Follow the white rabbit! (Manhunt (PS2))

Member Name: Stunt 101

Product:	Manhunt (PS2)
Date:	08/07/07 (153 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Excellent visuals; intense music and ace voice acting; top notch gameplay; good replay value.

Disadvantages: Not for the squeamish.

-(Game Information)-
Name: Manhunt
Publisher: Rockstar Games
Developer: Rockstar North
Genre: Stealth/ Third-Person Shooter
Release Date: Nov 21, 2003
Age Rating: 18+ for Blood and gore, intense violence and strong language
Number of Players: 1
Online: No
Developer Site: www.rockstarnorth.com
Product Site: www.rockstargames.com/manhunt
Memory Card Usage: 120KB minimum

-(History)-
Rockstar Games-if you’re a gamer you must know who these guys are. They are one of the most controversial, boundary pushing developers ever. Yet, you can not deny they make excellent games. While there biggest franchise is the controversial Grand Theft Auto series, they have made many other great games, including Manhunt; the Midnight Club series; the Max Payne series; Red Dead Revolver-the list goes on!

Manhunt was, like its cousin GTA, very controversial. It was much more violent and in fact nearly got banned after it apparently caused someone to kill his friend after playing the game, though the police denied the link between the game and the murder. But the Manhunt controversy hasn’t ended here, as Rockstar planned to release its sequel this Friday but the BBFC refused to give it a rating, which basically banned it from the UK. The Irish Board followed after, and it got banned in the US after it got an Adult only rating (the highest rating in the US) and Sony/Nintendo prevented it from being on the system.

-(The Story)-
In Manhunt the tale is that James Earl Cash, the person you’ll be playing as, is about to be executed for an unknown crime. Except rather than giving him a lethal injection, they gave him an injection which only put him to sleep. When he awakens, he finds a headset and a creepy man called Starkweather talking to him on the other side. He basically tells him if you help me then I’ll help you. Seems the help that Starkweather wanted was for Cash to go around killing people for a Snuff Film. Now, Cash must sneak and kill if he’s going to survive. I was actually really intrigued by the plot and I was hoping it would go in lots of different directions, but that’s not to be sadly. If didn’t really go anywhere and there were little twists or turns. But I was still intrigued to see what happens in the end, and though it seemed like a cliché, if you play the game you’ll understand why it wasn’t.

-(The Controls)-
The controls are basic. You move around with the left analog stick and control the camera with the right analog stick. The right stick can also switch targets while on lock-on. Locking on can be done with the L1 button. The R1 button makes you sprint. Strafing can be done with L2/R2 buttons and if you hold them together you can quickly do a 180-degree turn. The X Button is used for the light attack and firing the weapon as well as throwing lures. The square button does a strong attack and reloads the weapon. To do a stealth kill you press or hold either the Square or X button.

A unique thing you can use is the USB headset in the game as well. I borrowed a headset from a mate to test this out. What you use this for is to listen to Starweather right in your ear, as well as causing distraction with your voice rather than using bottles or bricks. It’s a unique idea, but sadly it was a little annoying as if you breathed heavily or coughed or anything like that the guards will know you’re there, which caused some accidental deaths. If you don’t cough much and can breath quietly then this is cool but if not you may want to avoid using this.

-(The Gameplay)-
Manhunt has two types of gameplay:stealth and third-person shooting. Both of them come together really well and the tense atmosphere add to make a truly superb gaming experience. The stealth gameplay is like Splinter Cell and Hitman, only quite stripped down. It plays like a game of hide and seek, as you use the shadow to hide and sneak up behind enemies to kill them. If you’re caught, you can fight them up front or run and hide. Its pretty brutal as the combat is up close, and the stealth kills (or executions) are plain violent.

With the stealth gameplay, there are many places to hide (mostly in dark places) and weapons to use. You basically hide, wait for an opening and kill. The way executions work is that you use a stealth weapons (which include bats, wires, knives, glass shards and more weapons of the like) to do this. You sneak up behind enemies, press or hold down one of the two attack buttons and you perform a kill on them.

If you hold down the attack buttons you can perform more brutal kills. When you do a stealth kill three arrows appear above the enemies. If you press the button white arrows appear the enemies, which is a basic kill. Hold the button until the arrows turn yellow and you’ll do a mildly gory kill. But hold the button down until the arrows turn red and you’ll do a really brutal kill. There are lots of different weapons to kill your enemies with, and with the fact that you can do three different kills on each weapon it means there’s lots of kills to do.

If you get caught, you can use combat to kill your enemies. The combat is quite simple, if not a little brain dead. You have two different attacks (light and strong) which can be pressed three times for combos. Also, you can mix the two types of attacks together to perform different combos. That’s pretty much it. But you can not only use your fists, but lots of close range weapons which are also used for stealth kills. Bats, pipes, crowbars, wires, glass shards-you can use them all to kill. It adds some variety, but for the most part the combat is quite dumb.

You can also use distractions to help. You can mostly throw things to distract enemies. You can usually throw bottles, bricks and other things of that nature. This will usually draw them to a location and is your chance to strike. You can also leave bodies around to call them over and strike, though you have to be careful when you’re facing the Police or SWAT as they’ll just shoot randomly and can cost you health. Like I mentioned before, you can use a USB headset to call distractions, but breathing and coughing, sneezing etc. will cause them to be distracted, causing accidental kills. I didn’t really enjoy the USB headset as it was just annoying.

Like I mentioned before, the game is part stealth part shooting. The shooting mostly consists of lots of rooms with lots of guys with weapons to kill. It sounds brain dead, but the weapons go a long way. First off, these sections are as hard as hell. It’s probably mostly because Cash can die easily and there are lots of bad guys. It can frustrate you at times, but it’s not impossible to pass.

Anyways, the shooting mechanics are simple. You find a gun, lock onto an enemy and kill. If you need to reload you can find a place to take cover and reload and fire again. It’s a little too simple, but the weapons really make this more forgivable. The weapons are really powerful thanks to loud gunshots and the fact that if you go up close to an enemy and watch someone’s head blow off is a little gratifying seeing as they’re trying to kill you. Yet, all the gore can make you go a bit numb.

There are quite a few guns in the game. You’ll have your standard weapons like Pistols and Revolvers which are good for getting up close and shooting heads off. Then there’s the shotguns which are good if you want to keep your distance but not go too far away. Then there’s the assault rifles which are great for lots of enemies as you simple hold the lock-on button and fire away at the enemies and you’ll pretty much make it through. There are other weapons as well; like the nail gun, the tranquilizer gun and even the Chainsaw, which is used at the last level, which is disappointing. Ammo isn’t sparse in the game, though it depends if they enemies have the same weapon, as if you’re enemies don’t then you’ll need to ditch the gun and get the popular one.

The level design is very linear. Unlike its GTA cousin, Manhunt doesn’t have a huge, sprawling world where you can hijack cars and wander around the world. The missions pretty much put you on a set track where you have to go to a location or do a task (like kill a psycho who is dressed in a woman’s skirt and take him to the ‘Guard Room’). With the stealth missions there’s quite a bit of variety, but in the shooting missions it can get slightly repetitive.

The game’s A.I. is good and bad, depending on what kind of gameplay you’re playing. If you’re doing stealth, the game’s A.I. does a decent job. The thugs aren’t like the A.I. in Tenchu where they have the attention span of fruit flies and forget anything happened. They usually return to their post because they’re lazy bums. But if you keep getting caught they’ll start to get really suspicious and keep searching. But with the stealth, they’re a bit dumb. They’ll just come at you and risk their life for the most part (unless they’re snipers then they’ll just keep still). It’s a complete change in A.I.

Cash does have health here, and he’ll lose it quite easily. There are many painkillers around the place, they’ll restore about half your health which is good. But there are less painkillers around the place as you progress through the game. Unlike Hitman, there are checkpoints around the place where you can restart. It’s also a chance for you to save your progress. But like the painkillers, they are less and less as your progress through the game. It certainly makes the game harder.

The game’s difficulty level also changes depending on what type of gameplay you’re in. If you doing stealth, the game can be hard at times if there’s lots of enemies or if you do something stupid like run in front of the enemy. It can be easy at times with stealth though. But the shooting is different, as there’s lots of enemies and little painkillers and checkpoints. It gets harder throughout the game, as there’s less painkillers and the checkpoints seem more and more apart from each other.

-(The Graphics)-
Visually, Manhunt looks stunning. I’ll admit, when I looked at the screenshots, I wasn’t that impressed. It looked washed out, grainy and a little dirty. The character models impressed me and the environments looked good so I gave it a chance. But when I started playing Manhunt, I was stunned. It turns out that the whole game is a snuff film, so the grainy look really suited the game. Also, the washed out look made it look even more like a snuff film. It looked excellent. The game uses an effect which looks like an old VCR tape. There are static lines across the screen when you do a stealth kill on someone or when you’re watching cut scenes (full motion or in-engine). It’s a unique style and it really appealed to me, especially with the subject matter.

Also, the other things like the environments and characters helped and looked excellent. The character design (especially one of the bosses at the end) looked a little weird. A lot of the characters wear masks, whether they’re hockey masks, skeleton masks or masks covered in blood. The clothes they wear can be weird, especially the people in the asylum as some of the hunters wear women skirts. It is just bizarre.

The environments are also pretty creepy. The city of Carcer is run down, grungy and pretty dirty. You’ll go in alleyways, parks, an asylum, the sewers and more. All of the levels look quite detailed and suit the mature tone of the game. A little more interactivity wit the environment would have been nice though. Also, the game has some great lighting. The game takes place all in the night. There’s some places where there’s some light, but for the most part, the game is dark. The thing about it is the game isn’t completely pitch black, aside from the places you can hide in. The hiding places are completely black, so it’s easy to pick out the hiding places.

The best thing about the graphics is the animation. Everything is so realistic; from the walking animation to the cutscene animation-it’s all so smooth. The death animation is great as well, as the goons try to struggle but end up dying. There’s some use of realistic physics as well, in particular there’s a level where there’s lots of bodies hanging (gruesome!) and when you walk into them they’ll swing back and forth lifelessly. Speaking of which, the use of gore in Manhunt is over the top. You’ll see heads being chopped off, blood splattering everywhere, (as mentioned before) bodies hanging and more. It’s so gruesome.

-(The Sound)-
The key to making an atmospheric stealth game is to make excellent sound, and perhaps the best thing about the game is the sound, particularly the soundtrack. The game’s soundtrack is perfect. It has a creepy vibe to it, making the game really atmospheric. Also, the pace of the music changes as you play. If you’re just exploring and there’s no guards after you the music is pretty low though can still be a bit creepy, but if you’re spotted or are in a gunfight, the music is really high and creepy at the max. Also, the music gets more tenser as you get closer and closer to any danger, which is a nice touch.

The voice acting in the game is high quality as well. While Cash barely speaks, when he does speak, his gruff voice really suits him. Also, he rarely sounds panicked, which makes him look like a hard nut. But even better is Starkweather. Played by Brian Cox, whom you’ll know from films like the recent Zodiac; Troy and X-Men 2, as well as starring in another videogame known as Killzone; he is excellent. He’s this sarcastic, sadistic man who pretends to like Cash but you can tell he clearly doesn’t. Yet, strangely, I got a vibe that Starweather was on our side, as he was a bit charismatic.

Also, the guards will taunt you endlessly. The acting is good, but what they say is great. If they haven’t spotted you yet, they’ll whine and complain because they’re a bunch of lazy bums. But If they suspect something, they’ll start saying things like ‘This is my lucky day’, only to be disappointed if you get away. Or they’ll be confused and say things like ‘I swear I saw something’. If they spot you, they’ll say things like ‘Kill the f***!’. Though it sounds scary, it’s also quite humorous at times as sometimes you’ll hear them talking to themselves. The thing about it is you’ll rarely hear the guard spout the same thing twice. Because there’s so many different types of enemies, you’ll be hard pressed to hear the same thing said twice throughout the whole game.

Effects are also excellent. You’ll hear Cash’s heart beat as you’re about to do a stealth kill, which is a nice touch. The blood splatter is good as well, as is the sound of you stabbing an enemy. The sounds of gunfire are loud, which is quite scary. Also, they actually sound like guns, not weak toys. Footsteps are also done well, as depending on what type of surface you stand on the sound will change. But the sounds of executions are the stand-out, as they’re gruesome, creepy and pretty cool. The screams of the victims, the slash of knifes or the strikes of bats and pipes as well as the blood splatter all combine to make killing truly scary.

-(Replay Value)-
Manhunt will take you a good fifteen to twenty hours to finish, and there’s quite a bit of value. There are two difficulty levels so you’ll want to play on the other difficulty level and there’s the fact that you can play through any level again so you can improve your rating. Plus, there’s four unlockable missions, extending the game’s value even more. And, I had fun having another play through to see how much I’ve improved since I first started.

-(Score)-
Controls=10
Gameplay=9
Graphics=9
Sound=10
Replay Value=8
Overall Score=9.2

-(Ending Comments)-
Manhunt may not look like much, but once you start playing, you’ll realise this is excellent. The mechanics are simple, but they are executed really well and the intense atmosphere and excellent presentation go a long way. If you want a stealth game as complicated as something like Splinter Cell or Metal Gear Solid, this isn’t it and you may want to find this very cheap, but if you don’t mind simplicity and want something that’s pretty to look at and excellent to listen to then this is a must have. It’s also a great way to start if you want to get into stealth games, thanks to its simplicity. If you can handle lots of gore then this is something that’ll make you think to yourself ‘Rockstar have done it again!’.

-(If You Like This I'd Suggest)-
Splinter Cell
Hitman
Tenchu
Metal Gear Solid

-(Where You Can Buy It)-
Amazon:£14.47 or used and new from £8.00
You can also buy the strategy guide used and new from £4.98

Summary: One of the best games I've played this year.