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jp's Spy Hunter (VITA)

[September 24, 2019 07:02:30 PM]

I recall enjoying the PS2(?) remake of Spy Hunter so I was curious about this entry - with the same title, but quite a few years later.

Man, I've been really disappointed.

I've played enough missions and been frustrated enough that I decided to stop playing (I think I completed 4 missions?) - and at the level of "by the book" the game definitely hits a lot of things right. There is some variety in the objectives, there's different types of enemy vehicles that require different ways to take them out, you have different weapons that do different things, etc.

But wow...it never really comes together. Maybe it's just lack of polish (released before it was done?)or not enough time in development?

Here's my ranty list of things I had trouble with/was frustrated by:

a. Sometimes the camera would switch to looking backwards when I fired a weapon.I thought it might be because I was nudging the right stick by mistake, but this seems not to have been the case. I'm now wondering if it was a rear-touchpad issue? I'm not interested in finding out...

b. Gameplay was often interrupted by a cutscene in the "middle of something" that, when resumed I was unable to recover (e.g. ended up crashing into a wall).

c. There's some missions where you have to take down an enemy - and in one I was (too often!) able to pass the objective such that they were behind me - but then couldn't turn around to get them, and then they'd pass my by way too fast...it was a mess!

There's more, but these are the main ones...

...I also appreciated some things (even if they didn't quite work):

a. Many levels have scripted cinematic descructible environments (e.g. a tower blows up as you approach it and crashes such that it covers half the road and you need to swerve to avoid it) which I thought were cool (reminded me of Split/Second in a good way). So, nice idea!

b. I liked having 4 weapons (mapped to four face buttons) and having to choose between them (attack behind, sideways, forward + one more). Much nicer than having to choose a loadout or cycle between. I wish the time to switch between them was shorter...especially in intense situations where you're surrounded by enemies. Later on there was a 5th weapon - but this was a touch-screen activation.

c. There is variety in the missions - there was one which was a "drone strike" type mission which definitely mixed things up a bit and added some variety.