HUNTDOWN Critic Reviews

Not only is Huntdown one of the best games I have played this year, it’s one of the best retro-inspired pieces of entertainment released. Think of how Shovel Knight captured the feeling of a Nintendo adventure game or how Super Meat Boy invigorated grueling action platformers. Not only does Huntdown excel at its ability to invoke a time, place, and feeling, it is damn fun. Few games manage to bleed creativity with such purpose across every corner of its programming, but Huntdown is truly a winner and a perfect time capsule.

Huntdown is, quite simply, one of the best side-scrolling shooters I’ve ever played. Incredible retro pixel art, generous local co-op, a stonking frame rate and an addictive game play loop that had me coming back for more; Huntdown is the total package.

Huntdown delivers nail-biting boss battles, exceptional music, a slick design, and fast-paced combat. It’s a throwback to a time where games did a lot with a little, while testing players’ skill the whole way through. Admittedly, the difficulty (unless players want to drop it down to easy) is going to be a turn off, but most will find the checkpoint system forgiving enough. For our money, the punishment made the victory all the more satisfying.

It’s a cyberpunk dystopia, filled with every kind of throwback to what the 80’s thought the future would be, and it’s fantastic. You won’t need to Voight-Kampff me on this one, the sheer grin on my face will prove I’m human when I play this.

Huntdown is a tribute to eighties movies and games. It combines the action from titles as Streets of Rage and movies like The Warriors and Last Action Hero in a side-scrolling shooter, which is best enjoyed in co-op. That way the game really gets to shine and entertain you with all its glory. Shooting hundreds of enemies in four worlds never was so much fun together, even if there are a few things off balance at some moments.

Besides a few small smudges, what awaits you is a raw adventure full of b-movie jokes and flying bullets. "As long as there are bounty hunters, there will be a hunt."

Huntdown is a nihilistic, loud, explosive, even obnoxious arcade shooter. But behind its acid comic style and vulgar tone lies a superb, meticulously crafted action experience, packed with creative and addictive carnage, at a breakneck pace, for an agreeable price. Heed the warning: Do Not Sleep on Huntdown. It's an absolute blast.

Huntdowns is a brilliant retro shooter, fast and defying, full of 80´s references and Easter eggs. Local coop makes the game even better.

Huntdown has become one of our favorite tributes to Metal Slug or Probotector. If you are a fan of run & gun games, make sure you check it out, as it is a fantastic homage to the classics and, just like them, it’s best played with a friend.

Huntdown is an ode to the gloriously violent and ridiculous action movies of the 80s, revelling in cheesy one-liners, larger than life characters, and wanton bloodshed. It's challenging but largely fair, with some thrilling boss encounters that require a variety of tactics to bring to justice. The thumping soundtrack and beautiful 16-bit aesthetic are just the icing on the cake, like a perfectly delivered "Stick around!" after Arnie pins an enemy to the wall with an expertly thrown blade.

Rarely have we felt as ridiculously cool as when we are playing Huntdown. Everything from graphics and music to gameplay is top-notch and every level is packed with non-stop and often hilarious action. Sure, the graphics may be a bit chaotic at times, and sometimes it feels like luck plays a bigger role than skills. But overall, Huntdown is a fantastic shooter in a beautiful retro package.

Enjoyable, brash and well designed. Huntdown is a fun action game full of charm and swagger. It has short, enjoyable levels and very well designed bosses. It's streamlined, old-school and not bloated in any way whatsoever. I thoroughly enjoyed my playthrough and may return at some point to mop up a few things I missed.

It rarely swells beyond the sum of its parts; with parts as precision-tooled as this, it doesn’t need to.

Beautifully pixeled action, that will satisfy fans of the respective movies of the 80s just as much as the Contra generation of the 90s.

Huntdown has been out for a while, but it's a good, silly tonic for players looking for a nice distraction from all of the heavy and involved open-world adventuring out there. It'll scratch most of your action itches and, if you're a certain age like me, it'll bring back a few memories of a bygone era. It's not the worst thing to think about.

While Huntdown's cloying one-liners and disconcerting framing can occasionally come across as grating, its captivating gunplay successfully mixes the chaos of classic run and gun games with the methodical cadence of modern cover shooters. Dashing through murderous strikes while you slide under incoming bullets creates a sense of cool that the game's writing fails to deliver, inching it a little bit closer to the heights of its many points of inspiration. It may be somewhat short and fairly straightforward, but Huntdown's gameplay largely succeeds at emulating the type of testosterone-fueled bedlam perfected by its silver screen counterparts.