Mace Griffin: Bounty Hunter Review

Developer	Warthog
Publisher	VU Games
Genre	First-Person Shooter

The first person shooter has been a genre that, since the monumental release of Half-Life on the PC, has been struggling to evolve. Fans realized that it wasn’t just enough for an FPS to have 20+ weapons and bigger monsters – they needed to tell a compelling story, innovate on the gameplay traditions that Wolfenstein established so many years ago, and, hell, maybe even be fun. Since then, some games have been wildly successful in that attempt; games like Deus Ex pushed the bar in interactivity while Red Faction brought vehicles that didn’t seem like an afterthought to the genre. But for every memorable FPS, there are at least 10 that, while not fully horrible, are forgettable just because they feel simply like clones of other games and bring little to the genre themselves.

Unfortunately, despite all of the rather extensive development time brought to Mace Griffin: Bounty Hunter, and all the promise that it showed, the game is a merely average addition to the genre that would’ve been better suited as a bargain title from release.

The game’s blandness begins with its story: Mace Griffin, a Ranger, is investigating a piracy along with his team. But when it appears that there is more to the piracy then meets the eye, Griffin disobeys a hold position order to escape a ship that’s being destroyed, and is court-martialed and sentenced to 10 years in prison. When he gets out, he becomes a bounty hunter in order to track down those responsible for the original piracy that got him landed in jail, from which point the story starts getting needlessly convoluted.

Gameplay – Developed by Warthog, some of whom are responsible for the excellent PSone space combat games Colony Wars, Mace Griffin: Bounty Hunter is primarily a first person shooter, but as an added benefit offers space combat to break up the flow of the missions. Spread throughout roughly 12 extremely long missions (some can take up to two hours to complete), gamers will fight on the ground and in space in order to secure the bounty and complete the mission.

As an FPS, the game is decidedly mediocre. The controls are overly sensitive (without any means to adjust the sensitivity), and there’s nothing in particular that distinguishes this from any other FPS out there. Sure, the objectives may be varied, but all it amounts to is how steady your trigger finger is when you encounter a room full of shotgun-toting enemies. True, there are some moments in which you can begin to see hints of brilliance, but those never seem to last long enough. All of the level designs are vast and expansive, and vary well enough from each other, and in some places the game feels quite epic as a result, even if the paths through them are disgustingly linear. But with the exception of a few extremely primitive scripted sequences, there isn’t much that sets Mace Griffon’s FPS mode apart from the pack.

The game’s space combat is, however, fantastic. While all the mission objectives while in your ship result to either destroying other craft or landing, these are fun enough (and well designed enough) to make these few sequences worth playing. If the balance had been closer to 50/50 (or at any rate, not the 80/20 balance of FPS and space combat that the game has), Mace Griffon would’ve been a great deal more fun to play. But probably the biggest problem is the game’s linearity – based on what you see in the manual, it seems pretty clear that the developers spent a large amount of time creating this mini-universe in which you take your bounties, and with the option of space travel, it would’ve been nice if you could take the missions out of sequence, fly around freely or just explore the colonies as you desired. But even with the lengthy completion time of around 25-30 hours (depending on your skill and tolerance for frustration), there’s nothing to do after you’ve completed the game but to play it again. And the story, revealed none too subtly, is barely compelling enough to make you want to complete the game once.

Graphics – Again, here is where the FPS mode shows its flaws and the space combat shines. Although on the ground, there are some neat graphical tricks such as the shimmering orange water in some places, and the hallucinogenic blur when you get hit with a flash grenade, the game is rather primitive looking, with character models that look slightly blocky. (And Griffin sports the ugliest mug that I can recall.) Some of the animations are rather nice, including the way Griffin will switch between a single and double-handed grip for his pistol, but as a whole there’s nothing particularly exceptional about the graphics on the ground. In space, however, is a different story, with space itself looking as pristine as it ought to, and the graphical details on the ships a bit more up to par.

Sound – As much as I love and respect Henry Rollins, his voice acting as protagonist Mace Griffin is probably the most abysmal thing he’s done. The voice acting is nearly emotionless, and the monotonous drone that almost every generic tough guy has used in movies and games since the beginning of time does little to benefit our belief that Griffin is a worthwhile character. The rest of the voice acting fares only slightly better, even if it too is as generic as the protagonist’s. Most of the sound effects are alright, although there’s nothing particularly exceptional about it. The music is nicely composed, although coupled with a sometimes-shoddy dynamic music system it begins to seem obnoxious at times; when a full choir and orchestral score is blasting while you’re simply walking up a few flights of stairs, it doesn’t feel epic at all, unfortunately.

Overall Value - For 50 bucks, you could either buy Mace Griffin: Bounty Hunter, or spend some time in the used games bin and track down a more entertaining FPS and a more entertaining space flight sim (and probably have 10 bucks to spare.) The fact of the matter is that, while at times entertaining, there isn’t enough here worth paying 50 bucks for. Unless you’re a die-hard fan of games that mix genres (in which case you’ve probably already picked up the far superior Haven: Call of the King or one of many mini-game collections), Mace Griffin: Bounty Hunter should be a rental.

Review by Adam Matlock