by Chris Buffa on Tuesday, September 21, 2004
Sega's Headhunter was originally a Dreamcast game that never appeared on the U.S. console, though it was brought to America by Acclaim for the PS2. Now, headhunter Jack Wade is back in an all new adventure set twenty years after the Bloody Mary Virus ravaged the world's population. Unfortunately, he's in a pretty boring game, one that's easily overlooked this holiday season.
Let's be brutally honest here. While it was a cool niche title to add to your Dreamcast import collection, the first Headhunter wasn't exactly a break-thru title, and the same can be said for its PS2 incarnation. As is often the case, just because the first game in a series isn't exceptional doesn't mean its sequel will befall a similar fate. However, that can't be said for Headhunter: Redemption. Sega's sequel is a lot flashier, but it's just as monotonous. This time, you find Jack Wade in the future, living in a world that's been divided into two sections; Above, and Below. As you may assume (because this has been done in a few movies), those that live Above enjoy the finer things in life, while those that live below are the rejects, the criminals that have been cast into the depths of the world to slave away. Of course, hard labor isn't their only hobby. Some have found a way to escape and join the terrorist Opposition Network, and there's a mysterious individual behind the scenes looking to make the people who live in Above pay. However, for Jack Wade, it's just another day at the office.
In Redemption, Wade is a lot older and supposedly battle-hardened and wiser. At his side is Leeza X, a cunning woman who was saved from her maniacal father by Jack, and enlisted to aid him in saving the world. You'll play as both characters, and each has his and her unique abilities and weapons, though while Leeza appears to be the stealthier of the two, the gameplay is much too annoying to really sneak around, so either way, it degenerates into a mindless blast fest. There are enough weapons and gadgets to tinker with to keep things somewhat interesting, but the manner in which I played rarely changed. I was still hiding behind walls and briefly peeking out to take a few shots at the enemy.
Speaking of the enemy, you'll encounter quite a few different types, none of them particularly bright, but fun to shoot at for a little while. While they'll occasionally take cover behind objects (which isn't really as amazing as it was a few years ago), most times they just stand out in the open waiting to be killed.
In addition to the boring gunplay, Redemption features a scanner called the Iris. This allows you to obtain information about objects in the game, but even it becomes annoying because of the ridiculous amount of stuff you need to scan. After a while I just stopped caring, as the desire to keep shooting was far more interesting.
Of course, since it's a third person shooter, chances are pretty high that its camera has issues, and in Redemption's case, this is no exception. Often times, you'll get hit off screen and have no idea who's shooting you, and manipulating it is a chore. It's not the worst I've seen (it works, for the most part), but in a list of negatives, it certainly doesn't help.
If Redemption has anything going for it, the graphics are very pretty. In fact, I'd go as far to say that they're some of the best the PS2 has to offer. The visuals have a sort of glow to them that's more technique than praise, but it works. The two main characters are detailed, and the environments are very impressive. It's not worth playing the game to see this, but if you have to, at least it's comforting to know that you'll have pretty things to look at.
The game features a soundtrack by Richard Jacques, famous award-winning composer whose list of credits include Jet Set Radio Future and the original Headhunter. It's solid, but by no means memorable. The game's other effects, explosions and gun shots, are passable.
While Redemption's gameplay is certainly its biggest Achilles heal, the game is boring for other reasons as well. For starters, the story is just plain obnoxious. It's bad enough that the whole Above and Below thing has been done before in movies, but the game's characters are terrible. Jack Wade is just a concoction of other macho game types, and his personality is really forced. Worse, I just didn't like the fact that he's old. I mean, does he need some Ben-Gay after all that crazy death-defying? His partner Leeza X isn't much better. Her name is just plain ridiculous, and her background is lame as well. What this all amounts to is; I didn't really care who I was controlling, and if they died, I didn't feel any loss whatsoever.
Had Redemption released several years ago, it would've been better received, but it just can't exist in a world populated by Splinter Cells and Metal Gears. Even if you made the argument that Headhunter is more of an action title (over stealth), I could still name a handful of other titles that leave Sega's game in the dust. It's a shame, because while there's nothing technically wrong with Redemption, it's lacking the fun ingredient, and when we're talking videogames, there's nothing more important than that.
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