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Ed Hunter
Ed Hunter is the long-awaited computer game from Synthetic Dimensions, featuring a soundtrack of the all-time top 20 Iron Maiden songs as voted for by Iron Maiden fans. The game itself takes you on a chase through space and time, following Eddie to discover his ultimate objective.
GRAPHICS
The graphics are amazingly done, featuring many places and things that Iron Maiden fans will instantly recognise including settings from many of Maiden's album covers. The enemies are also well-done and incredibly life-like, especially in the way they react when shot. Each type of bad guy reacts differently depending on where they are shot. Some can be blown backwards, double over or even be vapourised by a shotgun blast. There is a great deal of graphic violence
SOUNDS
Needless to say, the soundtrack to the game is excellent also. Each level has a default Maiden track which complements the mood of that particular level and which repeats endlessly until you finish the level. This can become tedious when you are stuck on one level for hours, listening to the same song over and over. Although the game allows you to assign a different song to a level, there is still the limitation of just one song per level. The game's sound effects are well done each weapon has its own unique and convincingly realistic sound, and each bad guy has a different dying shriek.
GAMEPLAY
The gameplay of Ed Hunter is very different from what I had been expecting. This is not a first-person shooter like Doom or Duke Nuke'em. Instead, it is more of a shooting gallery where you can control only the aiming and firing. After each battle, the game moves you a little way farther into the 3-dimensional world and then pauses again for another battle. Occasionally objects appear which you can take by shooting them better weapons, healing, and occasionally the face of one of the Maiden guys which gives an extra life. Between levels are cut-scenes which help to explain the transitions between the various worlds in the game. When a level is successfully finished without dying you will have the option of starting the game at the following level. This sounds good, but is extremely difficult to achieve for most of the levels.
After spending many hours on each level, it becomes incredibly frustrating to be unable to finish them without dying. Most of them can be completed with only one or two deaths, but to do it without dying at all requires hours of practice during which time you begin to memorise where all the bad guys are about to appear. I feel that this amount of time and energy should not be necessary, especially for people such as myself who don't really care for shooter-style games. Many people bought Ed Hunter mainly because they are Iron Maiden fans and they deserve to see all of the levels even if they don't have the time and energy to finish every level without dying. Because of this, I am making available a level-unlocker for Ed Hunter which will make levels 16 immediately available. The unlocker merely updates the Windows registry and doesn't modify the Ed Hunter programme files in any way. Unfortunately even if you finish levels 6 and 7 without dying, they will not be saved and so the unlocker cannot work for them. The only way to reach level 7 and 8 is to fight your way there, and it will not be easy to accomplish (I couldn't do it without cheating).
Information taken from The Iron Maiden Commentary
