Hunted Forever
Hunted Forever is a cool new action platforming game from Pixelante Game Studios. The plot is sort of like The Most Dangerous Game with the addition of a huge flying death machine armed with lasers, bombs, and swarming buzz-saw droids. Your job, as the silhouette of a man having an extremely bad day, is to escape from said death machine through forests, caves, and underground laboratories without getting turned into Fried Crispy Human Flakes. To put it mildly, the odds are against you.
Control the poor guy with your [arrow] keys or [WASD], jump with [up], [W], or [Space]. Pause with [ESC]. Pick up all the machine parts you can find; when you reach a safe zone, you can spend them on power-ups, like better speed or jumping height. No, you can't ever buy a bazooka. You are quite definitely the prey here, as the game will be happy to remind you with a sarcastic running commentary at the bottom of the screen.
The game is fairly short, rendering the "Forever" in the title somewhat nonsensical, but there are four difficulty levels — including Hardcore, where you have to finish without getting obliterated even once. Collect-o-philes can run through it as many times as they like, saving up more and more machine parts. Eventually, you may even stockpile enough to buy the "BBQ", which apparently grants you the power of Deliciousness.
I always hoped I would find a game that could increase my deliciousness. Mmm, delicious.
Analysis: This is the second game in Pixelante's Forever series, which began with Falling Forever. Though I still stand by the first game as a unique and stylish piece of work, Hunted Forever is a step forward in every way. The issues many folks had with Falling Forever — namely, confusing controls and performance issues—have largely been dealt with here, although older computers or last-generation Macs will most likely still have problems. Try turning off some of the visual effects in the options menu.
The controls are smooth and intuitive this time around, and the main character animates really well. He hugs the slopes convincingly and generally moves like an athletic test subject should. Just check out the awesome flying side roll he does to pull himself up onto ledges. That's a man who knows he's being tailgated by a death machine. If some of the moves remind you of Fancy Pants Adventure, well, take a close look at the shop menu. Pixelante is candid about his influences.
The level design can be a bit weak — if you miss a jump, you may have to repeat a large area, dodging bombs the whole time. And the replay value is low, since the layout is the same every time, and choosing different power-ups doesn't have much of an effect on how you play. So the only incentive is to achieve as fast and smooth a run as possible.
On the other hand, the 2D cut-out visual style looks great, the bass riff in the music gives it a nice jazzy quality, and the humor is pretty sharp, although the "meat bag" thing is probably overdone. A hyper-intelligent computer should be able to invent a larger variety of insulting names for us humans. Like "skin tree". Or "flesh farm." Or "smelly face." Now start running, smelly face.
P.S. Hunted Forever is #8 on TIME Magazine's Best Games of 2008. Congratulations, Pixelante Game Studios!
I gave up on this game after I did one part 7 times. It took 3 minutes each time to get back up to the ledge, and then I missed. The controls feel like a distorted N scheme, but messier. None of the feeling cool, ninja-like, only feeling like a "Meatbag".
Overall 3/5. The upgrades are an attempt to be funny, but they lacked actual value. I probably will try it again, but I doubt I will enjoy it that much.
Jump key is really unresponsive. Had it been more sensitive, a lot of frustration would have been avoided.
Slick graphics. Cool concept.
Fantastic game, I wish there were more games like this. Also, anyone know what that BBQ thing does? I want to know if it's worth it.
Cool game, but the jump key definitely had issues... I finally quit in frustration after having run straight off the same ledge 4-5 times.
I had no issue with responsiveness, but then I'm on an awfully fast computer. You may want to try turning off some of the the graphical effects.
The game was fun for a few minutes, but I felt it got old a little fast. The same can be said for that smarmy commentator at the bottom of the screen.
The messages that flash by while loading are brillant... better than the Sims, I daresay.
There are way too many spots where missing a single jump causes you to replay a very large section of the area. And considering the fact that the game emphasizes moving quickly, it's much too easy to miss those jumps.
The controls are ATROCIOUS!
I truly enjoyed that, I've not put as much time into a flash game since Dino Run, Last Stand and All Hallow's Eve.
Hey, there's a thought; toss All Hallow's Eve and Last Stand into a halloween friday/weekend article soon =) Violent, but.. Well, violence is entertaining.
The way of life can't be wrong =D
I think the control issues would be different if jump were some other key than "up" maybe the spacebar or something. Any game with a walljump should really not have up be jump. :/
I think this game should be renamed "Forever Loading". This is the second time for me it's been stuck loading for about 5 minutes.
Some general tips:
If it's your first run through, know that there are a total of
22
machine parts, but don't expect to find them all on your first run. Also, some of them are really, really annoying to get without upgrades.
When you finish the game, you find out that your machine parts are saved for future runs, so obviously you need to make multiple runs to buy some of the pricier things. I recommend buying things in this order:
Buy all three jump upgrades, then save up for the double jump. The double jump is, as I had imagined, amazingly useful. Especially when the jump responsiveness is less than ideal, the double jump can be a backup and can really save you a lot of trouble.
The speed upgrades I didn't find particularly noticeable. The tiny size isn't that great. Oh, I was a tiny bit worried that the size decrease would affect my jump height, but it doesn't.
I never bought any of the life upgrades, because sometimes I would hit a glitch and get jammed inside an obstacle, and the only way to get out without restarting (and when I had almost all machine parts, and was almost at the end, I wouldn't want to) was to maneuver myself to get hit by bombs or the blade robots or (if not blocked) the lasers, so I could die and respawn no longer stuck in the glitch. Life upgrades, then, would only waste time.
Unfortunately, when you get more upgraded and are going fast and high, you tend to get smash into obstacles and go inside them. Oh, and a tip: after the last safehouse before the exit, you drop down a huge gap, and you see two high places to either side. You can get on top of the right one, but don't bother; there's nothing there, and you just fall into the top and get stuck inside a big black block of landscape.
Altogether, a fun and enjoyable game! I only wish
The BBQ actually did something! I was looking forward to it when I finally saved up, and was disappointed... the upgrades keep the replay value high, until there's nothing left to buy.
also, you might be wondering if there's a bonus for skipping every machine part, and/or skipping every safehouse (which becomes possible with double jump):
There isn't for either. Wouldn't that have been cool, though? At least there should have been something for skipping every safehouse... but, the "machine" built with no parts is somewhat amusing for your [lack of] trouble... anybody know how many machines there are? I've seen three; one for all the parts, one for almost all the parts, and one for no parts, is there anything in between the latter two?
Also, your score will suck; with the perfect survivor bonus of 50000, I got a B. But the time bonus for finishing in under 7 minutes was only ~140. Ah, and I bet without surviving perfectly, a respawn might have taken me to the beginning instead of to a checkpoint?
It says the site is blocked by the italian organism for surveillance on the casino-like games (sorry I don't know how to explain better!)... any idea?
For anyone still having trouble accessing the game, I've changed the links above to a different domain. Hopefully that will fix any issues you have been experiencing.
@CheezyBob:
You can use the space bar to jump.
what the....? I'm-I'm-I'M FREEFALLING!
I used the arrows to move and the [w] to jump... it worked fine for me...
I love the color and art and animation, but those are some fudgey controls. Reminds me a bit of dino run otherwise.
Mmmm...I wanna play dinorun now..
This was so AWESOME. Portal references, guys! Freaking Portal references!
One or two of the levels look exactly like those of Fancy Pants Man, only you have to double-jump in a slightly less responsive manner while lasers threaten to kill you because you can't avoid it for the above reasons.
Aside from that, the addition of lasers and bombs make this platformer as fun as it is. My only dislike is from games which make fun of the main character, and by extension, the player; however, this is just a personal thing.
I rather enjoy this game. It's simple enough to just jump into, but rather difficult to completely master. It rather reminds me of a game that's going to come out on November 11, called Mirror's Edge. I daresay that the author of this game even got some of his inspiration from Mirror's Edge.
Also, the abundance of inside jokes makes this game even better.
Excellent game. The movement controls and hit detection felt right and movement itself is fluid. There's nothing quite so "ninja" as leaping through falling bombs and jumping away from explosives at the last minute.
The only trouble spot here is the horrible clipping issues, where I occasionally end up *inside* a wall and have to wait for the Hovering Bot of Doom to kill me off somehow. Still, one of the best platforming games I've played.
Mmmmm, tasty BBQ :)
Help. Stuck on a cliff thing with no double jump.
I would never say this game is "cool." It was one of the most stressful games I have ever played, what with the giant thing hanging over constantly and the ever-present threat of falling off a cliff, and not dying mind you, but having to climb back out again before being fried alive. Good design, but I won't be coming back again.
The coolest weapon the machine has is that thing where lines point to future explosions. If thay make a new version add an armageddon cannon. It's like a lazer but really really wide!
Awesome! I got all the parts and finished and it was a huge lazer! That beam was just what the armegeddon cannon should look like!
Can anyone share with us what exactly that the Deliciousness/The BBQ upgrade does? I would really like to know.
Hey Neoplayer2,
If you click on the spoilers that m3psi posted, there's a post about the BBQ upgrade.
When I got the bbq upgrade, a message came up with the exact same message im about to say.
"HOLY ****, YOU ACTUALLY BOUGHT THAT? ****, I NEED TO THINK OF SOMETHING FAST... UH, REMEBER THIS PASSWORD: FOR_NEVER_AND_EVER
IT MMIGHT DO SOMETHING COOL IN A LATER GAME.
It's all capitals because the game says the words like that. So what does this mean? I don't know...
Hey, this got #8 in TIME Magazine's best games of 2008 article.
Excellent gameplay with only minor glitches (getting stuck in walls). Graphics and the ambient music make a great mix. Good controls. Would be a 10/10 if the game was lengthened, but it's a one-man job, so the effort is commendable. An example of pro play: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVbiBNoXlkM&fmt=18
Grade A!!!!(AWESOME)yesssssssssssssssssssss!
Good game, but it cusses.Shouldn't be rated G dude.JEEZ
[Edit: Thanks, I've updated the rating. -Jay]
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