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Something everyone can be pleased with, however, are the visuals. They are much improved over The Reckoning and definitely hold up to the Xbox standard. Everything is quality here – character models, animations, level designs, effects, frame rates, you name it. Particularly good is the variety among creature types. There is a bit of clipping on the monsters, with zombies walking right through walls and such, but how many people have games ruined by clipping anymore, huh?
Besides, I’d rather have a little clipping and a half-decent camera than no clipping and Devil May Cry 2 Cam. The camera in Redeemer is about as good as it gets for a pseudo-isometric game, maintaining the perfect pitch and angle at all times, but if you need a manual shift in perspective, you can also use the digital pad to zoom in and out multiple levels as you often would in a real time strategy game. If you played the first Hunter you will be familiar with this camera system, as Redeemer retains the same exact controls as The Reckoning. For fans, this means no readjusting. If this is your first experience with the Robotron-style movement, however, it might take a little effort to get your brain thinking in two separate directions, but even the most dyslexic gamer can move with the left stick and aim with the right after 15 minutes or so, especially with the aid of a little auto-aiming. By the time you reach the end of the first level, you’ll wonder how you ever played a game without it. Something that might take everyone a bit adjusting to however is the combo system. It’s not difficult in anyway, it’s just surprising that a game with only one attack button can have so many damn combos! It may take a little while to decipher what the hell the manual is trying to describe, but once you figure it out, you’ll be amazed by the simple and intuitive way melee attacks are linked in Hunter. The sound in Redeemer is definitely up to the caliber of the rest of the game. The effects are speaker rattling, the voice work is high quality (including the voice over on the pretty damn cool intro), and the music is solid, ranging from ambient horror fair to raging industrial. The only hick-up is that a lot of the game seems played in silence. It could be because the sound effects are so oppressive that they drown out the often-subtle background track, but whatever the reason, it’s noticeably sparse at times, especially considering what kind of intense action is going on 90% of the time. I think a soundtrack with a little more “umph” is in order. Another small issue worth mentioning is the terrible AI on the NPCs you have to guide through various obstacles along the way. This may seem like a little annoyance at first, but spending 15 minutes waiting for Lucien to walk up a flight of stairs and turn or corner, or watching someone run in a circle 20 times before entering a door, or having to run back for 10 blocks to find someone who simply stopped moving for some insane reason is a serious pain in the ass. You’d think with the wonderful work done on everything else in the game someone could have fixed some of these small but terribly frustrating problems. Sure, Hunter: The Reckoning - Redeemer is short, is easy, has a few minor problems here and there, and even with the slight RPG elements and a pretty complex combo system it’s still incredibly shallow, but it’s also a blast to play, and in the end that’s all that really matters. It’s the kind of game you get if you’re looking for some multiplayer fun or a good week rental, particularly if you were a fan of the original. It’s the kind of game you pop in, sit back, turn the brain off, and hold the attack button until it comes to a slide-stop. In the future will the franchise be able to relay on the sheer joy of undead mass murder to keep it afloat? I’m not too sure. High Voltage is going to have to devise more cleaver ways of extending the life of Hunter: The Reckoning, maybe by expanding on the role-playing roots of the game with character creation, skill allotment, and including Xbox Live support, but I’m sure they are way ahead of me here. If anything, The Hunter franchise has proven that the good folks at High Voltage Software can develop a damn fine formula for success – keeping it fresh will be the easy part. Highs:
Lows:
Final Verdict: You’d be a fool to pass this one up. Grab a copy, call up some friends, and enjoy yourself one hell of a time. Overall Score: 8.8 Additional Images:
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