Headhunter Preview

The game takes place in Los Angeles, only a few years ahead of our time.

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.

The Russians will ban conventional weapons, if they know what's good for them.

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.