Manhunting Mad! (Manhunt (PS2))

Member Name: winsy

Product:	Manhunt (PS2)
Date:	11/04/04 (232 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Violent, Original, Cinematic

Disadvantages: Shade hiding system is silly

Imagine you are on death row, but youv'e been given a 2nd chance, as a film start, thats got to be a good thing. Its certainly would be if you had been giving the staring roll in a Speilberg film, or something, a Hollywood Blockbuster, but no youv'e been hand picked for a special movie. A movie which not very many people will see except for the sick scum buckets of the world, no its not Star Trek LOL (only kidding), youv'e been pushed into starring in a snuff film, and you can't do diddley squat, get a scene wrong and your dead, not just cut take 2, oh no its death, you can however start from save points in the game so its all not back to the start cos ya dead. Thats my friends is a little box of kittens named Manhunt. Well not quite kittens, more like sharp toothed fat begger of Tiger, that are ready and willing to cut you to pieces in and instant. Except its not tiger, its phsyco, redneck, nutters who are hungry for some blood, your blood and they kill you anyway they fell fit to, guns, knifes, bats, fists its all good to them.

Manhunt is a very strange little game indeed, its made by the creators of Grand Theft Auto and many more titles 'Rockstar'. Its a third person action,stealth, Gore'em up. Its possibly one of the most violent gaems to date and its pretty god darn good.

People who are easily offended by bad language and violence, shouldn't buy this game, people who like a bit of violence in games certainly should. To play its very much like a sorta sphyon filter esk, Metal Gear solid, kind of thing but with a fixed third person view.

You are John Cash a man who had been placed on death row but somehow doesn't die, he is instead cast into the dark underworld of a shadey Film Maker who lets just say dabbles into the regions of Snuff a little. Unfortunately he's pick you and its your duty to play through the game creating the best violence possibly for the camera. The levels are full of shall w
e say bounty hunters that quite frankly want your testi's for dinner. They are very hard when theres more than one, it usually results in a beating of your life, but if you catch one of guard from behing, you can execture them. This is the games best form of killing people nad the most violent, you have a number of wepaons from shards of glass, meat cleavers, baseball bats, to chainsaws and guns. Each wepaon type is seperated into colours ie, yellow, blue, red and so on and you can only carry one of each colour, so you have to think about what you want and what would be most useful.

When you catch the guards though behold the games brilliant cut scene style death sequence, mortal kombat eat your heart out. Say you catch a guard out and you have the baseball bat equipped, you get behind them, lock on, press and hold square or x and the lock on tag changes colours, it starts green when in range it goes white, and you keep hold of the button still and it changes again in order of (white, yello, red) each behind a level of violence if you like. White is a quick bloody death, yello is a step up bit more blood, red is the top notch gruesome stuff. With the baseball bat , a red death results in the camera cutting to a strange recording scene type thins, you choke the gurad, he hits the deck, is heads expose, smack, round the kipper, boom there goes his brains, they even squelsh and splat of near by walls and stuff, YUM YUM. Each weapon that it is possible to do execution which has each three levels of death gore level if ya like and each is brilliant. You can't do executions with guns but you can blow heads away it just doesn't do the camera change cinematic execution scene that you will love if you like some nice extra violence with you action games. The machette is interesting you cut there heads off, and you hear a sorta bloody garggle as you hack at there jugular then you get there head as an item and you can throw it to disctract or attract guard
s, like in alot of stealth em ups. You can tap on walls to make guards investigate and general just make any sort of nosie and they will come to get you. The hiding system is quite strange you can hide in the shading on the game and the guards wn't see you which at certain times is extremely silly, you can stand right infront of one just in the shade he can be looking staright at you and really should see you but he doesn't, it helps though because this game would be the hardest ever if it wasn't like that, it just makes it nice, good for popping out of the shadows and pouncing.

At the start of the game the first level is like a basic instuction you talk to the director as you go through, well he talks to you, but he lets you know the script in the first level, you get intorduced to the plastic bag, you advance through a almost war zone of damaged cars, and there a sign saying 'kill this'f**k', you have a plastic bag its a great little weapon its time for erm, mmm execute, get red and you slam the bag over his face tieing it like lighting strangle him a little a batter him a bit its all quite nice and cheer, definately not for the kiddies.

The guards AI can be pretty good they communicate when looking for you, saying things like' found the b'startd yet' etc. When stood around they say general things like 'what i wouldn't give for a bong hit right now'. Its a really great system that makes you laugh when you hear them but sometimes they scare you crap less cos they are after you.

The games is a scarey and quite haunting strange work of art. Its very dark, the people have phsyco style Hockey maks, acid men masks, clown faces, it really does take gaming to a horrible dark place thats hard to get out of. Its sucked me in a hell of alot as its very nice to go through a level killing everyon on red and enjoying the blood and guts flying every were, argh i hang on i just go get me knife, hehe, i th
ink im turning into a bit of a manhunter myself. Its a very cinematic piece of art i think, its a great idea of being snuff, sick though, but its very much, snuff, meets running man, meets texas chain saw massicare kinda of stuff.

Its a big game with around 20 levels then 4 bonus levels which invlove maniac monkeys that take over a zoo with shotguns, and a last man standing fist fight inside a basket ball court. Its an alrounf brilliantly made game that takes full advantage of many cinematic effects, the graphics are great, the sounds are great, the presentatuion is fabulous, it really is a good game. Ok so maybe the violence makes it the good game it is, well no its makes it contraversial and makes it stand out, but behind the violence is a great almost film game.

You have a simple little radar (on easy) which shows you were people are and things, a health bat, stamina bar, and a little picture of a bloke that helps let you know what stance you are in ie, running, crouch, hidden in shade and so on. This helps as when being chased as its hard sometimes to get away from the guards, if you stand and fight with more than one it gets tricky.

For a basic description of this game, its like a standard stealth em up in a sense with some neat little touches that make it that bit special! Try it i think you'll it.

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