Let’s Look At: Hell Hunt (demo)

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Hell Hunt is a First-Person shooter inspired by the likes of Quake 1 and other classics of the genre in the ’90s. As of this review, this demo does not feature a story, but it does feature a tutorial to show us some of the unique characteristics of this title. Chief among these are your katanas. Obviously you can swing them at foes, yet what is really interesting here is your ability to combine them together to create a throwing javelin type weapon. The thing functions like a Railgun. Line up a group of enemies and watch as your supposed melee weapons shoots right through anyone unfortunate enough to be standing where it’s flung at.

Your throwable katana one-shots most basic enemies. It will take some time to set up from its melee form via the Q key and even longer still to reappear once you fling it. Overall it takes around six seconds to return to your inventory, leaving you defenseless if you don’t have other weapons, such as at the start of the game. This is where the dashing function comes in. Press Shift as you walk in any direction and you will quickly dash across large distances. It is quite handy when dealing with melee-based enemies as they wind up their attack, and also doubles as a way to get across vast jumping distances some areas require.

Throughout the entire first level, you will be faced with two enemy variants. One is melee-based and will rush right at you once it is aware of your presence. The other carries around a blunderbuss and is quite the shot. There are no hit-scan attacks found in this demo. His projectiles travel slowly once he fires, allowing you to dodge it if skilled enough. You can one-shot anything with your katana, but will soon come across dual pistols for a more traditional method of ranged attack. Not long after, you will run across a shotgun. This beast also one-shots basic enemies. If you are experienced in the FPS genre, I’d recommend setting it to at least Hard for any semblance of challenge.

Finally, you have the most curious feature of Hell Hunt. Killing an enemy with a headshot will slow down time for a few seconds. I have found no use or benefit to it. It is cool to look at, yet has no function as of now, either in increasing damage output or firing rate. This is a good time to mention that you can not change anything aside mouse sensitivity in the options menu. There is no increasing the FOV or other graphical tweaks, no viewing keybindings or changing them, etc. Other than that, it looked and played perfectly fine. I experienced no technical glitches and it does default to the native resolution of your monitor.

As you can see from these pictures, it really nails that old school aesthetic. This legitimately often looks like something you’d have played in the mid to late ’90s, barring the high resolution. Here’s hoping that they don’t follow Quake 1 too closely and have the rest of the levels also overuse the color brown this much. Most of your experience will be comprised of mostly atmospheric sounds and your footsteps. Your character must be part horse, because man, are his footsteps loud. Hopefully that is something that changes. I figured there was no music implemented into the demo yet until quite late into the second stage where an excellent sounding track revs up in the most intense moment you’ve yet to experience. That was quite a memorable event.

In the second level is also where you meet an enemy that is an actual threat to you. This Mr.X looking monstrosity has the same Dash ability as you and uses it to great effect. He is a melee fighter and you will not be able to avoid his attacks without using a dash of your own. These are the only situations found in the demo that your double-barreled shotgun comes in use, as the regular shotgun still one-shots basic enemies. You, a double-barreled shotgun, and a rampaging beast just as agile as you are makes for some cool encounters. It is often flanked by weaker enemies too. Bizarrely enough, I found myself aiming for their body as slowing down time with a head-shot throws me off against the Naruto of zombies.

The last weapon you’ll get your hands on in this demo will be a six-shooter. That doesn’t sound too impressive until you shoot the thing. It devastates most foes and is your only long-range weapon aside from throwing your katana. This also brings into attention that the pistols and six-shooter need to be reloaded after their magazines are spent. Not really ‘old school’, yet not necessarily a bad inclusion either. It just exists, kinda like needing to reload the pistol in Duke 3D. When it comes to ammo, you will be drowning in it for all weapons other than the six-shooter. They are found all around the level, as well as by breaking boxes or vases.

What you won’t find laying out in the open are armor pickups. These are acquired solely through one of the many secrets found within the two demo levels. Which brings us into the stages themselves. They are rather large and nonlinear. Like FPS games of old, there is keycard hunting to be done. It is heavily exploration based. There is guidance in the way of visual cues or even cutscenes when you hit a lever, but you will often come across a ‘split road’ situation where one has the keycard you need and the other has the door it opens. Not the tightest level design at times, especially a few sections in the second map, but I’d still call it good overall.

I do like that Hell Hunt isn’t a mere nod to its inspirations, it has many of its own ideas to form an identity itself. If this demo is any indication of what else is in store, this is certainly one title to keep an eye on. It could do with some improvements like finding a use for its slow-mo function, adding a per-click attack with your katana instead of an automatic three-hit strike, and some unique looking weapons in your arsenal. Inferring from the dev’s Twitter page, Hell Hunt is a single man project and his first game at that. With what is on display here, I wouldn’t have guessed it. You really can’t go wrong with giving this demo a download.

Link to download: Hell Hunt demo

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