A sci-fi dungeon-crawling hack n' slash, er, gun n' bash game, Bounty Hounds boasts amazing detail in character design, many of which feature unique vestments of armor and weaponry that give them genuine individuality, as opposed to just a couple of good-looking cookie cutter characters shown in multiples. What's more, the game is all about collecting items, power-ups and enhancements, donning what you like (pawning off the rest) so character looks change but remain amazing as the game progresses.
Perhaps hogging a lot of PSP processing power to do this, the actual space dungeons being crawled are pretty dark and drab. It's an easily forgiven trade-off, however, as gameplay is mainly about those aforementioned characters having at it in one glorious firefight after another, because aliens are a persistent bunch, apparently, with more disposable grunts than they know what to do with... Anyway, the game manages many an on-screen horde without compromising any detail nor showing any signs of bogging down, though you'd swear it should, because so many PSP games do, but not Bounty Hounds.
Still, it's just a dungeon-crawling hack n' slash game; the story might be good if you could translate the broken English and subconsciously absorb incessant incongruities that might reveal a point to it all (beyond the obvious). Otherwise, Bounty Hounds is firmly frivolously fun; a great looking, exceedingly hack-able and slash-able distraction that isn't going to absorb you for hours at a time, but that's what portable gaming is all about anyway, so there you go.
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