Hunted: The Demon’s Forge Reviews

It’s been a while since we did our last round-up of impressions from the press for inXile Entertainment’s action-packed dungeon crawler, Hunted: The Demon’s Forge, so we have quite a few new reviews ready for you to read.

gamrReview, 6.3/10.

Hunted: The Demon’s Forge had me excited for a great cooperative fantasy game that I could play with my friends that all grew up playing Magic: The Gathering and Dungeons & Dragons. What I got was an 8-10 hour snoozefest in a dark, dingy, uninspired fantasy world. If you want that great cooperative fantasy game, look elsewhere.

Gamefreaks, 6/10.

Hunted is plagued by this sort of niggling issue all the way through pieces of the puzzle that don’t quite fit, and eventually add up to a decidedly unpolished experience. The visuals are nice enough, but often muddy and lacking any individual design to set it apart from the crowd. The narrative, music and characters are all entertaining enough while managing to be totally forgettable. Combat is fun and provides a visceral sense of carving nasties to gooey bits, but it never moves far beyond that point. It’s hard not to get the feeling that if the developers had focused more on a few of their good ideas instead of trying to do everything for everyone then Hunted would have lived up to its promise of being a melding of fantasy and action. As it stands, it’s little more than a nice way to kill time.

Australian Gamer has a scoreless video review, here’s the written summary:

If you see it going cheap, I recommend you pick it up, but what ever you do, do not play this with local co-op – it is worse than the voice acting!

TechDay, 7.5/10.

Hunted: The Demon’s Forge is far from a bad game. It’s a refreshing change of pace from the many shooters that are flooding the video game market today. The main characters are very charismatic and the story is engaging. Too bad its average graphics and glitches prevent it from being a more enjoyable experience.

XXL Gaming, 70/100.

Overall, is you are a person that really enjoys co-op gaming experiences then this title will be right up your alley. A decent storyline will hold your attention and the ability to work together with a buddy will definitely be gratifying whether it’s just getting through a level or wiping out a horde of enemies. While the game is brought to us under the Bethesda umbrella, I am not sure I can chalk this one up to being one of their best titles. It’s not bad by any means, but it’s not superb either. Maybe it’s just the anticipation of Skyrim only a few months away. Either way, Hunted is a decent co-op experience for any co-op fans out there. So at the very least check it out and you may end up really enjoying it.

GameShark, B-.

There is certainly a level of monotony here and the level design runs from clever to painfully linear and stale, but I got exactly what I wanted out of Hunted. I didn’t expect a game of the year candidate but I desired, and received an old school hack and slash adventure where I could play with a friend and discuss the proper way to handle a battle situation. If you felt burned by the recent release of Daggerdale and want a better rpg combat alternative, you could do much worse then Hunted: The Demon’s Forge.

ABC’s Good Game Stories, 10.5 out of 20.. rubber chickens?

BAJO
There were some thrilling moments – running from that giant spider was pretty hectic… and I enjoyed my time down in some of those dungeons… but the overall level design really let it down. I think this kind of action-adventure can be done well, but I just don’t think Hunted nailed it. I’m giving it 5 rubber chickens.

HEX
The art and design were a real let down for me – but, you know. that’s really a matter of personal taste. More so it was the fact that there just wasn’t much story, and the gameplay itself just felt really labored… and there were too many little nitpicky things that frustrated me enough to make me want to put it down. When you weren’t around, Bajo – I found it REALLY hard to find someone to play co-op with me for longer than ten minutes. I didn’t hate this, I but I didn’t love it either – which is a real surprise from Bethesda. I’m giving it 5.5.

Den of Geek, 2/5.

It’s a real shame, and I was hoping that Hunted would offer so much more. In the end, it simply delivers below par hack and slash action and very light RPG and co-op bolt-ons.

If you and a friend are bored and have some time to kill, you might find some enjoyment here, but this enjoyment certainly won’t last that long, and you’ll soon move on to bigger and better things.