Hunted: The Demon's Forge Reviews
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Eurogamer, 7/10
On anything but the hardest difficulty setting either character can charge into battle from chapter two onward without too much concern for planning or coordination, and for most of the game the lightning spell and occasional button-mashing sees you through, whether the latter is Caddoc's hacking and slashing or E'lara's aim-and-explode archery.
There are times when co-op is mandatory - E'lara has to fire flaming arrows to activate puzzle-specific items, for example - but the majority of prompts to bring both characters together seem to have little to do with gameplay.
"Why are all these doors so damn heavy?" Caddoc moans at one point as you are both obligated to stand next to one another to progress to the next area. The answer is more that the programming requires you to cross that threshold together rather than anything to do with the core co-op conceit.
A solid eight hours of action takes you through to the end of the story, after which you can extend the life of the game through Adventure+ mode (toggling various tweaks) or by creating your own arena-mode extensions with the Crucible Map Creator.
Joystiq, 3.5/5
And, ultimately, one of Hunted: The Demon Forge's biggest strengths is also its biggest weakness -- there's just not much there. Yes, its constituent components are polished and impeccably streamlined, but after a few hours, there aren't any surprises in store. Without a compelling narrative to pull you along, it's really a toss-up as to whether the game's rewarding sense of progression and thoughtful cooperative combat is going to be enough to bring you to the end of its 14-or-so-hour campaign. The odds of you replaying through the game in Adventure+ mode or dabbling in the arena-building Crucible mode are slimmer still.
Despite the game's flaws, that handful of brilliantly executed ideas makes Hunted a difficult game to ignore. Role-playing/shooter hybrids aren't a new invention by any stretch of the imagination, but most of those hybrids simply borrow and juxtapose the best elements of their amalgamated genres. For better and worse, Hunted eschews those benchmark components, creating a unique, exciting and promising genre of its own design.
Just Push Start, 3.5/5
inXile took a hack n' slash genre, one that has gone missing lately, and put a modern spin on it. The action oriented gameplay comes off strong and entertaining, but don't expect anything revolutionary. The cover system, being the most noticeable addition, has dungeon crawl fans taking a whole new approach to combat. Also, the well-paced story and Crucible mode will ensure that players enjoy the game for quite some time. With cooperative play taking center stage here you'll enjoy numerous hours of gaming working out the best tactics with your friends. The game starts to fall short of expectations in the graphics aspect and various limitations (spell tree, linearity, and so on). AI is also a fault, but it isn't as much of an annoyance as dialogue since it isn't too original or varied. Overall, Hunted: The Demon's Forge offers a fresh experience for an old genre and, while it falls short in some areas, it is definitely a welcome change of pace that will hopefully perfect its formula the second time around.
The Sixth Axis has a first impressions piece
It plays in quite a similar way to Fable, with a kind of hack-and-slash take on the combat side of what makes up an action RPG. There's a cover system in there too which seems like it will be imperative for later areas as things get a little more taxing.
As for the RPG elements, those are going to require quite a lot more play time before they start to manifest in a meaningful way but there is a levelling system and your equipment has stats to represent its effectiveness. Skills can be levelled up using crystals collected along the way and various areas of your skillset can be upgraded. It's not as intricate or involved as old school PC RPGs but there seems to be enough depth to it that you should be able to have some variation on multiple play throughs, at least in the early stages.
It should be noted that apparently IGN hasn't been sent a review copy, which would explain why their and many other publications' reviews are so late.
