Zone Hunter
1994 video game
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Zone Hunter[a] is a virtual reality first-person rail shooter video game developed and published in conjunction by Taito and Virtuality Group in 1994 for arcades, though the former is not credited in-game.[2]
| Zone Hunter | |
|---|---|
Attract title screen | |
| Developers | Taito, Virtuality Group |
| Publishers | Taito, Virtuality Group |
| Designer | Andy Smith |
| Programmers | Jason Woodward Tarique Naseem |
| Artist | Mark Hardisty |
| Composer | Mike Adams |
| Platform | Arcade |
| Release |
|
| Genres | First-person shooter, rail shooter |
| Modes | Single-player, multiplayer |
| Arcade system | 2000SU[1] |
Gameplay
Zone Hunter is a first-person shooter, and was one of the first VR arcade games.[3]
Development and release
Zone Hunter was co-developed by the UK-based virtual reality company Virtuality Group and the Japanese arcade specialist Taito. It was the first title in Virtuality's second generation (2000 series) of products introduced in 1994.[4][5][6][7][8][9] It was produced at the same time as Sega's virtual reality Model 1 arcade game TecWar,[b] which was also a joint effort with Virtuality.[10][11] Taito conceived Zone Hunter and worked alongside Virtuality as a deal to bring the game into Japanese arcade markets under their banner.[2] Due to low sales in the region, Taito terminated the deal between them and Virtuality, with the latter opening their own office in Japan afterwards.[2]
A port for the Atari Jaguar was announced and planned to be released alongside the Jaguar VR headset peripheral at launch.[12][13][14][15][16][17] A demo was created for demonstration purposes.[18][19][20] However, neither the port nor the peripheral were ever released due to problems between Virtuality and Atari Corporation in their deal.[21][22]
Reception
| Publication | Score |
|---|---|
| Computer and Video Games | 82/100[23] |
| Next Generation |   [3] |
| Sega Pro | 8/10[24] |
Next Generation said that the game was neither as fun or playable as Doom, nor as "good looking" as Virtua Cop.[3] Reviewing the game at Sega World, Sega Pro rated the game eight out of ten and concluded that "Virtuality's hard work and R&D is finally paying off" despite it not having "the final stroke of realism to put you in a Lawnmower Man-esque situation."[24] Brian Osserman of Intelligent Gamer commented, "The game is fun, but it is highly questionable whether it is worth $5 a shot."[25]
