Hunter: The Reckoning

"So, a priest, a biker, and two hot chicks walk into a bar..."

It's winter, which means monster-hunting season has begun...at least for this gamer! This is generally the time of the year I like to indulge in gory, morose games, and the nearly two-year-old Hunter: The Reckoning fits that bill perfectly. Based on White Wolf's popular pen-and-paper RPG of the same name, the game delivers nonstop action, complete with several creeds (character classes), many nightmarish creatures, varied weaponry, flashy ''edges'' (magic spells), and ultra-violent hack-and-slash gameplay. Best of all, you and three friends can participate in a gruesome four-way, battling together as a priest, a biker, a raver, and an ex-cop.

Hunter revolves around four gifted individuals, known as Hunters, who must rid the dilapidated town of Ashcroft of monsters invisible to the average townsperson. These hunters are split into four creeds--Judge (Father Esteban Cortez, the priest), Avenger (Spenser ''Deuce'' Wyatt, the biker), Defender (Samantha Alexander, the tough ex-cop), and Martyr (Kassandra Cheyung, the resilient raver)--and they have specific backstories and unique weapons and abilities.

As a Hunter, you have access to close- and long-range weaponry and can find an assortment of secondary weapons, including shotguns, machine guns, and even a chainsaw, flamethrower, and rocket launcher. Plus, you can improve your abilities (strength, accuracy, speed, conviction, and stamina), gain devastating edges, and power up your attacks and weapons. Using edges drains your ''conviction'' bar, but you can refuel it by collecting blue spheres from fallen enemies or by activating Conviction Glyphs found throughout the levels. Likewise, you can collect red spheres and activate Health Glyphs to restore health. Ammo for secondary weapons is finite, so you must monitor and replenish the supply.

Controlling your character masterfully and killing monsters skillfully requires a decent handling of the controls, but luckily, the first level provides basic training. Although several control configurations are available, the default setup works well enough. The left analog stick moves your character, and the right stick aims your attacks (the digital pad zooms in and out of the action). Using a combination of the two sticks lets you do evasive maneuvers, such as strafing and walking backward. The right trigger fires weapons and issues attacks, while the left trigger makes you jump. You can execute several types of attacks by experimenting with the controls. The X, Y, and B buttons switch between available weapons and edges, and the A button performs general actions, like opening doors and activating glyphs. Lastly, while weapons reload automatically upon exhausting a round of ammo, you can manually reload with the A button to keep a weapon fully loaded.

For the most part, Hunter's third-person gameplay consists of killing anything that's ugly and walks with a limp or has more than two legs. Monsters, zombies, vampires, and various nasty critters will attack you in droves and respawn often, making your life miserable. The overall experience is similar to the classic Robotron, Gauntlet, and Smash TV games, in that overwhelming numbers of enemies attack you aggressively from all sides. Certain enemies can be defeated with a couple of slashes or shots of your weapon, while others take multiple hits before going down. Also, different enemies demand different strategies, and different Hunters are better suited for particular situations. For instance, the Martyr is the quickest character and can outrun most enemies, whereas the Avenger is the slowest (and strongest) of the bunch. Improving your abilities and gaining edges, however, balances out your character.

Hunter is composed of levels, each of which forces you to complete an objective, whether it be rescuing townspeople, performing a special task, or battling a powerful boss. Usually, you will have to find a key, open a door, or activate a switch to advance in a level. As in Gauntlet, you must locate the exit in each level, but can only leave once you complete the level's objective. A bit of backtracking is involved, and you may occasionally need to re-search a level for an object.

Extra lives are awarded for rescuing innocents--many of whom are hidden--and clearing levels. You will need those extra lives, too, because the game is tough, with relentless enemies, fierce bosses, and zero continues. Furthermore, camera problems and cheap shots from enemies result in more than a few unwarranted deaths. Since most of the levels are short, you can only save your progress at the end of a level. Fortunately, you can choose a different character upon loading a saved game.

As with most games of this nature, the gameplay eventually becomes repetitious, but the multiplayer elements help keep things interesting. You can enable friendly fire for multiplayer sessions, allowing players to harm one another. The game is more difficult when multiple players are involved due to increased enemies, tougher bosses, and less breathing room.

Sadly, Hunter is a rather short game with few extra features. Extras include a flashy music video and a couple of unlockable gameplay modes--one increases the difficulty, the other simply changes the characters' outfits. In addition, the game records the number of experience points, kills, and rescues each character has amassed, displaying the results in the ''Game Stats'' menu.

While Hunter's visuals are not the best the Xbox has seen, they are sharp and highly detailed, nonetheless. Zooming in with the D-pad reveals the impressive level of detail the developer, High Voltage, squeezed into the graphics. Environments are varied, ranging from a ravaged town to a lofty mansion, and characters and enemies are nicely modeled and animate fairly well (some of the animations are sketchy, however). The game's lighting and special effects are pleasing, though not exceptional, and the frame rate runs smoothly, even during chaotic scenes filled with dozens of characters. Intense imagery, bucketfuls of blood, and plenty of decapitations and severed limps justify Hunter's M rating.

In terms of audio, a powerful Dolby Digital 5.1 presentation assaults your ears the moment the opening movie begins. Sound effects are crisp and effective, the music is mood setting, and the background ambience is rich. Well-voiced dialogue plays exclusively from the center speaker, with most of the voice actors delivering quality voiceovers. Thunderous bass and fantastic channel separation round out the audio presentation. Unfortunately, minor sound glitches and synchronization issues slightly mar the experience.

Quite simply, Hunter: The Reckoning slices and dices its spiritual predecessor on the system, Gauntlet: Dark Legacy. It's certainly worth a play and may make a good purchase for those looking to add an enjoyable, albeit short-lived, multiplayer bloodbath to their library of Xbox games.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 01/14/04