Fugitive Hunter: War on Terror

Remember the training …

Every shot counts ….

Well, not every shot, because when you get to the suspect, it’s every punch and kick that counts as well.

Fugitive Hunter War on Terror is a PlayStation2 release from Black Ops and Encore is an attempt to combine the first-person shooter genre with a hunt for actual perceived bad guys. You start with a simple mission and, if lucky, you can move all the way up to Osama Bin Laden.

This game is not very realistic and tries to combine arcade elements with a solid FPS backdrop and what happens is that this game looks contrived and stilted.

The game begins with a simple mission. Your helicopter has crashed in Afghanistan and you, as Criminal Interdiction and Fugitive Recovery Task Force Agent Seaver, are the only survivor. Your first mission is to get to the extraction point. You begin by moving down a mountain road, with a lot of enemies trying to stop you. Along the way, you will pick up weapons and other power-ups.

(Was it mentioned there were a lot of enemies? Coming up the road, sitting in nests on the mountains, coming out of caves … Get used to it – every trip to Afghanistan will look basically the same.)

So you pick up weapons, and gun down all those who stand between you and the bottom. Here is where the scripting gets as confusing as the overall game. The idea is to get to the extraction point. You’ve manage to gun your way to the bottom of the hill and there is a level boss. So you drop your weapon and square off with the boss in a display of martial arts kicks and fisticuffs. You are told to make the arrest. What? Thought the idea was to get to the extraction point.

The game has a total of 6 mission areas, ranging from Afghanistan to Miami, Utah, the Caribbean, France and back to Afghanistan. Each of the levels has multiple scenarios. There are 11 fugitives to capture, beginning with Jamal Richardson in Miami. Nine weapons are littered throughout the levels, with ammunition, hidden medallions and tapes, POWs, health packs and the like.

This is an arcade game that is of simple structure and repeats it, to the point of being silly.

The control elements have been kept very simple and the graphics are average. The game employs the rag-doll effect and proximity hits. If you get too close to a target and shoot him, blood will splash on you. The sound is best left off.

Fugitive Hunter is a pass, from the beginning.

Gameplay: 5.5

The maps are not that big and the bad guys come in wave after wave, and tend to respawn behind you as well.

Graphics: 5.5

The graphical look of this game leaves a bit to be desired. Most of the bad guys always dive to their right, and the rag-doll effect works for a while. The environments all look the same.

Sound: 5

Clichés and theme music and a lot of explosions and gunfire – ok, it’s average at best.

Difficulty: Medium

The levels do get progressively harder at you go and there is an irritating affect of having to move quickly forward. It makes it tougher when you have to watch your back while dealing with a host of enemies in front of you.

Concept: 4

Most video games are unrealistic, but this title is very unrealistic and not very satisfying.

Overall: 5.5

This is a game to avoid. While it is slightly below average graphically, the targets of the hunt are rather silly and having to work through a host of enemies with arcade power-ups only to duke it out for the capture is not the best outcome for a level. If you have just climbed up a mountain path, through scores of soldiers using rocket launchers and other weapons to try to kill you, and then come face-to-face with Osama Bin Laden, do you think you are going to drop your weapon and start a martial arts tourney with him?