most renowned in his profession. Something's obviously gone awry, however. You initially wake up in a hospital of sorts, surrounded by masked doctors who have been fiddling around with your brain. Shortly thereafter, you'll break out and promptly black out on the street once again after you've managed to escape. You'll wake up again in another hospital, this one being friendlier than the last, and you'll soon discover that you've got a touch of amnesia.

A couple of characters will show up and set you on your way soon enough, however. One you recognize as the daughter of ACN magnate Christopher Stern (you've been ordered to watch TV as part of your recovery, and you recognize her from watching the televised funeral following her father's mysterious murder). Her name is Angela Stern. The other character is your ex-boss, Chief Hawk. Chief Hawk helps get you back on track by giving you a little bit of information about yourself and by giving you a few tips on where to go. He also fills you in on the Law Enforcement Intelligence and License Approval unit, or LEILA, where you can go to get your license back.

Angela Stern soon hires you to find out who's behind her father's murder. She fills in as many of the holes in your memory as she can by taking you back to the family mansion and letting you take a look around. Here you'll find a number of pictures, diplomas, and other tidbits of knowledge that will give you enough information to get things started. After taking a look around, you'll be given a key to the mansion and a motorcycle, which becomes your primary method of transportation.

The motorcycle is an interesting part of the game. While it doesn't handle as well as those in other games, it does serve well as a more entertaining method of getting around. It also ties in with the licensing system, which governs your progress as well as your arsenal. LEILA is accessible only after you've gotten the bike, and you'll need to accumulate skill points before taking your licensing test. Essentially, you'll get these points by racing around town without crashing into anything. The longer you can maintain a high speed without any collisions, the more points you'll receive. Once you've collected the required number of points, you can head over to the LEILA building and take some virtual reality (VR) training and get your Headhunter license. The controls are pretty basic: The left analog stick steers, and the right analog stick manages your throttle and braking. The X and square buttons can also be used for acceleration and braking, but they are much more difficult to use effectively. The unfortunate thing about this is that in the Dreamcast version, you were able to do donuts and make tight turns in close quarters by holding down the brake and hitting the gas while steering. While it's technically possible to do this with the Dual Shock 2, it's much more difficult to pull off because you must hold the square button and manipulate both of the analog sticks simultaneously.

There are four licenses available in the regular game: C, B, A, and AAA. VR training is divided up into four parts for each license test. You'll start out with a motorcycle-training mission, followed by stealth and weapons training. The motorcycle missions will have you racing through a virtual version of the city (which is to say that it's blue, with green scan lines running down building walls) and passing checkpoints. The stealth missions have you sneaking by guards and using bullet casings to draw their attention away. This makes it easier to sneak up behind them and break their necks (which of course leaves their organs intact). Weapons training usually consists of a number of opponents that you need to take down before they kill you. After you've completed these three objectives, you'll have a final test, after which you'll receive your license and a weapon. Soon after, you'll be pursuing your first bounty.

The controls in the game are pretty tight once you're in control of Jack Wade. The left analog stick is used to move him around, and the control is entirely 3D in this respect. You'll oftentimes find yourself indoors solving puzzles and flipping switches, much like you would in the Resident Evil series. Thankfully, the control is easier to manage, but there are some camera issues. You can use the square button to center the camera on your character's back, but that's the extent of your camera control. If you're near a wall, pressing the triangle button will cause you to press up against the wall, allowing you to peek or shoot around corners. You wield your weapon by holding down the R1 button, which triggers the X-aim control scheme. While in this mode, you can roll forward or sideways using the circle button along with the left analog stick, and you'll also be able to strafe as you walk. You can also pivot on your heel by holding square while you turn. You'll automatically aim at the nearest target in front of you, but you can also toggle through a number of targets by hitting the square button repeatedly. In either mode, pressing the R2 and L2 buttons makes your weapons and items menus pop up so you can cycle through them, allowing quick access to health packs and different weapons.

Graphically, Headhunter on the PS2 is virtually identical to its Dreamcast counterpart. The DC version used two discs because of the large amount of video used in the cutscenes. Even then, the video was compressed and could look grainy at times. On the PS2, the video looks much better overall, thanks to the available DVD format. Once you're actually in the game, there are very few differences. Headhunter had some aliasing issues on the Dreamcast, and that hasn't changed in the transition. The jaggies have become slightly more noticeable on the PS2, but they're not so bad that they take away from the game.

From what we've seen so far, Headhunter for the PS2 is for the most part a straight port of the Dreamcast game. The FMV sequences look much better, and the aliasing is slightly more noticeable, but those seem to be the only differences between the two versions. Gamers who were disappointed by the limited European release of the Dreamcast version and were unable to find a copy can rest easy knowing that a strong port is headed for the PS2. Headhunter is slated for release this spring, so be sure to check back with us at that time for a full review.