Hunting down felons as a bounty hunter? Rocketing down city streets on a motorcycle? Sounds like a great premise, and truly, it is. But only the most dedicated gamers will be able to unearth a scrap of fun when faced with the oppressive burden of Headhunter’s atrocious camerawork and flawed controls. But first, the bright side: Playing as Jack Wade, the aforementioned bounty hunter, you’ll delve into an intriguing tale involving crime lords, your own amnesia, and creepy government conspiracies. The gameplay serves up an attractive cocktail of motorcycle racing, WinBack-style combat, MGS2-like stealth, puzzle solving, and bounty-hunter license tests that will give you GT3 flashbacks. While those various flavors of gameplay mix together in a fairly appealing way, the motorcycle action is a big letdown—you mostly just commute between levels. But the real crime is the appalling third-person camera, which never keeps up with you as you turn corners or enter rooms. You’re often stuck staring at a wall, unable to even see an enemy while he gets to take his sweet time busting caps in your sorry backside. The controls only raise the price on this game’s head. Absurdly, there’s no way to manually control the camera, and basic moves like strafing are MIA. The targeting system is also pretty unreliable—taking out one bad guy requires more rounds than were fired in an average A-Team episode. If you’re the patient sort and you loved the WinBack series (which Headhunter resembles in a lot of ways), try renting this game to see if its rewards outweigh its many frustrations. If not, the PS2 has many pastures far greener than this.
