Here's a game I've been looking forward to for a long while, which to my mind is one of the most interesting Commodore 64 exclusives. What's odd about this particular aspect is that it's American, and entirely exclusive to a non-DOS PC. I'm showing my age, but I think around this time it's an oddity that something made by Americans would not be on any other computer. Considering that in 1989 Dynamix released mostly DOS games, with only one port to another computer released in America, it is odd. Especially since this isn't the B-team, this is Damon Slye and Jeff Tunnell themselves.
Before we even begin, I'm in trouble, because this is a pain for me to get started. Every rip I find for a while just won't go past the EA logo. In both emulators I have. This is not the kind of game I'm willing to just give up on, this is something I was looking forward to. It's really even an issue I can go and point, yep, that's the problem, because I eventually just got lucky with one rip.
Slowly, you see something approach, but it's just a shadow of the thing.
The story is, the research ship Prometheus has been performing genetic engineering to create dumb, durable laborers to assist in the mining of precious resources. The ship is no longer answering, and you've been assigned to clean it up. Unlike a lot of C64 games, this is actually important to know, because the story is important in how you play and how you win this game. In-game, this was really easy to accidentally skip, which is unfortunate since it's actually really nice. So, I watched it afterwards.
Our objectives are specifically, to find the logs from the science lab, then, because we can't risk contamination, set the bridge to self-destruct...but if you don't get off within two hours, they'll set it anyway. Um, why don't I just go in and out and then they set the self-destruct without me having to potentially put myself in a worse place? And contact them via radio if I need to. A map came with the game, I don't have a clean copy, so I know a few places contain death, but I'll just have to live with it.
The game begins with the player just standing in the dock between the player's ship, Exis (?) and the Prometheus. This whole intro sequence is kind of on-rails and kind of not. You get used to the controls in a controlled area, then go a few rooms until you reach the interior. Note the clock, we're looking at 15:07, not that you could ever reach that without specifically going for it.
Go up the elevator and uh-oh, there's a dead guy.
Whatever it is just ripped off part of his arm, oddly.
You even get a nifty close-up. This is certainly a weird setup here, something tore off his arm, but then just left him, giving him enough time to write danger. I'm not going to complain because the "N" trails off, he was probably just in a lot of pain then.
Left of this area is the rest of the base, while the right side leads to a security station. A monitoring room which doesn't really show anything and can't be interacted with, a prison cell, complete with laser beams, and an armory with more lasers. That last one is important.
The manual plays up checking every corpse no matter how damaged...but there's nothing here or on basically all damaged corpses.
What I'm supposed to do is head to the labs straight away, which basically means, left from the entrance, one door left, then up the elevator to the third floor. More corpses, which seem to be empty. A suspicious silence. Left from here, another empty corridor.
Every room here is filled with corpses. The observation room shows that the observation has clearly failed. There's a guy with a loaded laser rifle here, clearly it didn't save him, and the other guy has an ID card. Nothing else I can really do here. Which I have to say, is kind of a positive and kind of not, each room feels constructed even if there's no purpose to it. Which, oddly enough, is fairly consistent with survival horror games.
Okay, this damaged corpse has something, but he isn't that damaged compared to the others.
Left, we have an actual lab. There's another guy with an ID card, the game sure is generous with these. I can't help but be reminded of something Ahab of Data Driven Gamer said, in that a manual can function as copy protection without actually having copy protection by the game requiring knowledge from the manual. I wonder if that was intentional here. Because as I discovered later, you aren't getting anywhere without coming here.
I expected this guy to jump out at me, but he never did.
I can look up close at one of the monsters, or mutants as I've seen them called online. I imagine in 1989 what's about to happen would be shocking to many, but being probably the first real survival horror game does come with its drawbacks.
That was just the messages, the notes tell us that back in February they started. Their target is to create a creature that is strong, docile, capable of working in low oxygen, and survive in sub-zero temperatures. At least they were aiming for something that was unable to replicate itself...which I presume means breed. Anyway, what they did was take ox DNA and some asteroid fungi and mix the two together. More notes talk about the process of creating it, and the Latin name of the specis is A. Promiveriate, which I'm sure sounds ominous in Latin.
Earlier this month, the event that set the creatures off reveals itself. They began a stress test on their first specimen, nicknamed Fred, and he died at a higher temperature than they were hoping for. Their other specimens, unfortunately, turned out to not be as docile as they hoped. So they started sedating them. These things are apparently quite weak, because further tests resulted in one dying in a higher oxygen environment and slightly high radiation killed another. The log ends with the sedation gas proving ineffective, and the writing informing us that A. Promiveriate can replicate.
I'm not really surprised it went south. Oxen are docile compared to most animals, which isn't saying much. There's a cherry-picked fact about cows that point out that more people die to cows than coyotes in the United States. Herbivores aren't the friendly little things you might think, since they have to scare off their predators somehow besides running away. Cows in particular tend to have a somewhat violent temper, since bulls are known to be violent. Bullfighting didn't start because the bulls were too friendly. I'm not sure if I'm just falling for a meme, but I think a capybara would have been a good point for docility. But I admit, this is sidestepping that the real problem is that Project Firestart didn't have a fire-based method of extermination. At the very least, you shouldn't have more of them than you can manage.
Shockingly, nothing happens here, I can just leave. There's another lab, but it's purpose is later. Keep walking to the right and...
...It's one of them. That sure doesn't look like a cow or fungi. It looks like a troll, like it was made from wood. Eh, guess that's a bit like a fungi. This is how you're supposed to meet the mutants/creatures/Promiveriate. This is a great time to bring up the controls.
While I've never really thought about it, this is exactly what you would expect hearing the phrase "C64 survival horror game" without any context. Maybe a different perspective. The game is controlled entirely through the joystick, one singular joystick. Were it not for the ability to move up and down, this would basically be a typical side-scroller from the era. The high-end graphics, meanwhile, divide it from the usual Speccy-style weird wireframe stuff you'd see in something like The Great Escape. The button is context sensitive, meaning it only activates something when it's in front of you, and that means looking over everything hoping for something. And also a lot of opening and closing doors.
A lot more of that C64 survival horror game observation comes into combat. You shoot whenever you aren't able to interact with something, and only left and right. There is one enemy type, the mutant/slime thing. Nobody gets any hit collision, no animations, no sound, just slowly draining health when you touch and their health drains when you shoot. You can even walk straight through them. It turns combat into a question of whether or not you really need to take the guy out right this moment. You can find additional lasers in various armories, and according to the manual you can carry up to two at a time.
It is disappointing, because I keep expecting one of these 2D games to have some clever gameplay mechanic that ties the survival horror aspect into it quite nicely. Now, I should point out that "disappointing" is not the same thing, necessarily, as "awful". In this case it's bland. It's mozzarella and turkey on white bread, not mustard, peanut butter and mint on brioche. It doesn't matter if the rest of the game is good. And this is very interesting. This is a fairly impressive bit of tension building if you do it the right way. Resident Evil had the better reveal, but by the time you've seen it, you've already seen a cutscene in which a member of your team dies horribly.
There's a special elevator from here to the bridge. That's too easy, so what's about to cause me trouble? More mutants than seem possible pop out of the bridge to this uh...whatever this room is. There's not even anything in here that I can interact with, must be where the staff goof off. Seriously, enemies sometimes just appear from somewhere there's no possible way they could appear from, they're not even bothering to show a vent system they can go through.
The bridge has some surprisingly unmutilated corpses. Nothing on them, but they're intact. More importantly, the radio is here, I'm told to continue my mission as stated. Then another mutant. Man, in some of these rooms it's a pain to set up a shot on them. I guess this is the only real way the game can hurt you, force you into combat in unfavorable conditions. Another message log, cryo room working as intended, the lead-glass thing again. This computer also functions as the self-destruct. Well, I see no reason not to activate it. I've got 25 minutes to return to my ship.
As I'm just about to return to my ship, the screen goes funny and mutants appear. I kill them, only, uh-oh, my ship has been destroyed. Fortunately, there's a shuttle on this ship, as I currently have no other way of escaping, this seems like the logical answer.
But then I get a meanwhile and it reveals someone waking up in what looks like a cryo tube. Survivors? That's marked on my map, so it seems wise of me to head there first. I got time. So, the Cryo area is on the first floor, directly left of the main elevators.
Now that I'm here I can see that the first person is probably dead, seeing as there's a mutant here and a ripped apart door. No corpse, which seems odd. Another one pops up behind me. After dealing with them, and taking a moment, I can wake up survivor number 2, lady with a noticeable figure. She's injured, so you know what that means, escort mission. Right, well, let's go right. "Jon, you're going the wrong way!" (This is the character's name, which has been so unimportant I forgot to mention it) Um, I'm the guy with a map of the station and it's simply easier to go this way...
...Damn, some people really can't stand someone going a different way they planned on. This actually breaks the game, since my guy now breaks into four pieces when standing around. As do the mutants. I'm okay when I'm walking though. This consistently happens, so I'm guessing that just none of these rips are in complete working order...or this was just something they didn't notice.
After retrieving another weapon, because I was nearly out, I head to the shuttle, which I probably should have done to begin with. There's a medikit outside and once I'm in the elevator...
I get attacked by some mutants while still in the elevator, and then I get a picture of an egg hatching. That really helped right now, can't see squat and the game is distracting me. I die, naturally. So much for any sense of mercy. Let's talk about a really big issue with this stuff, namely, that the way the game is set up makes this more difficult than it should be.
Each laser is a self-contained weapon, each pick-up is a new laser. You can only carry two and you drop empty ones automatically. You seem to be able to shoot about 2-3 mutants a laser. And you can't really run past enemies because you need that health for the final stretch. That means a bit of luck. You can run away, but nothing prevents the game from then deciding to have an enemy in the direction you're running into.
I decide that even if I'm not going to get the best ending, I am going to get one in which I escape alive. As I have no stated reason to go after the cryo chamber outside of the game giving me a cutscene, so I ignore it. I head straight from the bridge to the shuttle, fighting my way through the mutants. I make it there...and I die in a shuttle slowly running out of oxygen. Okay, I should tell mission control beforehand.
Something like this will always impress me. Sure, you could have as much FMV in your game now as you can, but back in the day having an animated person feels like witchcraft, even looking at it now.
The mission control dude gives me a spiel about how they can't send a ship to dock with a ship that's about to self-destruct. And you know, informing me about the shuttle as if I didn't already know about it. I guess you could beat this without the manual, it would just take a lot longer. Fortunately, I do get what I actually wanted, which was for him to send a ship to the general area so that after I escape in the shuttle I can survive.
It's entirely possible for you to get here without knowing who this guy even is.
I make it, and the hairs on my back stand on end. It's the guy I thought died, Annar. Not that I have any way of knowing that or he of knowing my name in this playthrough. He's going to kill me because I have the lab notes and he can't let me take them. But before I do it, I get a brief chance to control myself again.
Beating him is as simple as just walking into him. When not faced with genetic freaks, my guy is quite skilled at hand-to-hand combat, and either knocks the dude out cold or kills him. Either way, he's not going to be a problem for now. And that's it, I've won.
The chief congratulates me, and I get a vacation. Considering mission control was on my case with my ship getting destroyed, this must have been a good job indeed. Now, let's see if we can't save the lady. Let's see how we can optimize this.
Remember all those cards I got at the start? Well, those are what you need in order to get into the cryo room. The front door is locked and while there is a backdoor, even if it isn't locked it's right next to an area full of constantly respawning mutants, so you aren't getting in. This is apparently where they made their nest, because opening one of the doors is instant death. So I need to find something I can use to solve some of my problems, and that means exploring.
Technically I already have some idea of where I need to go, since the map I was able to find was not fresh, but written on. There are three rooms of note on the 1st floor, a room with a medical kit to the right of the elevator. A locked room in the upper right, which I didn't have the key for, and a laser gun in the lower right, which is filled with so many mutants that it's a waste of time.
In engineering, which you enter by going to the third floor, then right, then down to the second floor again, there's the power room with the faulty shield, the power switch and a storage room with a plasma laser. The power switch is interesting, because it turns the game dark, which I suspect means I will need to turn it back on at some point in the game.
So, my plan forms, focused on minimizing the amount of movement and time I need to do. I suppose this is cheating you out of seeing some good stuff...but the amount of combat I might need to do over that is very unappealing to me. I've figured out what the tricks are and think I can work around that. That said, there is a certain order the game expects you to do things and you can't really work around it.
Now, I can't really do anything different until I call HQ telling them that my ship is destroyed, except I take a laser from the armory at first rather than picking up the one in the lab. So I'm not completely screwed if I get stuck up there with one laser. More importantly, I try not to engage in fights I don't need to, since everything is about time. Time spent in a room is time ticking down for an enemy to spawn. Which is unfortunate, because you need to wait for certain events to happen.
My attempt at optimization, unfortunately, doesn't really help me much, instead I'm stuck waiting around for the room to be unlocked. I charge in, shoot the enemies, then escort her to the waste disposal room. You shoot her into space rather than escort her to the shuttle. Hopefully that has enough oxygen for her. This also breaks the game's sprites.
This means a trip back to the lab to eject the waste pod, then going to the med lab since I've taken too much damage getting away from the monsters. Seriously, hiding in any room with an active enemy outside it will result in them camping outside the door. Change levels? You're safe, since I guess it only saves enemies in active memory whenever it's on the same level. You can only rarely exploit this though.
It's just over sixteen minutes left when I eject the waste pod and finish healing in the medlab, which should be plenty of time to win. I kept expecting time to either trigger an event or the game to just wait for me to try the shuttle before something happens...and nothing did. I actually waited in engineering for something to happen, since that's where the power switch was, but nothing happens.
The endgame proceeds as last time, I take out Annar, but this time I pick up the waste pod. The hero gets a kiss from the lady. Nothing else changes. Feeling somewhat disappointed, I look up a longplay. Turns out I just didn't wait enough for the event to happen. After a few more moments the pod the game cuts to will completely hatch, revealing a white version of A. Promiveriate, who is completely psychotic. As in, killing its fellows and chasing after you psychotic. It won't die to laser fire, instead you need to take it to a gimmick room to kill it. Basically, you need to be paying attention to those notes you find around the area.
But this happens just before the power actually goes out, which I didn't find despite hanging around for a good amount of time before just reloading and going for the shuttle anyway. Apparently you can't exit to the shuttle while it's off, but that just seems like a weird gimmick. Oh, and sound, which is off by default for some strange reason.
I could reload to try this, but Project Firestart is best when you're figuring things out, and not when you're waiting around for death. I got the best possible outcome without encountering these things, and I didn't know anything about this game before starting. I thought the monsters were some sort of Xenomorph knockoff as opposed to cow fungi. I didn't even optimize that much in the end, my first plan of action was the same as my last plan of action.
It's also not that fun to actually play the game, rather than take it as a first time package. Discovering things, figuring out how best to do them, that's fun. Constant loading between rooms, switching disks between most floors, waiting for timed events to happen; these are not. Actually shooting the endlessly respawning enemies is incredibly boring too, you just shoot and hope they die before they reach you, or just run past them. There's no figuring out combat here, you just get lucky or you don't.
In the end, we still have a lot of questions as to what's going on. Did Annar sabotage the ship after the fact or did he sabotage the development of the creatures? Why does he not want us to have them? Is it because he's plotting on wiping humanity out or that he doesn't trust people to restart the experiment? If it's the latter, I can't blame him, because there's no sign of any containment measures beyond knocking them out and blowing the station up. One would hope that this would be a wakeup call, but you never know. That's even assuming the people being given the logs are trustworthy.
I was actually disappointed that the big gimmick was that they were creating a new stronger cow fungi rather than finding out that the cow fungi laid spores on you, and you need to stop them. But admittedly that would probably clash with the game's general feel as a small, well-crafted package if you needed to do something for another 5-10 minutes. And with that, let's see how it rates.
Weapons: You have one, it's extremely boring. 1/10
Enemies: Three, but one requires a bit of effort to reach, albeit effort is required to defeat it. Another is a puzzle. The last is quite generic. I want to be generous, but I know I would only do it out of pity. 1/10
Non-Enemies: A lame escort mission doesn't get points. 0/10
Levels: The ship generally succeeds at being both a real place and a fun place to explore, but does rely on backtracking to the same location a bit too many times. 7/10 Player Agency: Unfortunately, janky. You need to hold down the keys just enough in order to perform an action, but if you want precision, you need to get good at doing it just right. It's better than most games, but it's the weakest link by far. 3/10
Interactivity: I must admit to being impressed by the computer interface, just like what I use...just with a joystick, and the occasional depth of what you can do, but for the most part it's opening and closing doors so you don't get chased after. 3/10 Atmosphere: The game does an excellent job of imitating a horror movie. Sometimes to its detriment. I especially thought the intro to the introduction of the monster was well-done. 8/10
Graphics: Clearly pushes the graphical capabilities of the C64 to the limit in both static visuals and animation. That said, it so dearly needed more combat animation. 5/10
Story: Basic but well-done science experimentation gone wrong. I do dislike how in the game you're not actually given a reason to go for the best ending. Since at most you hear the cryo room unlocked message. People also know each other's names despite nobody mentioning them in-game. (I had to look up that my guy was named Jon Hawkin) 4/10
Sound/Music: Surprisingly little, it swells during creepy moments, but without enemies on-screen its silence. At least I got silence, sound effects were turned off and I just thought they weren't any. There are at least basic sound effects. 3/10
That's 35. No additions or subtractions, the special ones I'd do balance out. Pretty good. Obviously not perfect, they just needed to work a little more on making combat fun. I don't need to read the reviews, since they're all positive last I checked. I couldn't blame someone in 1989 for doing so, but looking back this has to be the effect swan song for the American C64 market. The last big and impressive game. Europeans lasted longer, as I have Newcomer in mind for that continent, but I admit I'm no C64 expert. (Check out that company name too, an amusing coincidence)
Despite Dynamix never following up at all on this game, someone made a remake of the game, just called Firestart. I'm sure it plays a lot better, but looking at the screenshots it looks considerably less polished. Without that polish, its just another horror game about exploring a space station.
And that's it for the special Halloween games this year. Next month will be more Rejection, the no doubt exciting sequel to Pharaoh's Tomb and some more Japanese PC games from 1984. It hasn't been that long since I made progress on the latter, but it sure as heck has felt like it. It's been a slow couple of months, mostly a consequence of real life issues forcing me to slowly make my way through a long Japanese RPG at a somewhat slow pace.
Rather suddenly, I've had the need to clear off some space on my desk. And what do I have on my desk that's most convenient to move? Old games. Hence a sudden shift in what I'm playing.
This doesn't actually play during the intro, you have to wait for it to show up on the menu.
Hunter Hunted is one of two games in Sierra's k.a.a. line of games, the other is a fighting game called CyberGladiators. Both were developed by Dynamix and I struggle to think of why this is any different than most of Dynamix's other output. The story is, sometime in the late 20th century, a group of aliens called The Masters killed most of humanity and enslaved the rest for games of their own amusement. Hunters, as they're called, are put into the ruined remains of a city and fight various creatures. In some cases they are the hunters, taking out traps and robots. In others, they are the hunted. Humanity is not the only race, there's also one called beasts, who look like minotaurs.
You play as either Jake, whose last name I could have sworn was Hunter (or the Japanese title Jake Burst) or Garathe Den, the beast. You have to survive some 65 missions, finding equipment/parts to put on a car in order to make it spaceworthy, and escape the Masters.
There's something to be said for the era when companies played around with their logos like this; these days some bigwig would be upset that they were "making fun" of their logo.
The intro, as broken as this is through WINE, is interesting. There's a pretty neat rendition of the Sierra logo, followed by Dynamix's blue fuzzball coming on screen...before Garathe Den comes on-screen and splats him against the wall. Also, there's an Escape from New York reference that isn't from a Metal Gear Solid game.
Then, we get this. Uh, thanks to WINE, I didn't get to see it, but it does explain what is supposedly the concept of the game. Supposedly, because it's fairly obvious that near the end the two will join sides.
Text boxes like this appear sometimes. Because of the game's very '90s Windows nature, these sometimes pop up outside the main window.
The game just goes straight into it when you press new game. First you get a tutorial as Jake. Controls are sort of like a more arcade-y Blackthorne, that old Blizzard cinematic platformer. Left and right moves, shift jumps, ctrl shoots, z punches, X slows you down, down crouches and up is stealth. You can move while crouching but not while hidden. Secret passages and doors are found by moving into them automatically, other interactables are done via up. Weapons are selected via page up and down.
This is a fairly simple training mission, with a few non-threatening mines to shoot and then you get an exit door. It feels too simple to get used to the game. Despite playing mostly like an old-fashioned arcade platformer, albeit with some fancy aiming, this is in many ways like a FPS of the period, health, which can go up to 199 with the right pick-ups, armor, weapons and ammo are separate. Ammo goes up to 99, and while each weapon has it's own pick-up, the amount of ammo you get varies from level to level. No real power-ups, however.
Stealth is weird. Some enemies respond to it by walking away, others just sort of stand there, and others shoot at you like you're still there. Either way they'll stay pretty close to where they are. Hiding prevents you from getting shot, but explosives still have their normal effects.
Movement is generally fine, but there's a lot of issues around the edges. You can find yourself caught on a wall that doesn't exist or in a way that doesn't make sense and the only solution is to jump.
Then you get a tutorial as Garathe, much like Jake's training. Curiously, Garathe gets two melee attacks, fists and a club thing with better range. I'm guessing Garathe is supposed to be more of a melee fighter while Jake is more of a ranged fighter. Garathe gets knives to throw at enemies, which is kind of hard to hit the mine with. Even worse, the guy's movement sounds are over the top, when running he breathes a lot, and his walking sounds still feel a bit too noisy.
There are two key things this level introduces besides getting used to the alien minotaur. Climbable locations, works like you'd expect it to, up and down; Secrets, like I said earlier, just walk into walls to find secrets. Here, I get grenades.
The end level screen, this shows up even if you lose, so you can figure out how many secrets a level has. Treasure refers to stuff like the car parts, which you need anyway.
Couple of more things, if you press up and shoot just before you go into stealth, you shoot up. With grenades this is more like an awkward arc, it's basically impossible to hit a mine with a grenade. If you crouch and shoot...Garathe screams and hurts himself, presumably this has some purpose later in the game. You can shoot diagonally down with down left or down right.
There's a lot of voiceover in this game. For games I've been playing lately, but that's to be expected when you're mostly playing '80s titles. Every intro has an alien mocking Jake or Garathe that isn't actually written down. You know, what we expected games would be like in the '90s around this time, everyone would just listen to the game instead of...gasp...reading text. Not that any of it is very important.
I'm just going to put the individual parts up here and summarize the "interesting" (though most are) levels afterwards.
Your character changes color each mission, Jake's shirt or Garathe's fur. In either case, when poisoned, they shift to green.
There are about six groups of traps and like things:
Poison, comes in the form of dripping ceiling puddles, ground puddles, poisoned food and jets that shoot out. Poison slowly damages you until you find a green medikit. A lot of levels center around these, and they range from annoying to terrifying.
Dart traps, what you think, if you're within it's line of sight, it shoots out darts. Varies in damage and speed from mild nuisance to basically dying in a few shots.
Ceiling rams, don't have a better name for these, when activated, they swing from side to side. As lethal to enemies as they are to you.
Jump pad, they push you along a certain arc. Very annoying because they knock you down while they do it.
Barrels, they explode. Sometimes they just explode, other times they create burning fire, which lasts for a while.
Teleporters, they teleport you. Uses the radioactive symbol. Some are hidden.
This doesn't get into how the game uses more advanced triggers to trap you or screw you over. Disappearing and reappearing walls happen on whatever notice the level developer wanted.
For visibility's sake, I've been cutting out the window part of the window, though these menus are quite essential to playing the game. (you have no real restart function, so you need to stop in the middle of a mission)
Enemies:
Mines, they slowly move towards you while floating. Can be annoying to hit, but not terribly lethal in isolation. Unfortunately, they usually come with spawners, big solid blocks which take a couple of rockets to take out. Come in four colors, with green being the easiest and red being the most dangerous.
Turrets, tricky to shoot right, but more because of always being on the ceiling. It's easier to hit them at an an angle, but I kept screwing that up. Come in many kinds, which range from mild nuisance to dead. At least you can avoid their shots if they aren't pointed at you. Their shots, even in the weakest variants, can range from constant stream to short bursts. They're never fooled by stealth.
Chaos Creepers, like mines, except they run at you. Dangerous until you figure out you can shoot diagonally down, less so when you do so. Mostly placed in locations you shouldn't be in anyway.
Chameleons, xenomorph-like creatures which jump around. Surprisingly not as lethal as they sound.
Manta Ray, annoying but not very deadly. They hide like you do, so while you can see them, you can't attack them until they break out of cover.
Floating blobs, these guys might have a name, but they were only briefly mentioned if true. They're like the mines, except slower and less lethal. The gray ones don't move unless you're unlucky while the yellow ones are quick on the draw. Best punched to death.
Security droids, the most annoying of the enemies. They shoot at you like the turrets, except they're usually alert and they have a bigger range of view. They shoot out a burst, which ranges from managable in green, to do not get hit in red. This guy can actually stunlock you out of the hiding animation. Tedious to kill in the best of situations, which means the later levels are full of them.
Sentinel droids, or Molotov Cactus. Stationary things which throw out a group of explosive when you get within a certain distance. Unfortunately, you can only hurt them when they're attacking.
Ants, uh, they appeared on a few Hunted levels, but were otherwise a non-entity. I don't think I ever fought one.
Bruiser, you know the ED-209 from Robocop? Like those. They shoot missiles, plasma projectiles, a flame thrower for short range and they can cause earthquakes. Lethal if you don't deal with them right, but otherwise simple to deal with, albeit they have a lot of health. No joke, on some levels you can just pummel away at them with a shotgun; their missiles go over you.
Death, a flaming skeleton. Shoots fireballs, teleports through everything and can't die. Or at least it's so impractical to kill you never do so in the entire campaign. Pretty easy to run away from and sometimes you can even lose him.
Other humans, they use Jake's model, but these aren't Jake. What weapons they have varies, but assuming you either have the club as Garathe or the shotgun as Jake you can handle them pretty easily by constantly knocking them down. Stealth is useless against them.
Other beasts, they use Garathe's model, but aren't Garathe. They have varying weapons, but usually they rush towards you. Unfortunately, unlike Jake, they only get knocked down by explosives, so you need to have some range before attacking them, lest you get caught in the explosion. Stealth is useless against them.
Weapons:
Fists, somehow Jake can punch a mine with no ill effects. I like that.
Club, basically replaces Garathe's fists for most levels. Useful for taking out the more mobile enemies thanks to it knocking them down.
Pistol, Jake's basic weapon, shoots a burst of three bullets in whichever direction you're pointing. Very accurate and ammo is plentiful. Very useful for taking out turrets from a distance. Gradually decreases in importance outside of taking potshots at things from a distance.
Knives, Garathe's basic weapon. Because you only throw one at a time, it's worse than the pistol, missing is easy. It has one advantage, knives that miss can be picked up wherever they land. Seems to almost never be useful outside of early intro levels though.
Shurikens, they're like the knives, except they explode and gravity affects them a lot. With a really weird arc if you throw them straight up, they always slowly go lower "down". They can be picked up too after being thrown, as they only detonate on contact with enemies, on walls it's on a timer.
Whip, in theory, kind of crap, if you don't let it complete it's wind-up, you just pointlessly whip...except that functions as melee. It's projectile is nothing special, just a simple attack, yet in practice, it's very effective once you get used to it.
Shotgun, shoots out about 3 damaging pellets. Kind of weak for a shotgun, but I suspect that's only relatively, since, you know, you can take out big mechs with it.
Rocket Launcher, a very nice rocket launcher. Explosions happen through walls, I should point out. It's only real flaw is that you can't shoot straight up.
Right, back to the levels.
Jake Learns the Ropes, more like Dynamix violates the cardinal rule of level design, never start your player off under fire. (later on they'd violate the no secrets necessary to win, but eh at that point) A turret here, they range in damage and tactics, either they constantly track you or have a set pattern they follow and only shoot you when you reach it. Some weapons they're invulnerable to.
This actually explains what I just said about up and shoot. Down shoot for Jake, incidentally, causes an electrical field which slowly drains Jake's health. Rope ladders, as I'm learning on this level, don't quite work how I expected. If you climb to the top, you just sort of jump off, and while you can jump off at any time, it feels weird. You can also shoot, of course, but this causes Jake or Garathe to fall off.
Speaking of screwing with the player, Garathe's next tutorial explains poison. Also, he's dropped straight down at the beginning and naturally there's something that has to be reached while doing so. (Or you could find it through a secret later) This gets me a whip attack...which is just slow as molasses to fire, but it is an explosive projectile, which does give it some advantages.
So, poison, certain objects poison you, and it's slow damage until you find an antidote, a green medical bag to the usual white and red ones. This game has the usual assortment of items in a not really score based game, ammo, health and keys. Items don't really carry over between levels, the game just gives you whatever it is it wants to give you.
I can't think of any game that just lets you do this everywhere where you weren't some weird alien.
Oh, yeah, Garathe can grab onto the ceiling with jump + up. Actually, both can, it's just Garathe has such a bigger jumping power I noticed it sooner with him. It's very awkward to do, because you can't take to move, you have to hold down, there's an unskippable animation for both characters, which, when combined with the speed of moving up on the ceiling, feels like an eternity. This is all just a weird thing to have it took me a while to fully appreciate it as part of the toolkit.
Skipping over one of Jake's missions, it just has teleports and a point I'm going to make here anyway. Walking between areas via these big things. I know they have a name, but it's kind of hard figuring out what they're called since they behave similarly to how some games have distinct "planes" for characters to walk on, whereas this is just shifting areas.
Jumping is weird. Jake has a bunch of random jumps ranging from typical jump to last chance desperate fall-on-the-ground toss. I can figure out Garathe's seem to involve pressing up+direction and shift, but that doesn't work for Jake. It seems, based on how I can activate it, that it happens when he would trip over something. Huh, that's oddly involved.
This mission adds in a few things, we get some new enemies. Chaos creepers, who are basically smaller mines, slowly come after you and explode. Chameleon, female robots who basically work like xenomorphs, they're a pain to hit but even though I got poisoned and couldn't find an antidote, I still took out a few with the club.
Again with attacking the player as soon as a mission starts. I do figure out that you can shoot diagonally, which is a plus. There's a rocket launcher, funny how we got that before a shotgun. It's hard to tell how effective it is, nothing here is that strong. But now we get parts of the car.
In some missions you find pieces of a car, supping it up for space travel. Now I remember from one time I tried to play this in the past that this also gets built by some parts from Garathe missions. At least I think. I'll point out if it happens. I do note that it's kind of hard to actually spot these, I just mindlessly walk over everything and I usually get it by some means.
Garathe can't jump over these, his long jump hurts things he touches.
This level is still one of the tutorials, yet it's surprisingly open-ended. For as confusing as the 3d mechanic is, it makes the game feel a lot better than it would otherwise. Explosive barrels in this game are kind of cruel, sometimes they create this firey area that lasts for a lot longer than it should. Still the game knows how to use them, both in your favor and very much against. Barrels block the exit or sit beneath a turret. You can push them, but since they're always in a bunch, and it's impossible to push two barrels that are touching each other.
Jake 'Mines' His Own Business, guess the intro is over. Teleporter maze. This level design seems firmly entrenched in the labyrinthian kind of design, but so far that's working for it. There are traps, besides the obvious ones. Elaborate obstacles one has to avoid. I like that, but I wonder if the game is going to remember that.
This game also puts forth annoying numbers of mines here, first just a big group you can't easily reach, then some coming out of some spawners. They can't be destroyed, well, I got a rocket launcher, but it doesn't seem like it shoots up easily.
Intro: Garathe vs Chaos Creepers, hang on, the last mission wasn't an intro. This mission is important because it's the first timed mission. This comes in two varieties, one in which you have to reach the end before the time runs out or you die, and one in which you have to survive that long.
The game suggests using grenades against the creepers. Fine, that works, when I can wind up the throw. The whip is seemingly not as useful as intended, it won't hit things off-screen and the wind-up makes hitting things on-screen dangerous.
Another mission. Meet Bruiser, he's most vulnerable to being attacked from behind. So the game says, I took him out pretty handily by just spamming shuriken at him. This is one of the big enemies the manual warns you about. He's not too dangerous here, except that when he turns around he stuns you if you're on the same ground as him.
The numbers usually indicate which plane of the level you're on.
At this point, the mission turns weird. I go through the entire area I thought was available to me and there was no sign of the piece I'm supposed to collect. I know I'm supposed to collect something, because the game won't let me exit. Until I find it, hidden behind a side-crushing sweeper. Yeah, that's kind of a sign that the so-called neat bit the game advertises isn't up to snuff.
The first mission with security bots. You know, it's a bad sign when a new enemy is warned to you and you're given a shotgun and a rocket launcher. There have been other new enemies since I last mentioned them, like a robot plant which I think shoots explosives, but they haven't been trouble...at all.
Though I pretty much knew about these guys since they were in a Garathe mission, in which you had to avoid them. With the rocket launcher and the very generous 10 packs of rockets strewn around liberally, they're not very troublesome. They are less vulnerable to the shotgun.
Another Garathe mission, this time, based all around avoiding enemies and getting them to blow themselves up. You know, for a game that's trying to build this guy up as a hunter and Jake up as a hunted, I'd rather play as Jake. He has weapons I like using. Garathe's weapons all have weird quirks that make them difficult to use.
Jake's Hardware Store, a subtly timed mission, you're basically poisoned the entire time and have to survive on medikits you find. Makes actual combat very tense and inaccuracy a lot more troublesome. As I play more and more of this game, I find that while I don't care for the whole quasi 3d levels in theory, it does provide a lot of options in how you approach each level. Then there's the turrets, it's kind of hard to actually hit the turrets if you don't use explosives.
Robot Sabotage, still the intro, adds some interesting objectives. Usually you just get to the end and get a piece of the car, but here you have to take out some barrels and a red security robot. There's another bruiser here. Weird priority. I find myself dying frequently in each mission, but at the same time, each time I die I get closer to completing that mission. It's a pretty solid difficulty curve, and while you can't save in the middle of a mission, progress is saved and there's no penalty for dying.
The game has this weird habit in it's design to put down dripping poison puddles you have very little chance of dodging in at this point. But it's not as annoying as the low pits that have ropes, only at the bottom there's nothing. Considering how exploration heavy this game is, this feels conterproductive.
I haven't mentioned it before now, but the game shifts around the camera quite a bit. It only sometimes makes sense, like zooming out whenever there's an important enemy in the area. Other times it doesn't make sense, here, there's an extreme example in it zooming in extremely as you approach the red robot. Also, you can change the size of the window the game is in, yet this doesn't affect anything besides the size of the game world in pixels. Considering everything is pre-rendered 3D CGI, not the best decision.
Orb of Anarchy, a level with Garathe centering around the object of the same name. If it's on-screen, the arrow keys work in the opposite direction. More annoying than it sounds, because of the whole screen zooming in and out thing, and it seems to shift the second the orb gets on or off screen. This is by far the hardest level so far because of this. You're timed and there's barely any health.
A Vision of Death, pretty good level. There's a pretty clever set-up with a bruiser where if you run towards him, despite all reason otherwise, you end up getting some gear. But the real important bit is setting up the deadliest enemy of the game, called Death. Death moves through objects and is unkillable, and it's set up here perfectly, you're given the perfect opportunity to discover him and run straight for the exit.
So, after this each mission randomly consists of being either a hunter or hunted mission, these aren't connected to either character, rather, to what you have to do that mission. First up, play as Garathe and hunt down a human. Not Jake, just a random human. This adds in something really weird, on missions now both other humans and whatever race Garathe can appear. They're both hostile.
I'm the one dead here.
Both appear on this mission, though even if they didn't, because of a battle with a Bruiser while on a rope ladder, this would be a noteworthy mission anyway. Now not Jake enemies, they're the hardest so far. run and jump around like maniacs and throw grenades. This guy's dangerous just on his own, compared to everything else which functions more like a way of wearing you down.
You can resize the screen image, yet, all this does is increase how big whatever you see is rather than increase your vision.
Jake Cruises for Bruisers, "Now you are the Hunter, go forth and destroy". Take out seven Bruisers. Now we're getting into levels where you really have no chance of winning the first time around. As such the game cleverly teaches you several strategies of how to deal with these guys without getting hit. Some are more obvious than others, using grenades from above, abusing the ability to shoot in mid-air to shoot while on rope ladders. Others are more clever.
So, the whole climbing on the ceiling mechanic hasn't really been used much in combat yet. Mostly it's been around a few obvious bits of platforming. Well, the Bruisers don't knock you down when you're on the ceiling, making this approach safer when enemies are off-screen. (enemies don't move a certain amount off-screen, very annoying with these guys) So you climb up, and oh, look at that, the missile the Bruiser fires can't reach the ceiling and neither does anything else. Thinking about it, it's kind of weird that the movesets of these characters come off like a Xenomorph.
A hunted mission, Run for Your Life. No objectives other than staying alive. There are some new traps and critters, but it's actually not that bad of a mission. There are slowly moving electrical posts, easy to jump over; Ants, which work like the Chaos Creepers, but are slower and don't chase after you. I actually won on the first attempt. That's the first in a while.
Hunter, Scavenger, not too bad starting off. The game puts the pistol and the shotgun in two different alcoves nearby, more than making up for starting off with no weapons next to a turret. This one proves annoying because of the layout. The exit is surprisingly close to the entrance, yet you need to get several parts. Oh, yeah, and I died because I misjudged where the edge of the damage area was. Nice. Not because of the numerous dart traps or even the poison section, I just misjudged how high the fires damage.
Hunter, Throw the Switch. That's a typo, by the way, you're on a timer, you start with no ammo, and you have 10 health at the start. Clearly a hunted mission. You do gradually turn the tables on them, as you get ammo and weapons. I also discover that Bruisers can't shoot you when you're crouching, which is hilarious. Pretty good mission, especially when you get to exploit the AI's tendency to shoot blindly in your direction, like if two Bruisers will shoot at each other. Enemies shooting at each other is a thing that happens, but so far it's just been restricted to those robot fly trap things.
Hunter, Slaughter House. Kill a half dozen humans. Quite the task since they're all bunched up. What's also interesting is the opening section against some Chaos Creepers, you don't have any weapons except the club, so I figured out you could attack downward with the club.
Hunter, Three of a Kind. Garathe Den, but you find a part of the car. The game finally tells the player what he likely long since expected, Garathe and Jake will work together at the end. But first, Garathe has to kill three other humans. Including an annoying human with grenades stuck behind a locked door. You basically can't attack this guy without getting put in an awkward situation. Then the level gets obtuse, I make it to the exit and I've seen no car part. Worse still, I know there is no secret door I'm missing, and yet I've been everywhere and seen everything. In the end, I discover the game outright lied to me about there being no secret door and I merely missed it near the end.
As I mention later, I like the art direction, the main characters have a nice stylized look to them in particular.
Hunted, Take it From Jake. Weird to see an outright scavenger level, collect a bunch of different items while getting chased by humans. This level really puts into perspective how useful up+right/left jump can be with Garathe, if you're lucky, it damages and knocks down enemies. We're also getting into how secret doors, which once only took one or two seconds to open, now take like five, which is not at all annoying in a level where you're constantly running from enemies.
I'm pinned down in this screenshot, because one droid is firing while the other isn't, I can't get out of cover without getting shot.
Hunter, Apocalypse Now, very fitting. Take down six Bruisers, only these guys aren't the threat. To start off with, you seem to get some pretty good supplies, thirty shells, five rockets and five grenades, but that's nowhere near enough to fight what the rest of the level has, let alone the Bruisers. As soon as you take a step into the tunnel barrels are dropped onto certain locations, and the door out is right next to the last one. So you have to slowly walk across this. Then as soon as that's over with, you get to deal with a turret and a security robot right outside the next door.
The level is, at this point, divided between two sections, one with most of the Bruisers, and one wide mall hallway. The Bruiser area is further divided top and bottom by little holes which may have ammo in them, or they may have a robot in them. This is honestly a pain to deal with, because the robots aren't alert until you're in a straight line with them, there are not enough grenades to deal with the ones on the ground holes properly, meanwhile, there's no point in going after the ones in the ceiling holes.
The mall area is mostly tolerable, until you get to one section full of the blue security robots. These guys, if not properly lined up, can pin you down in stealth. Even if you're fighting them properly, you're still jumping in and out of stealth constantly. This whole level took me a while.
Hunter, You Against the World, take out three of Garathe's race and some other stuff. In an interesting twist, the usually not very troublesome not-player enemies are very deadly here. You need to spam explosives in order to knock these guys down, and you are never in a good position to deploy explosives.
Hunter, Bruiser Bashing, a lot of these late game levels are really long, this one came off the heels of an especially long just reach the exit level. This one obviously sets itself up as one of those. Take out 8 Bruisers, find a car part and to do this you start with 50 shells in your shotgun. Something tells me I'm going to need it. It's just one after another, so not too terrible, but you basically don't get a break between them. The game also gives you more pistol ammo than you'd ever need on a level like this, a lot of ammo from one pickup and half a dozen pick-ups, on a level with barely any enemies you would shoot with a pistol. I don't even think I shot something with a pistol.
Hunted, Power Outage. The level starts in total darkness. Lovely. Find a bolt in apartment 15, then take it to apartment 20. This is surprisingly detailed for a level briefing, and even better, I start with 1 health and 1 armor...and then the level just starts off relatively normal and throws a super health item at you. It does try to commit to the weird darkness gimmick by having walls close off behind you, but before long it turns into a relatively ordinary level of dodge the poison.
The actual gimmick of this level is a series of locked off apartments you can risk entering. You get a few grenades, but not many, and the first time through I used them to take out a security robot that was guarding a secret door that led to the keys. Making each new apartment very risky. Then you walk into Apartment 15 and meet Death. Apartment 20, by comparison only has another human and some explosive barrels. I got lucky.
Hunter, Efficency Expert. "Try to escape and find the car part." That feels creepy. There's a series of numbers on the walls. Why...? This feels more creepy than it should. Sounds are going off in the background that shouldn't usually be going off in the background. The car part I got by complete accident, it's in a hidden teleport. Escape is harder, until I realize what the numbers mean. They're where I should go.
That's correct, but I need to do something else first, there's a jump pad that won't activate. I do find this neat little area leading to some stuff though. I find the thing that activates the jump pad, only it leads to a dead end with some ammo. This is becoming more of a Tricks and Traps style level than anything else. If the central area spawned a bunch of monsters in it about halfway through. Oh yeah, and at the end you had to run away from a basically invulnerable monster...who ends up being unimportant compared to yet another Bruiser fight at the end of the level.
Hunter, Pinball. You know, I've avoided making the obvious comparison between this and Dynamix's classic puzzle game series The Incredible Machine, but it's true, the physics, the way each item is basically a pre-set piece yet can be customized in surprising ways. Pinball is the most obvious use of The Incredible Machine's capabilities, and so it is with Hunter Hunted. Half the level is getting bumped across jump pads in a really neat to see the first time around, annoying on replays kind of setup. Still a bit of a break from the chaos that's been going on.
Hunter, 457 Bourbon Street, take out the other human. You gotta love these late levels with such simple objectives. Is it really going to be that easy or are grenades going to be thrown everywhere like they found a warehouse full of them? It's simple, but you get quite a few sections where you have to play hide and shotgun with the security robots.
Hunter, Squirrel. Not especially notable, except for some reason the game gets really annoying about how it uses hidden teleporters. I had to fight my way up climb because the game was activating a teleporter to the exact same place I was at. Others are less annoying, but still push you back way more than they should. It's not difficult, just adds length in an already lengthy game.
Painting, Morpheus Kitami playing Armored Trooper Votoms: Dead Ash, colorized 2023.
Hunted, Mission of Mercy. Find an antivenom medikit. I kind of like how the game is throwing gimmick levels this late in the game. You actually have to poison yourself to get it, which seems weird considering the level is on a time limit to begin with.
Hunted, Death Comes Calling, at first it seems like it's going to be a terrifying level based around avoiding the death enemy, only for it to turn out to be a poison jog for the most part. I wouldn't have even brought up this level, except that this was apparently the final car piece, and I won the game. The outro cutscene, when I looked it up on the internet, shows the car driving through the same area as the intro and presumably flying off into the sunset. What will happen? Nobody knows. There was no sequel, though this takes place in the Starsiege universe for some reason. The final two missions are both hunted missions, and each, while nice, both feel like they should have come before Death Comes Calling. I think someone somewhere screwed up the order the missions were supposed to be in. After this, there are some MP missions which I can't properly play.
Weapons: Biased towards Jake, but a well-balanced selection of weapons, each mostly with their own use. Outside of Garathe's knives. 5/10
Enemies: While the game gravitates towards a certain number of them, there's a well-balanced select each with their own niche. 7/10
Non-Enemies: None.
Levels: The game gets a lot of mileage out of the hunter and hunted levels. Switching up the gameplay based around two easily understood concepts makes the game last it's length better than I would expect. But, I'm glad it ended when it did. 7/10
Player Agency: Questionable. It's very hard hitting enemies above you, and I got annoyed by how sometimes the game would go into stealth when I wanted to shoot or vice versa. There's also very noticeably several parts where the collision stops working and I start pushing against a wall that doesn't exist. It also takes some getting used to the whole "climb on the ceiling" bit, but that is cool. The controls themselves are mostly fine, outside of aiming and the attack you get when you press down+attack. 6/10
Interactivity: This leads into the same problem that basic movement does. It's a pain having to constantly push against a wall hoping it's a secret, or accidentally pressing up at a location that isn't the switch/exit and getting the animation, but not the actual thing you wanted to activate. It's your basic FPS-style interactions though, but an advanced form of them. 2/10
Atmosphere: Dynamix around this time had a habit of creating worlds which feel so much more alive than the game we get. I'm just walking around in some weird dungeon, yet there's the implication that the player is going around the remains of Earth and other civilizations. Why am I always in a mall or some sewer passage? 4/10
Graphics: It has a nice aesthetic to it, but I can see where the graphics have aged. This specific Dynamix 3D look is something I look upon fondly but can see why someone else wouldn't. The post-apocalyptic look is nice, but the animation feels...limited. 4/10
Story: Mostly irrelevant outside of the intro and outro. 1/10
Sound/Music: The sound is very...noisy. Like the game concentrates on just filling itself with sound. It works though, but it's just a bit off. Musically, the game has CD audio, and didn't play while I was playing the game. Instead I had to listen to the soundtrack elsewhere. It's pretty good, an industrial metal kind of sound, a bit of some darkwave-adjacent genre. I'm not really sure how well it'd fit into the game, though. 5/10
That's 41.
I think this game just came out at the wrong time, wrong place. Computers always had a tough time with platformers, even run and gun ones like this, but this game just came out the wrong year. We got Quake and Tomb Raider, and those didn't require Windows. This sort of casual, but not really wasn't going to hit any major part of the market, even discounting minor control issues. Reviews are positive but not great, indicating the sort of chilly reception this game got at the time.
There is a level editor and a patch which adds a few more levels. I screwed around with a couple and the editor after finishing the game. The levels seem to be on the hard side. The editor, on the other had is pretty powerful. You can pretty seamlessly switch between changing things on a level to seeing how those things work. I can see why they did a few of the gimmick levels with it now. Despite this, it does seem like it has a pretty steep learning curve for the more advanced stuff you can see in some levels.
