For those who are familiar with Jack Wade and his machismo style headhunting ways, they may be a little stunned to see how he has evolved in the 20 years after the original story took place. Now a bitter and jaded headhunter, who sports a rather cheap Dirty Harry impersonation, he runs into a woman who he deems to have potential as a headhunter like himself. In the “adopt a hero” fashion of Thief and Batman, Jack takes on the new protégé named Leeza X. In one of the continuing themes in this game, it turns out that many years ago Jack was the one who supposedly gave her old man a dirt nap. After searching through Jacks files, Leeza learns that not only did Jack not kill him but he is still alive in the city known as “Below”.

After the last game, it seems there was a huge quake that rocked the city and it was divided into two sections. Below, being the underground portion of the city is where the derelicts and degenerates of society call home, as the corporations and the upper class culture call the above ground part of the city, known as “Above”, home. As the game starts, you take the role of Leeza X and you are called in to investigate activity in a weapons factory. As it turns out, this is just the beginning of what leads into a twisted plot of betrayal, destruction and the seeming attack from Below to take over Above. While the game progresses and gets more in depth, you soon realize everything is not as it seems and no one is to be trusted.

When you fire up Headhunter: Redemption in your console, the first thing you will notice is the soft blurring effect that some games such as Star Wars: BattleFront and Prince of Persia: TSoT use. This creates a soft warm feeling with the graphics as it makes hard edges and jagged lines nonexistent. The effect is for some, a turn off and a gimmick to make less than average graphics look better, but it will really all depend if you are a fan of the style or not on how you will perceive the graphics. If you’re not, well unfortunately there isn’t much at all that you can do about it. Character animations are pretty much what you would expect. They aren’t the most incredibly smooth movements ever created but they definitely aren’t bad. The voice acting and cut scenes are also a welcome surprise. The dialogues between Jack and Leeza are very well done and the smart ass comments that both of them seem to constantly dish out keep the humor high.

As for the game play itself, the game is actually quite lengthy due to the puzzles found in it. Almost every level requires you to find a power cell or a transmitter or some other object to open a door or a hatch and let you continue. This usually involves using your IRIS goggles to see invisible objects, such as weak walls that you need to blow up or scan to be able to interact with them. Back tracking through levels is not unheard of in this game and you will actually do it very frequently. Not to mention that there are actual IQ test puzzles in the game in the form of Code Breakers that you must solve as well. There are certain doors throughout the levels that require you to have a matching level of access to get through. You get this level of access by breaking the codes on the corresponding disks you find. The codes are a series of patterned images where you will need to enter the last image that completes the pattern. These codes and tests really slowed down the action and flow of the game. Who wants to be doing homework while playing a video game?

Although you start the game as Leeza, about half way through the game you will switch to Jack and then alternate back and forth from then on. The controls for Jack sadly are the exact same as they are for Leeza and the weapons, although called different names, are essentially the exact same as well. A different set of weapons or different set of moves would have been a nice thing to have to make the switching of characters a little more enjoyable or purposeful. Although each of the players do possess the skill of stealth, where you can spend your entire time playing the game by sneaking around and killing enemies from behind, the run and gun approach is more welcome.

With a unique cross hair that automatically targets enemies, but will bounce around them for a few seconds until it settles down square on your target. This is both a frustrating and an intriguing aiming system. Frustrating since that the cross hair would not always go where you wanted it, even when using the right stick to pick your target, it would cycle through and miss the one you wanted. Although it only happened a few times, dying in this game is not something you want to have happen. Save points are few and far between and if you do happen to die along the mission route, chances are you will have to start very far back from where it is that you bought the farm. Although this does make you watch your step and plan your moves, one screw up, especially from the aiming system, and you’ll have a controller through your TV screen.

If the thought of having to solve puzzles constantly and running around the same level three or four times, with bosses that are very repetitive doesn’t float your boat, then you may want to take a pass on this game, but if you want a game that has a good deal of action, has a rather in-depth story line, and one of the more feisty main characters in a while, then Headhunter: Redemption could be what you are looking for.