Impressions: Sir, You Are Being Hunted
Imagine if you will, you awake to find yourself in an unfamiliar land. You see a broken robot in front of you, a weird stone monument, and what looks like a meteorite in a small smoldering crater. The robot has some provisions for you and the meteorite fits magically into this monument in front of you. You know the world works like this because some voice in your head tells you it’s so. You’re then left to go and collect more meteorites and shove them in this statue to be able to then return home. How? That’s a good question…
That is the setup for Sir, You Are Being Hunted in a nutshell. It’s not the deepest story ever told, but it’s fun enough for me to have picked it up after reading the description. Come on, a semi-stealthy game about being hunted by robots with British accents, how cool is that?
Although “unfinished”, Sir, You Are Being Hunted doesn’t really play like it’s in Steam Early Access. There is nothing game breaking in the gameplay that I’ve noticed other than one aspect of the controls. The melee weapon I received on my first play through escapes me, but the point is more that the melee action was pretty rough. I could usually get the first hit in and after that the little robots would back-peddle right quick. The problem was that even if you kept pace with them, it seemed like their hit box ran faster than the visual representation of the robot did. I found myself having to run just past them and swing at the air behind them to get that killing blow. It was like leading an enemy with a rifle, but you were actually aiming at nothing to hit something.
I’ve loved everything else so far. The atmosphere is phenomenal. The day/night cycle adds creepiness to the game that really heightens the tension well while not striving to be scary. Visually Sir, You Are Being Hunted doesn’t seem to be fighting the graphic war with Battlefield 4, but is going for more the experience to entertain you.
You really don’t have anything to defend yourself with other than your wits and your legs. Until you get your first weapon, running and sneaking are your best friends. The stealth mechanic in this game works rather well the majority of the time, but these robots aren’t unobservant. You can’t just walk right in front of them even in tall grass. For the most part, you’d better be about 15+ feet in front of them in cover if you don’t want to be seen. If they do see you, the bullets fly like crazy. If two robots spot you, you’d better hope that there is some form of wall or tree you can put between you or your health will drop like mad.
Don’t forget to keep up your strength too. You’ve got to scavenge for weapons and ammo, but also food. Some of which isn’t the greatest too eat and sometimes you need to cook some meat. Cooking over an open fire though does grab attention so you’d better be quick.
After playing Sir, You Are Being Hunted for a few hours, I thought I saw most of what the game has to offer. I figured the only thing else I’d encounter is a change of scenery and maybe introduced into another form of robot or two. While I was right, I didn’t quite expect what I got.
I picked up Sir, You Are Being Hunted a few months ago and missed (what I’m guessing is) a Halloween event. When I was walking through some grass I heard something that stopped me cold. There was a whispering voice (like Cobra Commander was trying to scare you) saying “Behind you…” and “Over here…” (More pronounced like “Ohvah heyaah”.) I looked around and around and didn’t see anything. The voice kept following me and wouldn’t leave me alone. So now I’m getting freaked out and I turn a whole 180 degrees and see:
Seriously well played guys. It’s touches like this that give me the feeling that those in charge of making this game like to have fun with those who have dropped money on their game. It’s small, but it’s also proof that they are still working on this game and that it’s not going to stay in Early Access forever. I’m excited to see what this game is like in it’s complete form.
Final Score:
Do the British robots exclaim “Exterminate!” over & over? 🙂
They know a bit more than your average Dalek. Some are known to smoke pipes if that helps you like them more…