Showing posts with label Amuze. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Amuze. Show all posts

A Quick Look At Headhunter

You are Jack Wade. You were once the ACN's top Headhunter, rounding up the most fearsome criminals on the mean streets of near-future California and bringing organised crime to its knees. However, something went horribly wrong. Waking up in an operating theatre with no memory of who you are or how you got there, you break out of the restraints and hazily escape from the mysterious facility before collapsing in an alleyway.

Once again being brought around in a hospital, you learn of your past glories as the most feared Headhunter around - a type of government funded bounty hunter - the death of your boss and the rise of crime in your absence. You're an angry man with a beard, you want answers, and you want your memory back...but first you need to re-enrol as a freelance Headhunter, get your license, your gun and your motorbike. Somebody will pay for this, but who and why? That's down to you, Wade.
Headhunter is one of the oddest games on the Dreamcast. I don't mean that in a derogatory way - I mean it from a totally bemused standpoint. That's because it is easily one of the best titles ever released for Sega's machine, but due to the incredibly late launch in November 2001 Headhunter was only given a PAL release. It sits squarely amongst games like Evil Twin and Stunt GP that were fantastic games in their own right, but for mainly financial reasons never made the leap across the pond to the United States or Japan.

Amuze, the Sweden-based developer of Headhunter only ever made two games - Headhunter (and the later PlayStation 2 port) and the PlayStation 2/Xbox sequel Headhunter: Redemption - but it's clear from the quality seeping from every pore of Jack Wade's adventure that the development team had a real grasp of the Dreamcast hardware.