Taking place in the early twenty first century in Southern California, the setting isn't too unlike the dark backgrounds of such movies as Robocop, where the government takes a heavier "republic" role... okay, that's being nice. Because of the huge increase of gang warfare and overall crime, this leads to the government controlling the lifestyles aspects that were once free: strict censorship, media control, propaganda, and new laws that must be complied. Failure to follow the law has a heavy penalty that usually leads to the "volunteering" of body parts and organs. To combat the ongoing threat of crime, the ACN or Anti-Crime Network was formed. You play Jack Wade, a former ACN "Headhunter" and one of the best, until you lost your memory. Now, your license revoked and without the support of the ACN, you try to piece together your memories as well as solve the recent murder of the ACN President. It won't be an easy task, especially since you have to start from scratch with the little firepower or information. Thankfully, you'll get some help from Angela Stern, a rather foxy lass and your old Chief as you backtrack your memories for answers. Of course, this involves tracking down some of the most lethal and dangerous criminals across the land.
One of the most impressive aspects of Headhunter has to be its incredible details to story and setting. The developers, Amuze, spent a great deal of time developing the world of Headhunter. Whether it's the history and progression of the ACN, the technological uses of Electric Neural Projectile (ENP) technology, the use of your radar, or licensing procedures in becoming a Headhunter, Amuze took a lot of time creating the back story to engross gamers in a bleak futuristic world that mirrors our own and to a certain extent, the likeliness between the future world of Headhunter and the future projections of the real world are so close, it's pretty frightening. Digitized FMV news cut sequences will play delivering rather dark but humorous tidbits regarding the tightening grip of government, censorship, and violence. For that matter, dialogue sequences between Jack Wade and other characters is pretty entertaining equal to a B+ action flick. And while Jack might not have the fearsome arsenal of Dirty Harry, Mr. Wade can certainly get the job done with some deadly force.
While the comparisons can be made between Metal Gear Solid and Headhunter, I feel HH has more similarities to Syphon Filter than Konami's tactical/espionage/action thriller. All the action is taken from a behind the back third-person perspective though in certain sequences (like boss encounters), you may go into a first person perspective. There are two main gameplay elements in Headhunter: third person action and motorcycle driving. The majority of the game will be played in the third person action sequences where you sneak around finding clues, engaging enemies, and solving puzzles. The camera angles in these sequences can get a bit tricky; you only have one button to re-center the camera and one that flips your view when you've sneaking with your back against the wall. When taking on criminals, you have two ways of taking them out - shooting them till their incapacitated or snapping their necks (one-handed cuz Jack is a badass). When shooting enemies, you press and hold the R Trigger down and you'll automatically lock on to the nearest target and pressing X will scroll through multiple targets should the situation allow it. No, there's no manual aiming so you can't aim to disarm or go for the headshot and that's kind of a bummer if you ask me. While in targeting mode, you can move about normally, dodge, roll, or hide behind a wall if one is nearby. To help you engage enemies, you also have a handy radar that tracks nearby enemies and the direction they're walking. Unlike Metal Gear Solid, enemies are pretty blind when it comes to finding you; you basically have to be saying hello right in their face before they realize you're an enemy. What's weird is that they have exceptionally keen sense of hearing so one small noise and they'll go into warning mode immediately. For the most part, dealing with the lower tier of enemies isn't that tough as they don't aim to well and are pretty easy to sneak up on for a stealth kill. It also helps that your normal default handgun, the Stimulator Automatic (stop laughing), doesn't run out of ammo. Of course, you'll get a ton of different types of weapons ranging from shotguns, sub-machine guns, proximity mines, and missile launchers. The motorcycle aspects of the game are more for transportation from one place to another than the actual use of gameplay, though there are times where you have to race from one area to another. When you first starting riding your cycle, you'll have little control; it's not uncommon for you to be hitting walls and cars the first time you ride out. As you gain skill points in riding your motorcycle, you'll eventually be able to control your cycle better. Gaining these skill points is pretty basic; the faster you drive and maintain your fast speed, the more points you accumulate. Anything you do above and beyond that won't garner any more skill points like weaving between traffic at full speed or driving on the other side of the road. For that matter, while you can drive all over the place, you can only stop and dismount from your bike at specific areas. While this keeps your forward towards the goal, it also makes the game pretty linear. However, the third person action sequences are pretty well done, sprinkling some interesting puzzles to keep the brain working. Boss encounters are extremely fun; there are some very clever boss fights that concentrate more on figuring out how to hit a boss rather than relying on just pure brute force.
Headhunter is a solid visual project overall and in some instances, are almost Shenmue-esque in its graphic detail. Once in awhile, there are some rather unusual graphic flaws that appear here and there, one example being the draw-in that appears in the distance when you're going full speed on your bike. Slowdown almost never occurs in this game that runs at a very solid 30 fps. You don't encounter too many civilians in third person sequences and it's funny not to see anybody walking on the sidewalk in motorcycle driving sequences. While there's not a whole lot of stuff going on outside, once you get inside buildings and structures, there's a lot of detail to nearly everything everywhere. The lighting in the game is just right; the game doesn't try be to gaudy with flashing lights or try to overexpose you with blinding glare effects either. Where the graphics really impressed were during boss encounters; not to spoil, but your first real boss encounter will have you fighting on the rooftops with rain pouring all over the place (check it out here). The rain effect is pretty damn impressive and that's just the first 20 minutes into the game! Likewise, the music is quite good, and while it might be a little heavy on the patriotic side, it's of sound quality. The voice acting in the game is quite good; it might be as clichéd as a Charles Bronson action flick, but it's entertaining to the point where you'll actually want to watch the CG cutsequences.
While it's a shame that Headhunter never made it to the US, hardy Dreamcast owners armed with a Gameshark CDX or DC-X should try to find a local import store that might sell the game. While Headhunter doesn't really set any new standards and is not the MGS-killer many call, it wraps the gamer into a dreadful, believable world full of unknown dangers. It just seems right that you play a badass on a motorcycle searching for his past and taking names as he goes.
(Note: When using the Gameshark CDX, it's recommended that you plug in a second DC controller in port 2 and save your games in controller 2. We've encountered a few problems when loading up saved games).
--Anthony Chau, IGNDC