Headhunter is one of those games that actually pissed me off enough to make me want to quit in the middle of it; in fact remember it quite clearly, it was while I kept hitting random shit with my motorcycle as a timer was counting down. I almost did it, I almost turned the game off forcibly and just called it a day. The rare thing is that I decided to just hold that anger back and continue with the game. I have to say that I glad I did.
If I want to be really reductive, I would just say that this game is Metal Gear Solid - at home. The story aims for a similar kind of political conspiracy, but in a zany funky way that's closer to Hollywood of its era. It has dialogues presented in a codec-esque manner, but with only a fraction of the runtime, and nowhere near as iconic. There's even enemies cosplaying as genome soldiers later on. There's a lot more to say about this, but you get the point already.
From very early on, you can already see weird angle that the story is going for. Apparently the world is pretty obsessed with preserving human organs, but this obviously can't happen if we keep having ballistic weapons, so there's a new neurological-based weapons now that disable the human nervous system instead. This, and many other odd ideas are presented in the satirically straightforward way of live action actors performing in-world TV news broadcasts, keeping their best smiles and scripted jokes for the whole world to see. The world itself is already interesting enough, but the presentation takes it up a notch.
The plot itself only gets truly good later on, and the writing is pretty okay. The main two characters have a tolerable chemistry, and the villains are quite silly, so that's good enough for me, haha.
Gameplay wise, it's pretty much a third person shooter with light puzzle-exploration elements, which involves searching for objects in the environment to open locked areas. There's apparently a stealth system since the game's challenges teach you it, but honestly its non-existent, even when the story seems to head into the direction of requiring it. It's a good thing though, because the stealth challenges are incredi-bad. I got used to the shooting controls pretty quick, and had a decent time with it. Even the enemy AI seems to be pretty okay, in terms of not being pushovers.
I did not, however, have fun with the motorcycle controls. In between missions you are required to drive around the city to get to new places, and in order to progress, you need to earn enough skill points by riding really fast without colliding with things. The controls themselves are just dumb, I don't get why your character have to lift the motorcycle up each time you rev the thing up, it messes with your trajectory and it always makes it feel like I'm on a rebellious stallion that wants to kill me. The collision system can also really frustrate at times, it's not consistent in how it registers hits and how much it impacts your speed. There's not too many motorcycle sections, but there's one big story section that really tests your patience (the aforementioned timer based section), and I can't quite shake the psychic damage it did on me.
In the first half the game kinda tried to show its influences in a subtler way, but the second half just went crazy with it, and it's for the better. The second half had more interesting level design, and the story is at its most fun moments too. There's even a very noticable Resident Evil vibe to the last level.
There's also boss fights but I think most of them are just okay, it's definitely very MGS-esque in terms of how it feels to play them. The final boss fight is pretty great though. And the music is good, I like the epic feel of the main motif. Also, this game has some of the funniest game overs I've seen in a while, sometimes the game over screen will just immediately cut the sound of your character's death yelp, and it's pretty entertaining.
Despite an earnest attempt, Headhunter never quite reaches the heights of its influences for even a second, even if there's some potential here. But if you're okay with that, and willing to be patient with the game's mechanics, you'll probably get a kick out of this.
If I want to be really reductive, I would just say that this game is Metal Gear Solid - at home. The story aims for a similar kind of political conspiracy, but in a zany funky way that's closer to Hollywood of its era. It has dialogues presented in a codec-esque manner, but with only a fraction of the runtime, and nowhere near as iconic. There's even enemies cosplaying as genome soldiers later on. There's a lot more to say about this, but you get the point already.
From very early on, you can already see weird angle that the story is going for. Apparently the world is pretty obsessed with preserving human organs, but this obviously can't happen if we keep having ballistic weapons, so there's a new neurological-based weapons now that disable the human nervous system instead. This, and many other odd ideas are presented in the satirically straightforward way of live action actors performing in-world TV news broadcasts, keeping their best smiles and scripted jokes for the whole world to see. The world itself is already interesting enough, but the presentation takes it up a notch.
The plot itself only gets truly good later on, and the writing is pretty okay. The main two characters have a tolerable chemistry, and the villains are quite silly, so that's good enough for me, haha.
Gameplay wise, it's pretty much a third person shooter with light puzzle-exploration elements, which involves searching for objects in the environment to open locked areas. There's apparently a stealth system since the game's challenges teach you it, but honestly its non-existent, even when the story seems to head into the direction of requiring it. It's a good thing though, because the stealth challenges are incredi-bad. I got used to the shooting controls pretty quick, and had a decent time with it. Even the enemy AI seems to be pretty okay, in terms of not being pushovers.
I did not, however, have fun with the motorcycle controls. In between missions you are required to drive around the city to get to new places, and in order to progress, you need to earn enough skill points by riding really fast without colliding with things. The controls themselves are just dumb, I don't get why your character have to lift the motorcycle up each time you rev the thing up, it messes with your trajectory and it always makes it feel like I'm on a rebellious stallion that wants to kill me. The collision system can also really frustrate at times, it's not consistent in how it registers hits and how much it impacts your speed. There's not too many motorcycle sections, but there's one big story section that really tests your patience (the aforementioned timer based section), and I can't quite shake the psychic damage it did on me.
In the first half the game kinda tried to show its influences in a subtler way, but the second half just went crazy with it, and it's for the better. The second half had more interesting level design, and the story is at its most fun moments too. There's even a very noticable Resident Evil vibe to the last level.
There's also boss fights but I think most of them are just okay, it's definitely very MGS-esque in terms of how it feels to play them. The final boss fight is pretty great though. And the music is good, I like the epic feel of the main motif. Also, this game has some of the funniest game overs I've seen in a while, sometimes the game over screen will just immediately cut the sound of your character's death yelp, and it's pretty entertaining.
Despite an earnest attempt, Headhunter never quite reaches the heights of its influences for even a second, even if there's some potential here. But if you're okay with that, and willing to be patient with the game's mechanics, you'll probably get a kick out of this.