Pictured: A badass hunter you do not get to play as during the game.
- If it's moving around, kill it. If it's not nailed down, steal itRed Hunter slogan
In Pursuit of Greed (alternate title, Assassinators) is a sci-fi First-Person Shooter developed by Mind Shear Software and published by Softdisk. Expectedly, given the time it was made, the game was one of many Doom clones from the mid-90s (it was in fact developed using a heavily modified alpha version of Doom's engine, used in an earlier game called ShadowCaster).
Set in the very, very, very distant future of 15392, an era dubbed the "third age of man", a legion of bounty hunters called the Red Hunter elite acquisition squad has been established, who operates by raiding alien vessels and looting planets and competing in campaigns to determine who's a better, more impressive criminal.
Five different mercenaries are available as player characters -
- Tobias Locke, An ex-human who's a Cyborg, cybernetic left eye and mechanical chest included;
- Theola Nom, a skimpily-clad Fembot from planet Dominatrix and part of The Smurfette Principle,
- Xith, a nimple Zollessian reptilian alien who favors bows,
- Aldus Kaden, a bull-headed Bovinarian Mooman who carries heavy, large-bore weapons, Badass Bandolier of shells included, and
- Specimen 7, a neanderthal-like Mutant.
You have the means - the power, the weapons - but, in the pursuit of greed, all you need is the desire...the desire to kill.
Welcome Aboard, Hunter.
- All There in the Manual: The various playable mercenaries' backstories isn't available in gameplay, but they do show up on their states in the character select screen. Which players will likely ignore or briefly glance through while checking out their stats and choosing between either a badass-looking cyborg or a fierce reptilian hunter.
- Arm Cannon: Specimen 7's default weapon is his gun-arm, while some mooks have weapons grafted in place of hands.
- Bag of Spilling: While you can keep weapons between sub-levels (e.g. prison 3 to prison 4), when transitioning between worlds (Penal Colony - Ristanak Temple) you lose all your equipment save for your basic firearms.
- Big Red Devil: A giant, red-skinned satan-like beast with a horned Skull for a Head shows up as the temple's mid-boss.
- Carnival of Killers: All five playable members of the Hunters belongs in one of these.
- Covers Always Lie: The 100% human male character who appears on all cover art somehow isn't in the actual game. Some fans have speculated that was Specimen-7, pre-mutation, but it's ambiguous.
- Dark Action Girl: Theola, the sole female playable bounty hunter, is a fembot version of the trope. There's also the warrior priestesses defending Ristanak who can put up quite a fight.
- Excuse Plot: The five playable characters' backstories are provided in two paragraphs of scrolling text in their introductory FMV, before getting swept under a rug. For gameplay they're thrown straight into kicking ass, with cutscenes between levels skippable without the players missing anything.
- Evil Gloating: You will let out an evil chuckle after obtaining a more powerful weapon, new grenades, or an upgrade. Have we mentioned that the player character's a criminal?
- Fragile Speedster: Taken to the extreme with Xinth the lizard - all his stats (speed, jumping) are at maximum except durability, which is a puny 20%!
- Jack of All Stats: Tobias the cyborg, expectedly being the closest the game has to a main character. On the character stat roster, he's 60% on Resistance, Speed, and Jumping Height.
- Penal Colony: The very first stage, Desarian Orbital Penal Colony, is one of these IN SPACE!... where your onscreen enemies are rioting prisoners and security personnel.
- Plasma Cannon: Plasma blasters are among the many weapon pickups for all the Hunters.
- Press X to Die:
- The second level of the first world features several airlocks. Activating one of these triggered a special animation and the Player Character had to restart the level.
- Later, in the second world, the player had a first battle with that world's boss. After his defeat he retired to his personal chamber. The following level featured this chamber, and if the player found it and wanted to pass the doors, another animation triggered with the resting boss and two of his henchwomen, the boss fried the player character with an energy ball, and the player had to restart the level.
- Proud Warrior Race Guy: Xith's tribe, the Zollessian reptilians, are hunters by birth, and appears to be a sci-fi version of Native Amerindians. His preference of using bows seems to further enforce the reference.
- Ridiculously Human Robots: Theola Nom is actually a gynoid and mechanical on the inside, though you really can't tell from a glance.
- Shock Stick: You can collect one in the penal colony stage for electrocuting enemies from close range. They were there for maintaining riots.
- Stripperiffic: In typical 90s-style sci-fi fashion, Theola's bounty hunter uniform is basically an armored two-piece thong swimsuit with some shoulder pads and belts. Same goes for the female mooks.
- Unwilling Roboticisation: Inverted with Tobias Locke's backstory; accordingly, he went into Willing Roboticisation to complete his initiation with the Loth Mal Esch clan, whose members are all cyborgs.
- Villain Protagonist: The player characters, and all members of the Red Hunter units, are space raiders and looters whom are proud of their jobs.
- Was Once a Man: According to Specimen 7's backstory, he used to be a human engineer working for the Janex Corp, but a malfunctioning birthing tank in one mission somehow turns him into a grotesque, feral monster. He eventually decides to abandon his human life behind and join the Hunters after realizing the combat potentials from his mutation.
