Well, I've already got a head start on this month theme, but I'll officially inaugurate the event with a very obscure game. It's
Черная Метка (literally 'Black Label') aka
The Hunt. I've beaten it on the highest difficulty setting (Hard).
The Hunt was developed by the Russian company Orion Games and released in 2008. You might know Orion Games from such uh, classics as
The Stalin Subway dilogy and
Dusk 12. The Hunt is a first person brawler that bears more than a passing resemblance to
Condemned: Criminal Origins. While the game runs on their in-house Orion engine,
The Hunt seems to have a similar penchant for urban environments and even the combat animations share a striking resemblance with
Condemned. I wonder why that is...
The game is an adaptation of the eponymous novel by Andrey Dashkov: the story takes place in the Moscow of 2020. In order to cope with the growing gang criminality and street violence, the government decides to
institutionalize violence and creates a TV show where a victim gets chosen at random and receives a
Black Label. Their address, phone number, workplace and all kind of information are made public and there's a big reward for whoever gets to the designated prey first, so the victim has no other choice but to run for their life as criminals from all over the country assume the role of
Hunters. This happens under the careful scrutiny of an enthusiastic audience, as flying camera bots keep a close watch on the action and even give tips as to how best entertain the public (
Don't look in the camera, be natural! or
More violence, please!).
The game has you playing as the newly selected victim: a 30-years-old web designer called Nikolay Kamolov, who gets saved just in time by an anonymous call as his apartment gets stormed and is led to a group of government opponents who wants to put an end to
The Hunt. As for the gameplay, Orion Games tried to add a few twists to the
Condemned formula by introducing stealth elements and an inventory. The game even features vending machines where you can buy medpacks, mines and armor - obviously, you'll need the money, which you'll have to look for around the map and occasionally gets dropped by enemies.
The Hunt also comes with terminals where you can unlock doors, check the security cameras and even accept special challenges (
Kill the next three enemies with a stealthy kill or
Kill the next five enemies without receiving damage). Unfortunately, the stealth is quite barebones and situational and the enemies either see you or they don't: there's no middle ground.
The Hunt is one of the most Russian games I've ever played - and I don't mean that in a bad way. There's something that screams
modern day Russia about it: something about the charming but decadent environs and fake glamour. It's not something you see often in video games, as they usually prefer to focus on the Communist era. While the game certainly doesn't have the production value of a triple A game, some of the environments can actually rival
Condemned in design and originality: the grotesque amusement park level comes to mind. Unfortunately, later levels feature some of the blandest office environments I've ever seen in a video game - it's a mixed bag.
Much like
Condemned, the game comes with a reasonable checkpoint system as well as quicksaving. Unlike
Condemned, your character doesn't have a stamina bar and can run at will. The blocking was also made to be a bit more forgiving and timing doesn't need to be as precise. I found the game to be slightly harder, mostly because I wasn't given a taser gun this time around, but all enemy encounters become somewhat trivial once you get the hang of using mines. It's also just as short (4-6 hours). Again, while I didn't encounter any game-breaking bug,
The Hunt doesn't quite have the polish of the games it tries to imitate, but it makes up for it thanks to its unique setting and charm. As stated by a genuine Russian player:
This is the first Russian-made game that actually feels like a game. I don't know about that, but it probably is the best game made by Orion. It's a shame it's not available on Steam and GOG.
Finally, it seems that aside from Russia, the game was only released in French-speaking countries, where it went by the name
Traqué. Apparently, that version features French text and English voice acting, but there is an
English fan-translation for the text, too. I played it in Russian myself, so I can't vouch for it.
I give this game 7 Black Labels out of 10.