Platform: PS2
Released: 21 September 2004
Game Type: Action
Developer: Sega
Homepage: http://www.sega.com/gamesite/headhunter/

Some games balance game and story well, weaving them both together into one seamless whole. Headhunter Redemption is not one of those games. Here, there is a constant conflict between game and story. If you like the story, the game gets in the way. If you want to play the game, you have to sit through long story moments that won't mean much to you.

The game starts by taking you through over 10 minutes of story. This long intro is actually a great example of combining music, voice, computer graphics, and video footage into one package. It’s one of the better game intros I have seen and details the setting perfectly.

Jack Wade is a grizzled law enforcer in a dysfunctional city of the future. He doesn’t fancy dress uniform. Jack just has shades. Really cool shades. He patrols the city of Above, looking for miscreants who will be sent to toil in the mines and smelters of Below. Jack is also on the look-out for armed rebels from the underground mines of Below who are waging war against his city.
 
Ten years after saving a little girl from her father, Jack arrests a street kid in the act of data theft — a capital offence. It's the same girl, all grown up! What were the chances? Jack lets her off the hook and offers her a job as his sidekick — he can do this apparently.

At this point you get to play the game. It comes as a shock to realise that you are now expected to actually do something.
 
The game itself is an okay third person shooter, though marred by a horrendous control method. To shoot, you must press and hold down a button to kneel, in order to steady your aim. The press and hold down another button to engage the sights. Move the sights onto your enemy using on the control stick — don't stop kneeling! Finally you can press the fire button to shoot. Lose your aim, and you must the whole process start again, if you’re still alive, that is.

Alternating between controlling Jack and Leeza the street kid, you’ll play through a series of missions interspersed with story moments to let you know what it’s all about. Will Leeza journey to the darkness of Below, there to find the father she though was dead these last ten years? Probably, but I didn’t play that far.

Ultimately, this game is unsatisfying, and there are better games of this type available. It’s worth the price of a rental, if only to see how they put the game and story together as one package.