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Released in the EU on November 16, 2001 for the Sega Dreamcast by Sega,
and developed by Amuze, Headhunter features a mix of on-foot and on-motorcycle third-person 3D action.
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My copy of the final Official Dreamcast Magazine reads like a tragedy. The "game previews" section is full of optimism, ignorant of the fact that the system would be discontinued just a few months later. Even more tragic--my subscription ended with
the second-to-last issue. I never even got to read the last issue because the
magazine was cancelled before I could renew. But the tragedies continue! Some of
those last promised Dreamcast games never even made it to America.
Shenmue II is the most storied of this crew of games. While
Shenmue II did
eventually come to the U.S. on the XBox, faithful Dreamcast fans outside of
Europe and Asia were left out in the cold. That magazine issue also featured
another promising game, though. Titled
Headhunter, this groundbreaking title
would feature motorcycle riding and on-foot, bounty-hunting action in an open
world. While many of Official Dreamcast Magazine's descriptions of the game
turned out to be inaccurate, it's hype was on point. Technology eventually
empowered my Dreamcast to play European and Japanese Dreamcast games--and
Headhunter now holds a proud place in my collection.
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| I guess I just spoiled the review. |
Headhunter is really a game about big ideas. Just missing beating
Grand Theft Auto 3 to shelves by a month, the game gives the illusion of free-access
to a huge open world Los Angeles look-alike. Players took control of super
badass bounty hunter, Jack Wade, who's dealing with a strange bout of amnesia.
Apparently, Jack was the greatest bounty hunter in town, but one day he wakes up
in the hospital with no memory of anything, and has to start over from the
beginning. This means he'll have to get his LEILA licenses all over again. "LEILA" is a progressing series, which gives Jack access to more weapons and
more of the city, the greater the license he achieves.
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| Jack Wade, badass. |
Of course, this is where it becomes clear that despite this huge city to
explore, progress in Headhunter is actually pretty linear. That's mainly due to
the fact that progress (and LEILA test access) is tied to the game's intricate story and carefully
realized world.
Headhunter takes place in a near future, where the police
have been done away with, and a group called the Anti-Crime Network have taken
the reins on law enforcement. The ACN's agents are the Headhunters, who round up
criminals with new weapons that fire electrical charges instead of bullets.
That's because--drumroll--lawbreakers are sent to prison, where their organs are
surgically removed and given to the rich. Yes, turns out this is not only a
dystopian future, but one which makes insightful commentary on our own.
Thankfully, this means that what
Headhunter lacks in true open-world, sandbox
gameplay, it makes up for with its cleverly told story and a high attention to
detail in its world-building.
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| And you get regular updates from these ACN-mouthpiece douchebags. |
And I mean
high attention. No, that's not a drug metaphor, but an allusion to
the fact that this game excels in fleshing out its world. Load screens are
goofy, creepy ads suggesting that viewers need to augment their physical
appearances.
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| Why...is it going to cost me? What if I'm an anti-dentite? |
Breaks between the gameplay come in the form of news broadcasts that are
obviously sponsored by and sympathetic to the ACN. Man, that sounds familiar.
Anyway, the game does a great job of immersing you into its unique vision. The
graphics are great, with environments at once exemplifying that bright,
blue-sky, west coast Dreamcast sunniness, while suggesting a gritty, graffiti and
trash-strewn realism underneath. The motorcycle segments are remarkably smooth
and fast, without any slowdown, and Jack speeds along through the huge city
environment hiccup-free. The cars and buildings around him look great, though there's a
strange emptiness in the fact that there aren't people walking around
everywhere--then again, maybe those folks just want to keep their organs. There
is some car pop-up at a distance when Jack is going extremely fast, but that's
about the only graphical blemish on this game. Indoor environments look great,
with a lot of detail, and great animation for Jack, his bounties, and their henchmen. You'll be
taking Jack to rundown gas stations, sewers, shopping malls...an underwater
prison.
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| I've gotta include a whale in every review. Man, Dreamcast had to have been the most whale-friendly system out there! |
It's very important to note how great this game sounds, as well. Voice-acting
and sound effects are all top notch. These guns might shoot electrical charges,
but they still pop like the real thing. Meanwhile, Richard Jacques' symphonic
compositions, which featured the grandest scale orchestrations of any video game
up to that point, are excellent and get the blood pumping. They also add to
Headhunters' cinematic feel. Thankfully, the game isn't overly reliant on
tedious cutscenes to tell its story. Instead, it nearly always pulls off that excellent
and immersive "you're in a movie vibe" while you're actually playing it.
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| Looks like a neo-noir in this shot! |
The gameplay most definitely enhances that cinematic feel. The motorcycle
segments really only exist for two reasons. The first is so that Jack can get
from one mission to another. Belying how this isn't truly an open world game,
Jack can only dismount his bike when he's reached the area where the particular
mission he's on takes place. It's still a blast riding around on the bike, and
thankfully, those segments often have a secondary purpose. In order for Jack to
qualify for a higher level LEILA license test, he has to gain points, which can
only be accumulated by driving his motorcycle very fast for an extended amount
of time. If Jack crashes (thankfully, the bike can't be damaged), he loses points.
Once he gets enough to take his test, he can no longer lose the points, but can
drive to the LEILA offices to take his test--generally this is possible once
during each of the game's major story segments. The LEILA tests put Jack into a
VR chair, where he has to prove that he's mastered
Headhunter's gameplay
elements.
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| Do it, Jack! Break that VR bastard's neck! |
The bike purposely controls awfully to start the game, mirroring Jack's lack of
memory pertaining to how to drive it. Thankfully, as Jack acquires higher LEILA
licenses, the motorcycle controls much more smoothly. Gameplay for both the
driving and on-foot modes comes from a third-person perspective. The on-foot
gameplay is a sort of stealth/action hybrid. Jack can hug walls with the touch
of a button, while cycling through targets with a lock-on crosshair with
another. You can't aim, but considering you're shooting electronic bullets, I
guess that doesn't matter--plus, the lock-on firing generally works great. Jack can
also roll around with another button, crouch, and of course run around like a
maniac. There's a very cool option where Jack can sneak up behind a foe, and the
attack button, instead of firing a weapon, will cause Jack to snap his foes
neck...which I guess kind of ruins the whole organ harvesting thing. There
are some frustrations coming from getting the
auto-aim target onto the correct foe when there are plenty of enemies on screen,
as well as the camera-centering R-trigger not always pointing Jack in the
direction you'd like. Overall, though, the controls are mostly an asset.
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| The best place to have any type of shootout is next to a live gas pump. |
Cycling through weapons and items, as well as reloading (your main, quite effective gun has infinite ammo) comes through the
directional pad. You'll be picking up keys and other objects because another
major facet of the on-foot missions, in addition to all the stealthing and
actioning, is puzzle-solving. Puzzles are generally intuitive and fairly simple,
though there are some head-scratchers tossed into the mix to make things just a
bit more difficult. I enjoyed most of them. The player can save at any moment,
though if you die (from taking damage from enemies) or quit and reload your file, you
generally have to start back at the beginning of the last major story point.
You'll lose, at the most, 10-15 minutes of gameplay, which can be frustrating at
times, but at least you're not restarted at the very beginning of the mission.
For instance, if you die during one of the game's awesome boss fights, you're
restarted at that the start of that boss fight. In addition to giving the ability to save, pausing allows the player to look through your mission objectives, an area map, your items, a LEILA
database, etc. Again, the attention to detail is pretty great.
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| Speaking of detail, the graphical detail in this boss fight is stunning. Check the feet splashing up rainwater here. |
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| And the rain hitting Jack's head and shoulders here. |
America should have had a chance to play
Headhunter. Personally, I use an
Innovation disc converter to play imported games. It's a little pricier than
when I first bought it, but it's still worth it. Headhunter may not be as
historically significant as its Grand Theft Auto peer, but it's a unique game
that deserves to be experienced. And in the case of Dreamcast imports, it's not
the only one.
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| This game, along with the Sega Dreamcast itself, can ride off into the sunset forever in my imagination, meaning that they might be frozen in time, but I'll never stop playing. |
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