Hunter the Reckoning: Redeemer

For those of you unfamiliar with the story of Hunter the Reckoning
and the town of Ashcroft, it is a town plagued by over four generations of sins.
In 1865, a coal mine collapsed trapping 100 workers in an underground tunnel,
it was decided it would be cheaper to hire new workers instead of blasting those
that were trapped out of their tomb, they all died within 6 hours. In 1912,
35 children disappeared without a trace, only the remains of 5 were ever found.
1946 a group of vampires take over the prison, torturing and terrorizing the
prisoners within. The town has been founded on the bitter remains of four generations
of sins. Five years prior to this current story, Kaylie’s step father, Father
Estaban Ortiz and his three friends put down the largest uprising of supernatural
energy. Today they return to once again do battle.

In this latest installation the same cast of Hunters return with one addition
to the team, Kaylie Winter, whose creed is Redeemer. In addition to the playable
character of Kaylie there are two other characters that can be unlocked later
in the game, depending on your performance in playing. Kaylie is the step daughter
of Father Estaban Ortiz (Judge) and they are the only two that stood in the
city of Ashcroft after the mayhem that took place in the last game.

Hunter the Reckoning: Redeemer opens with the introduction of Lucien, a hunter
who is heading up a company named Genefex’s business operations in the
area; Genefex currently employs a large portion of the residents of Ashcroft.
Unfortunately Lucien’s shipments have been coming under attack at their warehouses
and the company has resorted to hiring guards armed with automatic weapons to
fend off the attackers. The game opens with the attack under way and your job
is to help get Lucien to safety, so prepare for battle Hunter!

Hunter the Reckoning: Redeemer plays much like the previous version, featuring
a top down view on the intense hack and slash, or blast, action taking place
with up to four players at once. Redeemer does however offer a minor improvement
in camera work, while you still do not control the direction the camera is looking,
you can however control how high up it is, zooming in when you want to get a
better look at the mayhem your hunter is creating, or simply admire the nice
work that went into texturing these massive levels.

Redeemer offers over 25 weapons with a variety of uses from close quarter fighting
with axes to range attacks to shotguns and MP5 machine guns. Each character
has two weapons they come equipped with, one range and one melee, with the old
characters returning with their previous arsenals. Father Estaban returns with
his crossbow and broadsword, Samantha with her katana and magnum, Deuce with
his axe and action rifle, Kassandra with her twin 9mm hand guns and cleavers,
and finally the newly added Kaylie Winters with her two-handed buster sword
and double barrel pistol. In addition to their assortment of weapons the hunters
also coming packing their special “Edge” abilities, edges range from
special attacks to character buffs that increase speed and attack, to those
that weaken the enemy making them easier to kill.

Tied to each of your characters’ fighting skills is their stats; conviction
which is tied to your edge ability, melee for close range fighting, and range
for your guns and other projectiles. As you progress through the game killing
monsters and using your abilities three bars located at the top of the screen
begin to fill up, one for each of the previously mentioned skills. When the
bar reaches full you gain one level in that ability, up to 100, and the bar
starts over requiring more experience with that weapon before you acquire another
level. The amount of attribute levels you gain on each stage all depends on
your technique when going through the levels, many levels do not require you
to kill all the enemies on them in order to proceed, and so you may have less
experience at different portions of the game than you would have other wise.

The controls in Hunter the Reckoning: Redeemer are solid, with 3 variations
to suit different play styles. The triggers handle the jumping and shooting,
the directional pad handles switching weapons, and each of the A, B, X and Y
buttons correspond to a different weapon classification, range, melee, edge,
and special. I found the learning curve to be minimal and the use of the left
analogue to move and the right analogue to aim easy to get used to. For more
casual gamers there may be a 10 to 15 minute learning curve to get acquainted
with the controls.

The level design is well done with as much attention paid to minor details
as the first Hunter the Reckoning, details such as items in the store windows,
boxes and garbage bins in alley ways, to pallets on the floors of the warehouses.
The designers did a good job portraying the feeling of the locations and their
time of year, Christmas balls and ornaments on the trees that line the streets
to show the game takes place during the Christmas holiday, rusted beams or pallets
to mark locations such as warehouses and roofs. In total the game contains about
eight massive locations split into many smaller sections throughout the town
of Ashcroft such as the Genefex labs, forests, cemeteries, the streets of the
town as well as the sewers and many more. While the levels are huge, they do
however have a very linear feeling to them, you can roam around to your hearts
content, but you must follow a certain path in order for the story to progress
and can rarely shortcut through certain areas. In addition to the look of the
levels, the shear number of monsters that are contained on them is amazing,
before reaching the third level of the game it is easy to rack up 300 plus kills
if playing alone. If I correctly heard from the opening movie, there are exactly
10,000 monsters in the game, yes there actually appears to be a cap to the endless
onslaught, but I wouldn’t start counting if I were you.

While the levels are very impressive, I often did not find some of the monsters
to be quite as impressive. The models for many of the monsters from the default
camera height are not that well done, if I had not seen the werewolves attack
the shipment in the beginning cinema I probably would not have recognized them
to be werewolves. Your character however is nicely done and it is easy to see
what maneuvers they are doing while conducting combination moves or switching
weapons, even the reloading sequences have been added for a sense of completion.
With each character containing 10 or more combinations of attacks with their
melee weapon, all animated in full sequence, the game contains a very nice flow
as you chop your way through an assortment of monsters.

 

 

[ Additional Screenshots Temporarily Unavailable, Sorry. ]

Levels check. Models check. Audio … This is where the game is lacking; while
the characters have good voice acting in cinematic moments and scenes rendered
in the game engine, the game otherwise lacks much sound. You are given basic
background ambiance and sound effects. While the sound effects are nicely done,
though basic, they do become a little boring. With such a large number of monsters
in the game, hearing the same sword-to-gut sound gets boring fast. Fortunately
for the people at High Voltage Software the sound is such a minor part of the
game as you get lost in the hack and slash mayhem.

After exploring the game and hacking and slashing my way, I must say the game
contains great replay value for those perfectionists, or those that simply can’t
stare at the character select screen realizing they haven’t unlocked everyone.
In order to fully complete the game you must unlock all the cards in the gallery,
the cards are dropped by enemies as you progress through the game killing a
certain number of each. The game also features variants to the hunters clothing
that can be unlocked by completing tasks like rescuing a certain number of innocents,
killing a certain number of total enemies, or even letting a certain number
of innocents die through out the course of you playing. With such a large number
of bonus features in this game, and unlockable in such a variety of ways, makes
it so you must complete the game in its entirety more then once to fully receive
the benefits of all it has to offer. Hunter the Reckoning: Redeemer also features
yet to be announced downloadable content via Microsoft’s Xbox Live service.

Hunter the Reckoning: Redeemer promises to be great fun when playing with three
friends and taking on the swarm of enemies that endlessly come storming on your
positions. For those looking for a great challenge in completing games 100%
then this is the game for you. Redeemer also contains multiple difficulty levels,
one which can be unlocked later on. For both casual gamers and the hardcore
crowd, Hunter the Reckoning: Redeemer is a great addition to any library.

Overall Score: 8.5/10 [Not an Average]

• Official Site
• Vivendi Universal Games
• High Voltage Software
• Hunter
  the Reckoning: Redeemer Screenshots (Temporarily Unavailable, Sorry.)
• Hunter the Reckoning:
  Redeemer Cheats and Hints
• Buy
  Hunter the Reckoning: Redeemer from Amazon.com
• Buy
  Hunter the Reckoning: Redeemer from EB Games

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