Hunter The Reckoning takes place in a small town named Ashcroft. As the story goes, there was a large penitentiary. The only problem was that the prison itself was controlled by vampires. It turns out that Vampires, Werewolves and other creatures walk freely among the town of Ashcroft, but attacks and killings are quickly covered up and dismissed. Inmates at the prison are treated as cattle in the jail. Those unfit to be fed on are tortured and experimented on. Things continued in this manner until convicted murderer Nathaniel Arkady was sent to the electric chair. Upon his death the ghosts of the prisoners killed were freed and wreaked havoc on the prison. Four people brought to the scene by different circumstances managed to subdue the evil creatures and seal the penitentiary. One year after Arkady's execution, the evil creatures once again break free and this time are unleashing their anger on the town of Ashcroft. It is up to the four original witnesses, "Hunters," to save the town.

You play one of four Hunters:


Spencer Wyatt (Avenger) - A childhood runaway who returned to Ashcroft to visit his murdered mother's grave.
Samantha Alexander (Defender) - The Police Officer responsible for bringing Nathanial Arkady into custody, who was attending his execution as a favor to her Mentor.
Kassandra Cheyung (Martyr) - A 19 year old volunteer worker who was visiting a man doing time for drug dealing with her friend.
Father Esteban Cortez (Judge) - The Ashcroft Penitentiary chaplain, it was his job to administer last rights to those sentenced to die by electrocution.

The story shows great promise. The first thing I though of when I first started up the game was John Carpenter's Vampires. However, you merely find yourself aimlessly slashing zombies and performing "cute" tasks such as guiding little children to safe places, and fighting enemies such as giant teddy bears. Yes, giant teddy bears…

Each character has a melee weapon (axe, sword, daggers, and katana) as well as a firearm (crossbow, shotgun, pistols and revolvers) and also is empowered with "Edges." Powers that help in the fight against evil creatures by replenishing health, giving the player great speed, or just inflicting serious damage on enemies. You should choose a hunter that suits your style. For example, Kassandra is a lot faster than the other players and can run circles around enemies while picking them off with her dual pistols, while Spencer has great power with his axe and Father Cortez relies heavily on his edge powers to destroy monsters. Players can also pick up various other weapons such as Machine guns, shotguns, flamethrowers, chainsaws, assault rifles, and of course, a rocket launcher. You get to use these against enemies such as Shamblers (zombies), Skitters (exploding human heads on spider like bodies), Vampires, Werewolves and various other creatures.

Gameplay is your standard beat 'em up that takes place through a ¾ Overhead camera. Which is fine, except the camera often does not allow the proper view when walking down alleyways, leaving you walking into area's blind and obstacles (trees, etc.) often block the view of your character and enemies on the screen. The game tends to throw dozens and dozens of enemies at you at a time. Most often zombies. So many zombies in fact, that the melee weapons are almost useless against them. You will find yourself getting mobbed and killed often if you plan on taking enemies head on. The same goes for the basic firearms as well. They are very weak…requiring 3 or more shots to kill a zombie, and not very practical when you've got 30 or more zombies chasing you down. Other weapons are scattered throughout the levels, they are more powerful but reload times are painfully slow, as are weapon switching times - meaning you will take lots of damage if you run out of ammo in the middle of a mob of enemies and need to reload or change weapons. And it happens quite often. Players are also able to perform combo attacks, jumping attacks, sweep attacks and lunging combo attacks. None of which work well. You often end up missing the enemy you're aiming for or getting attacked from behind from something else. You can also gain experience and increase your accuracy, attacking power, and Edges but it doesn't change the gameplay at all. In short, your best bet is to click off a few rounds, run away, click off a few more and run away some more. This is not very entertaining for more than a few minutes. The only time the gameplay does not get overwhelming is when you have two or more players helping you, and then the gameplay is plagued by massive slowdown. Also there will be a lot of yelling and screaming when you are trying to advance and your buddies are trying to get some ammo. Oh, and you should save the weapons you pick up for the bosses, because they are nearly impossible to beat with your standard equipped weapons.

Graphics are passable, but not very detailed. Animations are not very fluid, and all the enemies look the same. Not what you would expect from a Gamecube game. Lighting effects are very well done however. Soundtrack is nonexistent, except for this weird music that plays when you're battling massive amounts of enemies. Otherwise, get used to hearing gunshots and footsteps. The gunshot sounds are well done though.

Overall, Hunter The Reckoning is not a bad game, but rather a poorly executed mediocre game. It simply has too many flaws to be anything more than a weekend rental. It's also clearly not intended to be played by less than two people at a time. The Hunters are simply too slow to cope with the hordes of enemies constantly being thrown at you. Replay value is just not there. There are few hidden areas and they are not hard to find. The story is poor and with the bad voice acting plaguing the cut scenes, you wind up just skipping them. If ever there was a game with great a great premise and staggeringly bad execution…this is it.