Hunted: The Demon's Forge Previews
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A snip from GameShard:
Hunted's protagonists, Caddoc and Elara, comfortably embody fantasy archetypes. Bald swordsman Caddoc is the gruff, mail-bedecked melee combatant, whilst lithe, underdressed Elara provides ranged support. You can play the game as either, switching at preset junctions as necessary, the other character taken over by AI, or another player.
Played as Elara, Hunted does feel like a cover-based shooter -mainly down to the presence of both shooting and the ability to snap into cover; a fantasy Gears, with familiar controls. Played as Caddoc, and comparisons with the likes of Heretic and Risen seem more appropriate, though with tangibly more visceral action. Both aspects are enjoyable, but as we learned with our hands-on at the Eurogamer Expo, it's when you combine their abilities that the game is at its finest.
And a little something from BeefJack:
In practice, that exploration feels limited. In a speck of influence from classic dungeon-crawlers, there'll be sections of Hunted in which you can deviate from the main path and pick up some added extras, benefiting in some light way. But the really noticeable difference between Hunted and its cover-based companions is a newly instated focus on melee combat, which in theory sits neatly alongside its ranged equivalent.
However, it's a little less smooth. Ranged fighting with either magic or with bows and arrows packs a comparable punch to Gears of War, and the cover system is utilised well, by which I mean '˜identically'. A press of the A button (assuming you're playing on 360, as I have been) snaps you behind a chest-high wall, and the left trigger pops up up and takes aim. Melee is a more standard button-bashing affair, though, and while it still feels as brutal as it should, the simplicity of it is perhaps a tiny bit disappointing.
