Huntdown

Huntdown‘s near-impeccable distillation of classic arcade shooting is a thunderous endorsement of a seemingly bygone era, one where raw skill was often only matched with the amount of quarters lining your pocket. Its 16-bit shooting style mimics what a player might find in Contra or an odd gem like Blizzard’s Blackthorne. The game is drenched in the 80s overtones of the best dystopian, neon-saturated worlds where roving gangs lined the streets. But Huntdown is also elevated by its surprising length, voice work, cover shooting, and over-the-top action.

There is no doubt that 25 years ago, Huntdown would have been one of the most acclaimed games of its generation. Today it should be recognized as an eccentric symphony of creativity, a powerful homage that never ceases to deliver on brilliant design choices and razor sharp fun.

Hundown is a side-scrolling 2D shooter with platforming elements. Players choose between three bounty hunters–human Anna Conda, cyborg John Sawyer, and droid Mow Man–on hire by the Shimamoto Corporation and directed by “Wolfmother”, an elderly woman with a penchant for crocheting during her briefings. The action takes place in a 21st century metropolis where street gangs and corporations wrestle for control over the populace. This is the same future where Snake Plisken wears an eyepatch to look badass or Kyle Reese hides a shotgun underneath a massive trenchcoat. Four-armed mutants, graffiti-covered concrete, hockey mask enthusiasts, and gaudy ninjas are only a sampling of evidence that developer Easy Trigger Games is creating an 80s-themed patchwork of references. Players may even stumble onto a secret area that hides a furry mogwai in a box or glance at a dangling Deckard near a shirtless Replicant.

Unlike Hotline Miami, which successfully painted the 80s as a hyper-violent Jackson Pollock with hot pinks and red, Huntdown aims its sights at a large swath of movies and games that stretched further into the next decade. Those who played a licensed game on a SNES or died hundreds of times in an 8-bit shooter will feel at home in Huntdown. Players fight in gang-ravaged streets, an underground world infested with hockey-obsessed villains, motorcyclist-controlled industrial complexes, and skyscrapers covered with wannabe ninjas.

Huntdown‘s comedic, tongue-in-cheek approach to humor and story straddles the line between absurd and darkly comic. Doused with full voice acting–a feat we wouldn’t have seen back in the day–Easy Trigger knows when to deliver silly one-liners and ridiculous scenarios that a player can’t help but laugh at. But keep in mind that Huntdown is not a mere parody. A comedic tone and mild lambasting of a decade of tropes would be perfect fodder for a Scary Movie-esque jaunt. Instead, players are given a fully realized world that just happens to be packed to the brim with referential nods. Huntdown‘s aesthetic gushes with personality that only the most creative and clever of games could accomplish.

Though the twisted reality of Huntdown‘s impossibly long city streets and expansive sewer systems is a bit ridiculous, the flashy touches match the heavy-handed stylism of Blade Runner, The Terminator, or Total Recall. These films are memorable because of their wildly inventive palettes of set design and gritty extravagance. At its best, Huntdown feels like a licensed game of a movie by the same name. Players will be able to envision this world where a cyborg bounty hunter fights a Village-People-policeman-look-a-like who pilots a bipedal machine of destruction ripped from Robocop or Metal Gear.

Further bringing the world of Huntdown to bloody life is its expert level design. Each level found in the four main areas does its absolute best to feel fresh while matching the theme. Yes, these levels are often knuckle-biting encounters of life and death where players tear through legions of baddies by shooting guns. The primary conceit of each level is dodging bullets left and right while shooting guns left and right, that formula undergoes little to no change. But the avalanche of platforming twists, evocative humor, sheer fun, and anticipation at reaching a boss constantly capitalize. Huntdown‘s most damnable sin may be that it doesn’t try anything drastically new outside of its boss fights, but that doesn’t make me love it any less.

Levels on the Hard difficulty setting took me anywhere from 5 minutes at the easiest to 20 minutes at the longest (not including the rather lengthy final level). These are perfect bite-sized challenges that allow players to hop in for a few entertaining bits of action and move on. Over the course of its 20 levels, players will meet a handful of enemies that act the same and a few unique to each area. There are cronies that rush in with melee attacks and those which wield any number of guns. Players have the ability to duck behind cover or even slide into it, dodging most oncoming fire. Some cover is destructible, some explodes after taking enough damage. The tactics that enemies use against the player can also be used against them. You will receive infinite joy from blowing up a barrel around a group of enemies, watching their bodies explode into viscera–also leaving me to wonder how this game has a Teen rating.

Cover shooting is nothing new for anyone who has a mildly diverse taste in gaming over the last 15 years. In Huntdown, there are no surprises to be had. Players have the option to allow their bounty hunter to automatically take cover when near it or just engage with it at will. When the game begins to ratchet up its difficulty, cover becomes an essential tool for survival. Players will need to know when to take out a melee rusher first while ducking any number of distance shooters. Enemies with chainguns will shoot out a stream of bullets that can’t be jumped over. Those with pistols or revolvers shoot singular sporadic bullets that are easy to dodge while machine gun bursts are usually short enough to jump over. Another necessary piece of movement involves ducking out of fire. A shadowy doorway or blown-out wall allows players breathing room to sit through a hail of bullets, take pot shots, and advance further.

This is another place where melee enemies come into the equation, as they can whack you in the face when you are sulking in the darkness. Explosions and flames will also damage players attempting to keep out of the path of danger. Again, though, keep in mind that these same tactics apply to enemies. Pesky campers can be rushed and kicked out of cover or simply blown out of it. Bigger shootouts often have multiple ways to approach a scenario, including higher ground, so don’t forget to use the space wisely. If you are playing with a friend, switching up cover and providing backup allows for a bit more of a strategic element to Huntdown‘s gameplay. The one outlier in this moveset is the ability to dash directly down or at an angle. Most of the time, I used the dash for a quick burst of speed but was too scared to use it near a group of enemies to stun them. I’m sure that more professional players of this game will find a way to work it into insane pacifist runs or speedier, riskier challenges.

Rounding out Huntdown‘s particular brand of violence are the actual weapons that will be used in the good name of cash. Each bounty hunter has their own unique gun and throwing weapon. Anna Conda uses a burst-firing gun and an arcing axe. John Sawyer has a slow-firing magnum and a boomerang that acts as expected. I first went with Mow Man who throws a rapid barrage of three knives and uses a pistol that fires as fast as the player can tap the button. The transition between each bounty hunter is smooth and will likely only take one to two levels to acclimate. The bigger factor is the arsenal of weapons players will find strewn about each level. These weapons have limited ammo capacity but prove to be better at handling varying situations than the basic gun.

Shotguns, assault rifles, rocket launchers, snipers, Gatling guns, lasers, and more offer players the chance to mow down the opposition at faster and/or deadlier rates. Sometimes enemies will drop the weapons they were using. More often than not, though, players will see these weapons sitting in plain sight or, in the case of stronger weapons, tucked away in hidden locations. Honestly, there is little rhyme or reason as to when a player should use one weapon over another. Often it boils down to the feeling of comfort or whether the game seems to be nudging you in a specific direction. After a point, I began to see the patterns in when the game would place a specific weapon right before certain encounters or when a hidden weapon shredded a boss faster.

A powerful Gatling gun works perfectly for melting a group of enemies not behind cover or stripping away the armor that later enemies rely on. But rocket launchers have the express purpose of blowing up a group of people in one shot or often destroying a car that is trying to run players over. Experimentation is key here. The same logic applies to the various melee weapons players can pick up, which usually kill enemies in one hit but require close contact. The throwing weapon can also be temporarily replaced with grenades, Molotovs, sentry guns, electrified shurikens, and more. Don’t count out any method of destruction because, after all, a grenade might be handed to the player to help them blow up an otherwise indestructible surface and reveal a secret.

Ultimately, though, the true star of Huntdown are the boss fights. Each of the 20 levels are capped off with a unique boss fight that takes up one or two screens’ worth of real estate. It may not seem like the case during the first two boss fights but just wait. Those first two fights feature a sole antagonist with the occasional reinforcements and mostly attempt to hurt the player with close-range melee attacks but also supplement the fight with projectiles. Then comes Bad Boy Bob, a wrestler. Players walk into Bob’s arena and are met with him tossing explosive barrels at them until they enter the ring. From there, Bob takes up a large portion of the ring and will jump, rush, and dive at the player. Quick reflexes are needed to figure out his patterns.

Huntdown really doesn’t have a dud boss fight. Some plod on a little too long if the timing can’t be nailed down or you’re on a harder difficulty. But each one has two or more attack phases where a few new moves are added after their health has been halved. I often thought of the quality of some of Mega Man‘s best robot masters or any great 2D boss fight–that’s how good these fights are, especially considering how far removed we are from the days when boss fights were a central, exceptional component of games. Bosses are also fun to engage with because Easy Trigger imbues them with funny or clever dialog and memorable set pieces.

Now I’m left with a question for Easy Trigger: where’s the boss rush mode? Where are the cheat codes? So many parts of Huntdown nail the enjoyment and identity of past and present games that there are just a few spots where they slightly missed the mark. Each level has three bonus objectives that are mostly used for the purposes of achievement and trophy hunting. Players are required to kill a specific number of enemies, find three stash briefcases, and go through the level without dying. These three objectives apply to every level in the game with no deviation. It’s an odd choice, especially given that trophies are awarded for random objectives. Why not ask players to complete a level with just melee weapons or only a shotgun? There’s enough content here to justify such extravagance.

Not only is Huntdown one of the best games I have played this year, it’s one of the best retro-inspired pieces of entertainment released. Think of how Shovel Knight captured the feeling of a Nintendo adventure game or how Super Meat Boy invigorated grueling action platformers. Not only does Huntdown excel at its ability to invoke a time, place, and feeling, it is damn fun. Few games manage to bleed creativity with such purpose across every corner of its programming, but Huntdown is truly a winner and a perfect time capsule.