Murderous Pursuits

While the idea of cleverly hunting and eliminating opponents is different from other multiplayer games, the bland play here quickly starts getting stale over multiple rounds. In Murderous Pursuits, your basic goal is to kill more players than your opponents, but how you do it matters just as much. Obviously, your first challenge is figuring out which of the other characters is your target. The game only indicates whether your intended target is on the same floor as you and where their general direction is on a compass. Picking them out is much harder than it might sound, because each stage is filled with countless doubles of each possible character you can play as -- many wandering about or busying themselves by appreciating art on the walls, talking to each other, or taking in the view. At any moment you can blend in with them, and so can your target, but your overall goal is to figure out who you're hunting and take them down without letting them know you're coming for them. After each successful target elimination, you're brought back and paired up against another player to do it all again.

In games like this, which live or die by how popular they are, it's expected that more wrinkles and changes will come. One of the game's biggest turn-offs is the inclusion of a bomb that blinds you momentarily. This can send all of your hunting and scheming down the tubes, which can feel unfair in a game that tries to be balanced for players. Beyond that, the largest issue is that, while it's fun, there's not a whole lot to the gameplay. Some stages (like the engine house) are set in close quarters and require even more careful movements, but it's still the same basic dynamic over and over. Fortunately, as far as multiplayer games go, Murderous Pursuits is economically priced, is not overly gory, and is a different kind of game with rewarding strategy, as long as you don't expect to play it for marathon sessions.