Hunted: The Demon’s Forge

Hunted: The Demon’s Forge doesn’t sound terribly exciting on paper. It’s yet another action RPG set in medieval times populated by certain clichés like evil sorceresses, dark dungeons and of course, cruel beasts hell bent on world domination. But developer Inxile Entertainment aren’t targeting the hardcore RPG veterans over here; they’re looking more at the Gears of War crowd by simplifying gameplay and adding in a cover system. Does that work really well for the game? Well it’s kind of a hit and miss thing but overall Hunted is still fun to play as long as you can put up with certain issues including A.I. that just loves coming in your way.

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In Hunted, you play as one of two characters, a burly warrior called Caddoc or an agile Elven archer who goes by the name of E’lara, both of who are mercenaries for hire. Not the most stable career on the planet, their hunger for money, fame and adventure lands them in bang in the middle of an ancient conspiracy involving demons, dragons (but of course) and really pale sorceresses. Yes, the plot isn’t particularly mind blowing but you do end up enjoying the ride thanks to some witty writing as well as the banter shared between the two pivotal characters. 

As Caddoc, the game’s your standard hack-and-slash fare since the warrior is especially proficient with melee weapons like swords and axes. He can wield a crossbow as well but he’s not very good at ranged combat. That’s more of E’lara’s area of expertise as she can fire off a hail of arrows in record speed. But of course she isn’t as effective as Caddoc with a sword and a shield making her the ideal choice for ranged combat. Both characters can take cover behind objects while wielding projectile weapons during which the game kind of plays like Gears of War where you can pop out of cover to squeeze a few arrows off and then pop right back in. I admit, I did find the cover system a tad weird at first, since I’ve never seen a game with this kind of a setting use one. But after a few hours I was actually quite comfortable with it. Just don’t go in expecting a very smooth and intuitive one.

Single Players can choose their characters at different points

Co-operative play is undoubtedly the selling point for Hunted but in case you don’t have someone to co-op with, it plays just fine with the A.I. Although I would like to point out that the A.I. has the inherent (and highly annoying knack) of continuously coming in your way. It can get real irritating, especially in narrow corridors where your partner simply stands behind you like a dumbass or worst yet when he/she runs directly in front of your line of fire. And there were also times when my partner just decided to stand still at a random spot during certain levels as I got pummeled by an army of enemies. But to give him/her credit, they were always there to revive me when I went down fighting and most of the time, they held their ground in combat just fine.