Hunter Hunted Review

Part of Sierra's newly-hyped and irritatingly mysterious "k.a.a." (Kill All Aliens? Kick Ass Action? Knights Against Assexuals? Know Another Acronym?) line, Hunter Hunted is a one- or two-player side-scrolling action game which pits Jake, a muscle-shirt-and-blue-jeans human street fighter who might have stepped from the grooves of a Bruce Springsteen record (except for the guns), against a large and unpleasant creature of vaguely minotauroid appearance and mien (except for the guns). Those ever-reliable Bad Old Aliens have captured these two combatants and put them into a dark, industrial warren of tunnels and platforms for the purposes of entertainment. The two SGI-rendered, motion-capture combatants pursue each other around and through crumbling halls, pits, traps, and automated defenses, starting the game unarmed and eventually locating whips, guns, rocket launchers, ammo, and other resources in their search-and-destroy competition.

Every year or two, a game comes out which turns a particular genre on its ear, inspiring us to think in new directions. Hunter Hunted is not that game, but there is a simple, brutal, no-BS quality to your objective: Go find the other guy and plaster him on as many walls as you can as the discarded mortal coils accumulate in the hallways (and to hell with the Princess and her freakin' Power Stars). This is, for all practical purposes, another side-scrolling action game of almost stunning normality (albeit with good looks and terrific sound effects), with one tiny catch which may be the game's saving grace: The action goes into the screen as well. When Jake or the Hunter reaches a 2-D door set into one of the many side-plan levels of the game, a stroke of the up arrow sends the character running asses-and-elbows into the screen, "away" from the player, into the next lateral level of arena, allowing players to sneak up on their opponents from slightly unexpected directions (including from above or below). It can be a godsend when you're diddling around at half-health with some little girlie-gun and, meanwhile, your opponent has taken to priority-mailing love taps to you via Bazooka Express ("When it absolutely, positively has to blow some poor schmuck into little gobbets"). Certain other special doors which require keys or other objects/actions to open them are presented edge-on to the viewer in a kind of cutaway view.

Sierra sales slicks on Hunter Hunted make much of the SGI-rendered characters and motion-capture movement, but the plain fact is that nothing here looks any more fluid or especially "realistic" than the simple sprite animation in, say, Lode Runner - so this is no bad thing. The gameplay is straightforward and violent enough; the tight graphics of the characters, the flying shell casings as players unload into their onscreen enemies, and the crispness and power of the sound effects remind one of the sheer joy of gunfire in Out of This World or Flashback, which are fine steps to follow in. Also, the soundtrack, ranging from screechy metal tunes to clashing industrial bangers, suits the action well. The two-player split-screen mode is no more nor less annoying than most split-screen game situations, and you do, at least, have the ability to delve horizontally into the world and attempt to sneak up on your opponent from behind, above or below. Hunter Hunted is a level-hopping step in the right direction...but only a small, tentative step (as opposed to the line-crossing stomp of, say, Abuse). There is reason for hope if Sierra's new, edgier title division Keeps Applying Attitude.