Hunter: The Reckoning

Are you ready to kill some zombies and save the innocent people from the evil vampires?

NA release: 18th November 2002
EU release: 11th july 2003
JP release: N/A
Developer: High Voltage Software
Publisher: Interplay Entertainment
NGC Magazine Score: 78%
Mods Used: Widescreen Code

Hunter: The Reckoning is based on a Tabletop RPG series called World of Darkness, which has had other video game adaptations based on Vampire: The Masquerade and Werewolf: The Apocalypse. The video game of Hunter: The Reckoning is not an RPG, though, and is instead a Gauntlet-style twin stick shooter/melee game where you and three friends cut your way through hundreds of hundreds of undead monsters.

The game is really not meant to be played solo, and you’ll spend far too long just shooting aimlessly into hordes of enemies as it takes far too long to deal with them. In a way to make it easier to pick up and play, the gameplay is extremely simple and if you’ve played the first level, you’re not going to see much else throughout the game. One particularly frustrating aspect are the keys, you don’t explore to find them, but rather just kill countless enemies until one appears.

But the simplicity of it does make it work better for a casual get together to have a bit of a laugh while not paying that much attention to the game, but even by those standards, this seems too simple. Gauntlet: Dark Legacy has a lot more going on at once and just has more charm to it.

Fine

When Hunter released on Xbox, it received some pretty high marks. Perhaps it was because it delivered on what Gauntlet didn’t, or maybe it was just the visual execution and gory style. Indeed, gathering four people into one room and taking out all your aggression with all these death-dealing weapons is entertaining. However, for me, there was simply no shaking the sensation of repetition. No matter how you spin it, you are doing the same thing over and over with little variation. The controls work pretty well and you eventually succumb to the idea that the camera will never show you exactly what you want to look at, but the biggest enjoyment I had was just socializing with my friends over this gore fest. It’s totally mindless. Nothing more.
Fran Mirabella III, IGN

Remake or remaster?

A re-release with online could be enjoyable.

Official Ways to get the game

The Xbox version is available as a backwards compatible game on Xbox One and Series.