To be honest, when I saw this game, I was stunned for a moment. Survival Hunter, produced by Taoteng Interactive, is free with no in-app purchases and can be run on Android 5.0. It's not easy to come across such a simple shooting game these days.
I was one of the early ones to play mobile games, starting with Snake and Arkanoid in the Symbian era, and later various small games on the Java platform. There was no high-definition picture quality or open world at that time. The mobile phone screen was less than 3 inches, and the pixels were visible to the naked eye, but they were just having fun. I still remember when I used Nokia N73 to play side-scrolling shooting games. I had to press the buttons to make sparks. I could die dozens of times in a level, but I just couldn't put it down.
The game Survival Hunter reminds me of that time. The operation interface is clean and neat, without a bunch of fancy function buttons filling the screen. Running, jumping, sprinting, reloading, aiming, shooting, every action responds crisply. It's not a shame, but this feel is definitely silky smooth among a bunch of so-called 3A masterpieces. In particular, the continuity of sprinting and jumping reminds me of the exhilarating feeling of playing combos in "Subway Surfing" back then, but the shooting feedback is much more exciting than parkour. 😂
Each level of the game is carefully designed, not just a random pile of monsters. You need to consider how to move, when to fight, when to hide, and even use some scene mechanics. The combat method is also flexible. If you like long-range precise strikes, just aim slowly. If you like exciting close-quarters combat, it's not a waste. The fault tolerance rate for shield counterattack and dodge is just right. The loot system further stimulates my collecting habit. Every time I pass a level, I look forward to dropping something good, just like opening a blind box.
In the current mobile game market, there are either all kinds of krypton gold withdrawals, or heavy gameplay to persuade players to quit. Before you start playing the game, you will first see a bunch of recharge pop-ups. To be honest, there are very few games like Survival Hunter that are free to play and have solid content. Although the picture quality is certainly not as good as those of large mobile games, gameplay is something that sometimes cannot be obtained by just stacking money.
I used to say that whether a game is fun or not has nothing to do with the era, but everything to do with the sincerity of the production team. From Symbian to Android, from pixel blocks to Unreal Engine, technology is changing, but the energy that can make people forget to eat and sleep is always there. The game Survival Hunter is like telling me: regardless of whether the graphics are outdated or not, if the gameplay is exciting enough, it will still make people addicted. Old guys, if you want to find the pure shooting pleasure of those days, you can try this. 😎