Enemy machine captured. Ready to kick some ass!
"Some kill for SPORT. Some kill for GLORY. You kill for POWER."
— Tagline
Machine Hunter is a 1997 Console Game designed for the PlayStation.
In the distant future, mankind have become completely dependent on machines, and robots are now a part of society. But an alien invasion occurs, with humanity on the losing side, and soon the planet is overrun by alien invaders. Worst of all, machines originally designed to serve mankind has been reverse-engineered, thanks to a deadly machine-based virus, to serve the invaders instead.
But all hope is not lost. For humanity have advanced to a stage where certain individuals, codenamed Machine Hunters, exists. Individuals which can turn themselves into particles of electrical energy, and inhabit machines - you are one of the Machine Hunters, and it's up to you to liberate the human race by recapturing machine units and fighting against assorted alien enemies across nine action-packed levels, leading from archeological ruins to cities and laboratories, before confronting the aliens in their asteroid base.
Are you ready to save humanity?
See also Loaded, another game from 2 years earlier played from a top-down perspective.
Machine Tropers:
- After the End: The game takes place in the aftermath of an alien invasion where humans are on the losing side.
- Airborne Mook: The winged aliens that attacks you on the rooftop and asteroid stage. They can be shot down when they've descended to the same elevation as you, or if you are in the Type-6 robot, be blasted out of the sky by homing missiles.
- A.I. Is a Crapshoot: Subverted; the robots only turn on humans because of an alien virus that affects only machines.
- Aliens Are Bastards: not only did they invade earth, but they're using their virus to create a robot uprising and hijack human technology for themselves!
- Alien Blood: Only for the giant grubs, which bleeds green. Regular alien footsoldiers bleeds red, much like humans.
- Alien Invasion: The basic premise of the game. With you, a heroic Machine Hunter, being part of a La Résistance unit dedicated to eliminate the alien leaders.
- Aquatic Mook: Swamp mutants, which attacks you from underwater by launching projectiles. They can be hard (but not impossible) to hit if you don't have a Type-6 robot equipped with homing missiles.
- Attack Drone: In the later levels, you can collect a sphere-like floating robot that orbits around you, and fire shots at enemies you're aiming at. It's slower than the spiked ball and doesn't kill alien soldiers on the spot simply by touching (although it does cause some degree of damage against the Giant Mook aliens), so it's gun basically compensates for it's lack of speed.
- Big Creepy-Crawlies: The hospital and sewer levels are infested by giant cockroaches, while the swamps are filled with oversidzed bugs. These are usually the weakest enemy Machine Hunters can face, however.
- Bubblegloop Swamp: The swamp level, basically.
- David vs. Goliath: The boss enemies are frequently giants, that dwarves the heroes. Such as the Flying Saucer and the Tentacled Final Boss.
- Deflector Shields: One of the many power-ups available, which surrounds the player in a shield that reflects all attacks.
- The Door Slams You: A lethal version; closing doors can actually crush enemies, and more often than not (especially in the mines and hospital level) any unfortunate alien mook will get grounded into a red pulp by doors (the death animation is akin to getting hit by grenades - all that's left is a red puddle). Players are known to trick alien soldiers into following them behind doors, and watching the aliens getting crushed into a pulp (rather than shooting them) just for shits and giggles.
- Everything Fades: Averted, the corpses of alien soldiers you killed will remain on the spot, even if you teleport away and back again to re-explore an already completed area. Heck, even the bloody footprints (or tracks, if you happen to be inhabiting a wheel-based robot) from walking over puddles of alien blood will remain on the same spot!
- Everything Trying to Kill You: Yep.
- Flying Saucer: The city rooftop level culminates with a boss battle against one of these, which spends the whole fight circling around you while launching missiles. You'll need to shoot down the saucer's deflector shields and inflict enough damage causing the saucer to crash in order to win.
- Foul Flower: An enemy that only appears in the swamp level. The flowers can spit acid blobs at you.
- Giant Mook: The alien's forces includes insectoid-looking behemoths that absolutely dwarves your player, even if you're inhabiting a machine. They also use deadlier ranged attacks compared to footsoldiers, such as purple alien giants who blasts wide arcs of acid (later the game will throw red variants that breathes fire instead) or yellow alien brutes that blasts electrical energy balls that homes in on you.
- The Goomba: The lowest-ranked alien soldiers are clad in orange, attacks with simple pistols, and tends to show up in the earlier levels. They are also terrible shots and don't really pose too much of a challenge. Later levels will have green or white units which are considerably more dangerous.
- Gorn: So, so, so much gorn. And so glorious.
- Grenade Launcher: The Type-2 Sweeper robots, initially designed for cleaning purposes, have been reprogrammed as a weapon, capable of firing grenades using launchers installed on it's top.
- The Greys: The alien invaders you regularly encounter resembles typical greys.
- Guns Akimbo: When on foot (ergo, not inhabiting a machine), the Machine Hunter use dual pistols as primary weapons.
- Half the Man He Used to Be: In the hospital, you can encounter Mutant humans in the morgue, corpses which have been experimented upon by aliens. They are missing the lower half of their body and comes at you by crawling with their arms. Yeah, it's as disgusting as it sounds. You shooting them can be considered a Mercy Kill of sorts.
- Homing Projectile:
- The Type-6 Enforcement Robots you can capture fires homing missiles when upgraded to the max.
- For the aliens, the yellow alien brutes attack you with electrical spheres that follows you. It's possible to prevent them from doing so by attacking from up-close, however.
- Invincibility Power-Up: These are rare and hard to get, but obtaining it allows your Machine Huinter to become invincilbe to all attacks (except pitfalls and deathtraps) for 25 seconds.
- Invulnerable Civilians: The hostages you need to rescue in every level cannot be harmed, either by alien enemies or friendly fire from you.
- Job Title: Your character is one of the Machine Hunters destined to save humanity by recapturing machines to fight back against the aliens.
- Land Mine Goes "Click!": One of your power-ups. When used, you drop a landmine right in front of where you stood, which goes off in five seconds, causing massive damage to surrounding enemies. Unfortunately, Splash Damage applies and you risk hurting yourself when using these mines, so back off once you activated one of these!
- Ludicrous Gibs: Happens all the time to alien footsoldiers. If an alien gets shot off a ledge, they will explode into a pile of red sauce with No Body Left Behind. Hit by grenades or the spiked ball, and what's left of them are just a carpet of red. It's glorious.
- Mechanical Insects: The very first type of machine players can encounter and capture, early in the ruins level, the Type-1 Exterminator Robot which resembles a Spider Tank.
- Mecha-Mooks: The Robots, initially, after being captured and used by the alien invaders against humanity. Until you managed to capture them back thanks to your Machine Hunter powers.
- More Dakka: Type-7 Military Robots comes equipped with a machine gun that fires on full auto. And when upgraded, it becomes two guns that turns the entire area into Bullet Hell - for the aliens!
- A Molten Date with Death: The first (ruins) and last (asteroid) levels contain Lava Pits. Naturally, these are the spots you can encounter Giant Mook enemies, which are slow-moving and if you happen to be in a captured robot (very likely), can be pushed backwards. You do the math. And yes, it's awesome when it happens.
- Mundane Made Awesome: Most of the robots are originally made for domestic purposes before they're weaponized after being infected with the alien virus. Notably, the Type-1 (designed for pest extermination), Type-2 (based on a vacuum cleaner, used for cleaning city streets), Type-3 (a clown made to entertain children), Type-8 (construction) and the like.
- Mutant: These enemies tends to show up occasionally in the hospital level. You can find unfortunate humans who had become mindless mutants that attacks you on sight, or aliens who experimented themselves so their arms becomes massive pincers.
- No Body Left Behind: If an alien soldier is shot while on a ledge / off a platform, they explode into a fine spray of red.
- One-Hit Kill: The Spike Ball can kill anything with a single hit, including giant alien grubs and all the robot types. The best part is that it's actually one of the first powerup players can obtain.
- One-Man Army: It's usually you against an entire platoon of alien footsoldiers, and you kill them by the dozens.
- One-Wheeled Wonder: Type-9 Surveillance Robots travels around on one wheel, and are surprisingly fast despite appearance.
- Player Mooks: Enemy robots becomes these the moment they're captured by the players.
- Power Pincers: The alien mutants in the hospital level attacks you with their pincers.
- Power-Up Letdown: The Type-3 Entertainer robots, which uses... a dinky little pistol with slow firing rate, and is barely faster than the player when on foot. It is introduced after Type-1 Exterminators, which has dual machine-guns, and Type-2 Sweepers, which had a Grenade Launcher. Expect players to groan if they accidentally inhabit a Type-3 while piloting any other Type, since jumping from one robot to another will result in the old robot's self-destruction, therefore wasting an otherwise good robot for the Type-3. It's easily one of the most useless robot units Machine Hunters can possess, and most players will only, only inhabit a Type-3 if the robot they're using is damaged beyond repair (and then ditch the Type-3 the instant a better robot is available).
- Reverse Shrapnel: The Spiked Ball power-up is... a powerful spiked ball that orbits around the players. Aliens hit by this weapon gets pulverized into a glob of red sauce instantly, and it even works on Giant Mook enemies and the most powerful robotic opponents.
- Run the Gauntlet: A variant, but in the final level, before facing the alien boss, players will have to face ALL previous Robot types, from Type-1 to Type-9, one at a time, before confronting the boss. However, players are likely to have captured an enemy robot beforehand, so they can easily skip from one robot after another, ditching their robot by possessing a defeated enemy (well... except Type-3. Anything but Type-3. Because frankly it sucks) until they're down to one last robot, preferably the most powerful of the bunch, which will come in helpful in the upcoming Final Boss battle.
- Soul-Powered Engine: In the game's opening cinematic, this is the method used by Machine Hunters to capture defeated robots; their body physically transforms into an aura of electrical energy that posses the machine, regenerating the machine's health to maximum and allowing them to control the machines against enemy foes.
- Space Base: The second-to-last and last levels, basically, where you teleport your way from the rooftops to the alien invaders' asteroid base. Alone. Good thing you're a seasoned alien-killing veteran at this point!
- Tank Goodness: The city level, which has giant tanks as enemies (captured and reverse-engineered by the invaders) that must all be destroyed in order to succeed the mission.
- Teleportation: Each and every level has teleporters, which can transport Machine Hunters (that is, you) from one location to another. But it seemingly works only on Machine Hunters - alien invaders attempting to enter the portal will suffer a Portal Cut that turns them into a gory red splat instead.
- Tentacled Terror: The Final Boss, leader of the aliens, which is a humungous tentacled monster with tentacles for limbs, and two Combat Tentacles protuding from it's front, besides periodically laying exploding eggs all over the place.
- Timed Mission: Some levels are timed and can only be completed by exiting before the timer reaches zero. For instance, Level 2 have players installing a Time Bomb, and then fleeing back to the exit they came from within a certain given period - fail to leave in time, players lose a life and the timer resets to maximum.
- Top-Heavy Guy: The Type-8 Construction robots have absolutely huge upper bodies with wrist-mounted rocket launchers, and spindly legs (smaller than a human's proportion) to compensate.
- Unique Enemy: Several levels have enemies that are exclusive only in that particular mission, and nowhere else the entire game. For instance, swamp lizards in the swamp level, giant roaches in the sewers, mutants in the hospital, etc.
- Zerg Rush: Expect to fight alien footsoldiers by the dozens in later levels.
