Huntdown

The year is 2020. We stand on the precipice of the hottest cyberpunk game since Deus Ex or maybe even 1989’s Shadow Run. This new challenger calls itself Cyberpunk 2077, exuding Icarian levels of confidence by claiming the genre right in the name. Behind us is the sparse desert of anticipation. For eight years, this game has been talked about, dreamed about, and fantasized about. After missing our launch window by a few months, we pace on the edge of Cyberpunk 2077’s release, a nagging feeling of worry creeping up on us. Shake it off!! Putting our doubt aside, we leap off the edge, giving ourselves to the Cyberpunk 2077 experience… too quickly, we realize something’s wrong! We hit terminal velocity way too soon! This isn’t exciting—it’s boring, the view sucks, and the textures won’t load.

Alright, I haven’t yet played Cyberpunk 2077—I’m waiting until it’s 5 years old like I did with The Witcher 3 so that it’s at least 95% complete (full disclosure, I enjoyed The Witcher 3 and I bet I’ll enjoy Cyberpunk 2077 at some point). In fact, a lot of people seem to genuinely like the game. But none can deny that Cyberpunk 2077’s launch was plagued by issues. Fortunately for those of us still scared (or scarred) by Cyberpunk 2077, another game arrived in 2020 to scratch that itch by melding the cyberpunk genre with Blizzard’s 1994 classic, Blackthorne.

I could write a whole newsletter describing the virtues of Blackthorne, but this isn’t that newsletter. Few things beat the feeling of taking cover in a 2d game, popping out while your opponent is reloading, and unloading your shotgun in their direction. Blackthorne got this right. Huntdown gets this right. Huntdown also nails the platforming and general shooting. It’s quick to get you back in the action when you get mowed down, and it always feels like you’re in another world (a cyberpunk world…).

The game really captures the aesthetic as envisioned by early ‘90s American cinema, especially Total Recall. While I think the movies of that era tried to be serious, they had enough awareness to know they were being a little silly. Huntdown just straight up goes for comedy, partially by deadpanning the solemnity of those movies. The levity in the writing is enough to entertain but not so much as to distract from the simple, yet satisfying gameplay loop of shoot>take cover>shoot>get better gun>shoot>repeat.

You get to pick from a few bouny hunters at the beginning of the game, and then you are dispatched by a shadowy figure that likes to knit to take out scum.  The bad guys (ahem, the scum) all feel like they were picked out of 1979's The Warriors, and that's a good thing.  Actually, the story exists just enough to justify shooting punks and hockey players, and not enough to stress you out.

I tend to die a lot, so the quick restart and clear, frequent checkpoints are great. There is enough variety in the enemy type and behavior to keep the game engaging, but as an added bonus, most encounters are scripted, giving them the feel of an actual battle (like I would know), not just random bad guys running at you from random spawners (I’m looking at you, NES Ninja Gaiden). The boss fights have stages with clear delineations, but the bosses also tweak their attacks within the patterns as you whittle away their health bar.

This game is on all the systems, but I’m playing it on my iPhone, which sounds nuts. How do you play a twitchy action game on an iPhone without a controller, you ask? The answer is that you don’t. It’s real easy to get a controller hooked up to your phone these days. Personally, I’ve had a Backbone for awhile and it’s pretty awesome. I don’t think that Backbone + iPhone is a Switch replacement (the Switch is video game console from conception, after all, while the phone + controller is still a smart phone), but it’s at least on par with the Vita (without the stupid back touchpad I was always fat fingering). Also, there are a ton of games I would never bother with on Apple Arcade if it wasn’t for the Backbone, so I guess that’s an unpaid endorsement.

Huntdown won’t change your life, but it is a lot of fun. It scratches the nostalgia itch for that ‘90s side scrolling cover-shooter, but with modern touches. Most classic games don’t hold up after you’ve gotten used to today’s conveniences, so save yourself the heartache.

Huntdown is available on quite literally every current modern system, including PC, iOS, and Android devices. Blackthorne came out on the SNES and was revisited on the Sega 32X; assuming you can’t get it there, you can get it as part of the Blizzard Arcade Collection, generally available everywhere as well.