Mace Griffin: Bounty Hunter Hands-On

At last we got a chance to meet the toughest bounty hunter in the universe - Mace Griffin. Mace Griffin: Bounty Hunter holds a variety of promising features and visual treats and it effectively combines a few innovative FPS elements with intense space combat. Blending two popular genres in the current video game industry, Warthog has a strong chance of leaving a significant mark in the gaming world. For those of you who are uninformed, Warthog had experience in the genre of space sims with the title Starlancer (they co-developed the game with Digital Anvil), which was reasonably successful back in 2000 (they also did Rally Championship Xtreme, Wolverine's: Revenge and many other console and PC games). As far as we can tell, this game is to be their greatest mainstream achievement yet. Mace Griffin: Bounty Hunter was actually one of the rare pleasant surprises we were privileged to witness at the Electronic Entertainment Expo this year. It was initially announced more than a year ago, and it appears that the developers did not spend their time gallivanting. No sir. Now, at long last, the project slowly enters its last stages of development, so sit back as we bring you our impressions of the gold version of the game.

Cheer up, the food wasn’t THAT bad...

Just you and me pal. One on one!

This title follows the story of Mace Griffin, a member of an elite law enforcement agency, who was framed for the deaths of his colleagues. Things take a turn for the worse, and Mace gets thrown into the slammer to pay for his alleged crime. Upon his release he decides it's time for some serious payback, so he sets out to find those responsible for his unfortunate imprisonment. As the plot evolves, Mace stumbles on more than he bargained for. From here on things will start to get really nasty.

The version we tried out starts with a lengthy intro about the background history of humans and space, and the factions that police it. After the intro we are taken to a ship that is preparing to dock with a large trader ship that has sent out a distress call. This ship serves as your first mission and an introduction to the control system. You start with a cudgel, which is a cross between a Mace (get it? HA HA!), a taser and an automatic revolver. Each and every weapon in the game has an alternate firing mode.

At this point we still didn't get the opportunity to test all the weapons that are available in the game, but we did manage to experiment with a number of interesting ones. During some of the levels we saw the following firearms in action: machine gun, rocket launcher, grenades, sniper rifle, and double barrel shotgun. Sounds pretty good to begin with and it all worked brilliantly in the sections we tested. Naturally, additional firearms can be obtained later during the game.

As you move through the ship, you encounter human raiders and some weird-looking lizard dudes who leave a nice green smear behind when you kill them (these are my favorite). The tutorial does a good job of teaching you new things without getting too much into any unnecessary details. New icons are gradually added to the screen as you progress through the ship blowing away bad guys. This level is not too hard to pass through and it allows players to get acquainted with the basics of gameplay very quickly. As the level ends, you find out that the raid was a setup and you are the only one to make it back to your ship. You are thrown of out the rangers and sentenced to a lengthy prison term (oh bugger!). While you are in prison, the whole law enforcement structure falls apart from the inside and is replaced by bounty hunters. Lucky for you though, a former cellmate of yours offers you a job once you make parole, and you begin enforcing the law as a freelance bounty hunter. Your arrangement is weapon and ship upgrades in return for a completed mission. You are a convicted felon and the ruthless law instigates that felons cannot be paid for bounty hunting. Oh well, what can you do... We enjoy the kicking of the ass, so it's a fair trade.

Hm, I wonder if I could make the jump.

They’re not gonna get me without a fight!

The next mission takes you to a huge ship that serves as a temple for a cult that worships technology. The followers wear bio feedback masks that supply them with a constant stream of info. This mask also shows the mood of the cult member by emoticons, which was kind of funny to behold. A hacker has taken over their server and has turned most of the ship's crew into bloodthirsty maniacs. Here, you have to storm the ship and help 3 other bounty hunters reset the server. In the middle of the mission you have to take off in one of the little fighters they use and dock on another part of the ship to get to the server. By the way, as you progress through the game, you will encounter a number of controllable ships...

One of the things the developers obviously worked hard on, was to make the controls straightforward. On the whole, it was easy to discern that all ships have the same basic controls, which we found to be a positive aspect of the gameplay. Still, there are certain characteristics that remain unique to each and every ship you fly on - velocity, weapon systems, and maneuverability. The weapons systems are quite simple. All ships are supplied with conventional weapons (laser cannons and such), backed with a range of heavier artillery like missiles and stuff. Once you fight your way through the hordes of fighters, it's back into the ship and more close quartered combat. The next mission took place on a mining asteroid and this time the environment was very different from the space station/Ship interiors. Instead of cramped hallways, you'll be going through large caves that have plateaus and ledges linked by dark tunnels.

It was during this mission that we realized we were having a lot of fun and had gotten caught up in the riveting plot. Since the game is in its finishing stage, we were slightly disappointed with the AI; at times, enemies can get somewhat confused when they attack in groups. All in all, we won't jump to any conclusions here, so let us assume that the developers will tweak this with a patch, or that this was an isolated incident.

Also, a number of amusing features was incorporated such as security systems that can be accessed and taken over so you can gun down bad guys with the ceiling mounted machine guns. Cameras can be shot out so the enemy will not know where you are. Of course, we all know that the key feature of Mace Griffin: Bounty Hunter is that it mixes ground combat missions and space flight/combat missions. This transition from one mode to another, works very well and we didn't observe any glitches in the controls and physics.

The graphics are a bit bland. Yet, character models are done well enough, the level design is excellent, and some pretty cool explosions were on display. The ships and space stations are both similar on the inside. We won't be getting into any specifics about the technology that powers the game, since you can find a rather detailed presentation of that in our interview with Mike Arkin (Executive Producer at Crave Entertainment). The sounds can also be highlighted as a positive technical aspect of the game - everything sounds cool, from ambient noises to the music themes. In addition to that, Henry Rollins did a pretty good job providing voices. From our standpoint, it sounded like a decent and competent delivery of skilled voice acting, offering different layers to the main character.

The Xbox version of the game is coming out on June 23rd. We do not know exactly when the PC version is planned for launch. From what we heard, it could be out this September. Stay tuned for our full review of the game, folks!