[typing]
You know, it's that time of year again,
at least around here.
The time of year where I want to
dive into something just a little bit creepy.
Maybe a little off-putting.
Kinda spooky.
You know, like old games
from companies that are nowadays
absolutely giant publishing houses.
Games like...
Night Hunter,
developed by Ubisoft Entertainment Software
and distributed by Electronic Arts in 1988,
originally for the Atari ST
and then for IBM PC compatibles as seen here.
And later seeing release on the Commodore Amiga,
Amstrad CPC and Sinclair ZX Spectrum.
Mmm, yeah...
That's some pretty eye-catching Nosferatu-inspired box art.
I can really feel it awakening the Dracula in me.
"Awaken the Dracula in you!"
"Thirty spine-chilling levels
and 100 horrifying scenes!"
"Possibility to save 10 different parts of the game."
Aw, man, that's some real possibility right there!
I wasn't quite sold on it until I read that.
Inside the box, you get the game
on four 5¼-inch double-density floppy disks,
a warranty card jointly supplied by EA and Ubisoft together,
which is just bizarre to think about nowadays,
and a black-and-white manual,
talking about multiple versions of the game,
as well as some broad information on the backstory
and overall bloodsucking objective.
You also get this orange registration card
which I think is awesome because...
I don't know. I just like crispy registration cards.
And when they're orange, that makes me happy.
You might think that also makes me a bit strange, but whatever.
Compared to someone with a balloon fetish,
it's really not that bad.
Night Hunter for DOS begins with some nocturnal-looking graphics mode
and joystick selection screens,
followed by a snazzy showing off of
16-color graphics and PC speaker music,
all of which is rather adorable
in that '80s DOS game kind of way.
♪♪
Then you get a menu that lets you load a saved game by pressing L,
or start a new game by pressing
A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K,
M, N, O, P... [fades out]
Right Shift, Left Shift, Tab or Space.
And now, prepare to awaken the Dracula in you
by waking up as Dracula
and wandering around his cozy little coffin room.
And if you have not read up on the control scheme by now,
you might be stuck in here for a moment, but that's okay.
At least you can laboriously polish your sword
while rats run around petrified.
Once you're through diddling around,
it's time to pick up that conspicuous yellow key,
unlock the door,
and go searching for fresh blood
and possibly hand lotion.
Night Hunter is a side-scrolling platformer,
without the side-scrolling or
any complex platforming, so, uh...
hmm...
Okay, let's try that again. Night Hunter is a game.
It has hunting and nighttime in it,
and it's one of the earlier games
where you play the villain instead of the hero,
and I have to say, that's pretty friggin' metal.
The basic gist is that you're Count Dracula,
of the Bram Stoker-inspired variety, and as such,
you're in search of necks to feed on
and medallions to take over the world with.
Of course, you've also got jerks like Professor Van Helsing
and his vampire-hating groupies out to ruin your day–
er, night.
So, naturally, the only way to get past them and get what you want
is to collect a bunch of keys
and useless inventory items.
Yeah, Night Hunter is one big fetch quest,
divided up into several looping areas
with increasing difficulty and an element of randomness.
You walk around left and right,
keeping a sharp eye out for five keys
that allow you to open the various doors in each level,
and one of three objects:
a scroll, a bottle, and a cross.
While all these seem a bit strange,
that last one is especially so,
seeing as religious symbols repel vampires.
No idea what Dracula needs with a cross, but hey,
maybe it's a Transylvanian version of exposure therapy.
I'm not gonna judge.
Anyway, other than the occasional irritatingly-hidden item,
this game of "find the random loot"
isn't much of a challenge,
at least on its own,
because what DOES bring the pain
is the amount of enemies on-screen and what they can do to you.
Most of them you can feed on and kill, if you get close enough,
but keep in mind that if you're close enough to feed,
they're probably close enough to stab you.
You've got witches, axemen, archers,
priests, and even freakishly strong birds
that'll snatch you up and carry you around
until they get bored and let go.
And because birds are jerks,
they'll usually drop you into a pond,
or a river,
which results in a watery grave,
since you skipped out on swimming lessons
to plan that whole world domination thing.
There are also cheap insta-death pitfalls that totally suck
and hardly look like anything until it's too late,
and this is one place where the transformation abilities come into play.
If you've got enough ambiguous magic juice saved up,
you can transform into a bat
that lets you move around more quickly
and cross otherwise uncrossable areas,
although you can't deal any damage this way.
You can also transform into a werewolf,
effectively giving you armor,
increased strength,
and enough hair to cause a phobia
of honey and chewing gum.
But any time you're hit with anything,
you transform back into plain Jane Count Dracky,
so usually, you'll just stay low
and move as carefully as possible,
since you typically can't get hit when crouching.
Saving your game only happens at the end of each level,
and seeing as you only have a handful of lives,
getting cocky will usually lead
to an archer using your flesh as a pin cushion
or a bird whisking you away to the land of yelling at your computer monitor
and smashing your keyboard.
Not only that, but you can only perform
your pitiful prized pilfering at night,
which makes a ton of sense,
seeing as the game isn't "Day Prey," it's "Night Hunter."
And if you stay up too long,
you turn to ash and leave quite the mess behind.
But if you'd prefer not to look like a smoker's trash can,
you can always enter the crypt on each level
and sleep until the moon rises once again.
Once you reach the end of a certain level,
you'll run into Van Helsing himself,
and chances are he'll just kill you
because Hugh Jackman is the man.
But if you make it past him, good for you!
Here, have more collecting!
And ducking! And annoying birds!
Suffice to say, Night Hunter is astoundingly repetitious.
And next to the annoyingly cheap deaths,
that's probably its biggest downfall.
Sure it helps that the placement of items and enemies
are randomized to a degree,
and the sporadic change of scenery is nice,
but the non-stop collecting and dodging
and running away from angry mobs gets tiresome.
And the fact the game relies on screen-by-screen gameplay
does have an effect on the playability of the game,
although that was addressed in the later Amiga version.
In fact, all sorts of things were fixed and added by the time that version came around,
as well as enhancements to graphics and sound
as you would expect on such an awesome machine.
But the monotony remains, and that's kind of unfortunate,
because I really do love the idea of playing Dracula.
Traipsing around dark locales,
chomping on dudes, then watching them turn into skeletons
never really gets old.
And I love seeing early games
from companies that are absolute powerhouses today, like Ubisoft.
Sadly, I can't say it's a game that's held up objectively well
in terms of lasting appeal and playability,
but that didn't stop ME from getting into it.
I played Night Hunter,
I accepted it for what it was,
and I LIKED it.
Eh, then again, I also like to sniff orange computer game registration cards,
so take from that what you will.
♪♪
And if you would like some more reviews on old games that you can sniff,
then you're in the right place!
You can look at a bunch of them that I have made previously–
there's a couple on the screen right here that you can click on–
or you can just go to my channel and browse,
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So that's an option, too.
Either way, thank you very much for watching.