Headhunter: Redemption

Headhunter is back on PS2 - read our hands-on preview, complete with all-new screens and some footage.

	Version PS2	Developer Amuze	Publisher SEGA	Genre Action

By Joseph Jackson

The original Headhunter, due to its limited release was unfortunately a game that received very little exposure on the Dreamcast. Fortunately Amuze was kind enough to convert the game over and bless us with a later U.S. release on the PS2, providing many more gamers with the opportunity to give Sega's entry into the 3D stealth action realm a try.

Headhunter despite its flaws was quite a fun and memorable gaming experience that had players assuming the role of Jack Wade, ace Headhunter who awakened from a coma and suffered from a bad case of amnesia. Your goal was to help Jack piece together his dark mysterious past while trying to track down the killer(s) of Christopher Stern, the millionaire founder of the Anti-Crime Network, and put an end to a sinister master plan that threatened to wipe out the human species with a deadly virus and replace them with a society of genetically engineered people.

The thrilling storyline and action sequences of Headhunter were quite engaging and cinematically sound, taking place in a futuristic world where criminals were major organ donors, but not by their own choice. And even with the highly effective Anti-Crime Network in place to snuff out crime, there was still some black market activity with the smuggling of unconventional weapons and human organs.

The game contained some foreseeable plot twists and plenty of censored mass media footage that made it feel as if you were watching actual news briefs. Together, all of the gaming elements of Headhunter came together quite nicely to provide it with an atmosphere reminiscent of some of Hollywood's coolest action flicks. The symphony-orchestrated soundtrack was absolutely phenomenal and one of the most memorable parts of the game accompanied by graphics that looked solid enough to help tell the story.

Although Headhunter received mixed reviews from gamers, with some even going as far as referring to it as, "a poor man's Metal Gear Solid", those of us on the opposite side of the spectrum looked past what the game Lacked and embraced what it Had. Who could forget the very cool high-speed motorcycle gameplay elements that had players racing to different locations throughout the city to diffuse bombs as quickly as possible while accompanied by the amazing Richard Jacques composed soundtrack performed by a symphony orchestra? There was also the ability to sneak up on enemy characters and snap their necks as well as engage in cool hide 'n seek shootouts.

The overall greatness of Headhunter was defined by its well-paced gameplay and solid progressing storyline, and regardless of how well or dismal the original may have done in sales, fortunately Sega and Amuze saw fit to continue the Headhunter project and planned for some Redemption among the PS2 gaming crowd. This time around they have the Renderware engine well in hand to help get the latest Headhunter chapter up and running and looking GOOD as quickly as possible.

Developed and created by Amuze, Not very many details were released about Headhunter: Redemption's storyline other than that it takes place some 20 years later with the return of veteran Headhunter, Jack Wade, to try and keep order in a futuristic world overrun with unchecked consumerism, vicious organized crime, and mind-controlling mass media. This time around Jack isn't alone and is aided by his sassy young protégé, Leeza X, a tough, streetwise young lady with a lot of attitude (and tattoos!).

Jack and Leeza (any relation to Malcom?) X come across an arms smuggling operation that has the potential to cause catastrophic events worldwide if they don't work together to put an end to it. As they continue to investigate everything surrounding the smuggling operation and the secret behind a correctional facility gone haywire, bone chilling revelations will unfold which will unleash some of their worst nightmares and blanket the city underneath a shroud of evil. Kind of similar in style to the original's storyline structure in which Jack investigates a smaller case only to uncover a darker, more sinister master plan that's on a much grander scale.

Taking a hold of the controller of the game we can say for sure that those familiar with the gameplay and controls of the original Headhunter will immediately feel right at home with Redemption as it incorporates a very similar control system with few additions. Leeza X has the same shooting, ducking, and shoulder rolling moves as Jack did in the original, including the ability to hide behind walls and use objects throughout the environments as cover during shootouts. While aiming at targets you can manually cycle between different enemies and destructible objects in the environments to blow apart. New to Headhunter is an IRIS feature that lets you examine the environments in Scan mode and obtain information about any of the highlighted objects that appear during your scan, a pretty nifty feature that should help players zero-in on the not-so obvious objects throughout the game.

At the start of the game players assume the role of Leeza, who in a cinematic cut-scene at the game's beginning dismounts from the back of Jack's bike and receives instructions from him before heading into the first enemy infested compound. Jack takes off on his motorcycle in chase of clues while Leeza is left with the task of getting her hands dirty, combing the underground in hopes of unearthing all that she can to help crack this case. You'll be able to play as both Jack and Leeza throughout the game, first starting off as Leeza.

Using stealth-like tactics and her shooting skills you'll need to maneuver Leeza through enemy infested territories, searching for clues and eliminating enemy targets before they develop the same idea about you. Like in the original there's a map at the upper right corner of the screen to help guide you through each of the areas. As you make your way throughout the environments in the game you'll pick up items that increase your ammo, replenish your life bar as well as clues and other miscellaneous items that are needed to help you proceed further through the game. The gameplay moves at a nice brisk pace with Leeza seemingly running at a slightly faster speed than Jack did in the original.

Unfortunately all was not well in the world of the latest Headhunter. Even though some of us were really looking forward to Headhunter: Redemption and REALLY wanted to like it, at least as much as we enjoyed the original, we just couldn't bring ourselves to do so. The early build was riddled with problems, including gameplay that was lacking in a few areas. We were able to look past the problems in the first Headhunter since it was the first of the series and the good outweighed the bad, but the move set of the characters REALLY needs to be improved. Some punching and kicking moves would certainly help in situations where your character is completely out of ammo and has to deal with enemies up close. The lack of any real offensive moves besides shooting was a glaring flaw that plagued the original and made it somewhat frustrating.

And speaking of frustrating, the loading times of Headhunter: Redemption were absolutely horrendous. This game had some massively long Load times, spanning almost several minutes it seemed. We honestly kept thinking that the game probably crashed or something. We haven't waited this long for a game to load since the first generation of pc-engine/Turbografx-16 CD Rom games first hit the scene and seemed to take forever and a bathroom break to completely finish loading a level or a cut-scene. Headhunter: Redemption certainly retained the misery of past long load times and then some. After pressing start at the title screen, the screen went dark and remained like that for almost 2 months as we waited, and waited, and Waited for something to happen. Finally after a long wait we were presented with a somewhat long opening cut-scene of both Jack and Leeza, and introduced to the game's other problem - the cut-scenes weren't skippable! So again we waited, and Waited, and bloody WAITED!

Even though the build we played was very early and suffered from some problems, the game still showed plenty of potential. We can only hope that Sega and Amuze heard the cries of fans of the original and have taken their criticisms into consideration with plans to revamp some of the play mechanics, hopefully to include more of a variety of moves to perform instead of just slapping new levels on the same old engine and calling it a sequel.

The original Headhunter contained a solid array of weapons, stealth gameplay, puzzle solving, high intensity shooting action and some pretty cool VR training elements, all of which we'd like to see make their way into Headhunter: Redemption in some way, shape, or form while pushing the envelope and introducing plenty of equally cool new elements.

Graphically, Headhunter: Redemption is in a word, smooth looking. The unique soft focus camera effect used in the game helps highlight the well designed and detailed industrial environments throughout the game. Those who remember some of the blur/soft visual effects used in Squaresoft's beat-em up, "The Bouncer", will have sort of an idea of the visual effect used in Headhunter: Redemption. The level designs and textures looked pretty nice, as well as the lighting effects used throughout the environments. The light sourcing effects were implemented quite well, casting nice animated shadow effects of your character(s) in motion, unlike plenty of other games that stick with cheap simplistic circles as shadows for their characters. The game also moved at a pretty brisk pace, maintaining a very smooth framerate that never seemed to dip at all during play.

The character designs of Leeza X and Jack Wade consisted of very well textured and detailed models. Jack Wade especially, who now looks like a total bad ass with a meaner and badder look to him than in the original. Guess the haircut, dyed hair, and beard trim idea worked, or maybe he lost some of his hair due to old age? Regardless of the reason, he looks mean as heck and doesn't look like someone you'd want to cross in an alley, no sir!

Leeza herself is modeled quite nicely with a certain pretty but tough look about her. Her arm is plastered with tattoos and from the overall looks of her you'd think Jack might've rescued her from a past gang life or something and brought her into the Headhunting business. But one look at her and you'd think that this damsel could have never been one to be in distress.

Of course, in an early build there's GOT to be a graphics related problem somewhere and Redemption was no exception. While everything else in the game looked really good, the enemy designs however didn't. Have no idea who designed the enemies but, YOU'RE FIRED!! The enemies encountered early in the game consisted of a slow moving masked bunch who didn't seem to put much effort into anything, including their own deaths. Whereas the original had some good death animations for some of the enemies, Redemption however did not. The *early build* of Redemption had enemies hesitating before falling to the ground after Leeza was done emptying the contents of her gun into them. We blasted them non-stop and it was hard to tell if they were going down or not.

At first they appeared to be doing some weird new electro dance move and reacted as if they were unfazed by the countless bullets we pumped into their bodies and seemed to have a delayed reaction between dying and falling. Almost like a bad acting job where one character shoots down another character with the gunshot victim looking up at the camera surprisingly and saying- "OH! Was I supposed to fall on that one? Ok, here goes!" ~{...slowly falls to the ground}~.

But regardless of that one minor graphical issue, we're pretty hopeful that the end product of Redemption will be filled with plenty of enemies who show a lot more enthusiasm about dying, as well as containing other possible graphical goodies that didn't make their way into the early build we suffered err, played through.

The original Headhunter was special, and although scathed by some for having a few, very few similar elements to Metal Gear Solid, still exhibited enough differences to let it stand out on its own. The sequel looks to follow in the footsteps of the original with a captivating storyline and very similar gameplay. Hopefully Amuze addresses the issues gamers had with the original and doesn't just update its graphics and storyline, but from initial play testing it seems to be all that's really been done so far..

We'd love for the L.E.I.L.A. VR testing feature of the original to return in Redemption as it was a lot of fun taking those VR Tests to obtain and upgrade licenses. The cinematic feel of the original was also absent as was the amazing symphony orchestrated soundtrack but hopefully the final version does the Headhunter name some justice or Sega and Amuze will have Jack Wade on their asses!

Stay tuned as more becomes available on Sega and Amuze's attempts at Redemption!