Manhunt was great.
It was dark, psycho, full of violence and gore.
It had many great moments. Killing enemies with a plastic bag brutally always feels great, or with any weapon from a brick to a chainsaw. You also had 3 types of executions with every weapon, they really made sure this game gets banned in as many countries as possible:)))
It also had lots of stealth which made this game tense, the shadows were your friend.
The soundtrack was very unnerving, unsettling, haunting and disturbing, you could've cut the tension with a knife because it was so thick.
Great boss fights too, i think i finished this game about 5 times and i still want to do another playtrough.
What makes this game truly special is the fact that there are 0 fictional elements, nothing supernatural just horror and madness where humans are the monsters.

I rented this game when I was younger due to my parents not being that concerned with M-rated games, and I only played it for 10 minutes because I was DISGUSTED by this game. Why?

Flicking the right analog stick made you go into first person instead of being able to swing the camera around.

Completely disgusting, even to this day. Also it's funny that of all the stealth games i've played, only Manhunt and Thief understood there should be a clear visual indicator on screen to how loud and how visible you are at all times.

While it hasn't aged the best, Manhunt is a glimpse of Rockstar's experimental former glory of not always dishing out gigantic ambitious open world games in favor of more focused and concise experiences.

This is the kind of game that simply can't be made today. It's shocking, gross, unpleasant, and much more. The core gameplay is basic, and not very good by modern standards, but it's enough to immerse yourself in the grittiness of the game's world.

Definitely give a try if you wan't something different and daring.

Disappointing.

I can absolutely see why this game was considered a cult classic at the time, but looking back at it now, I struggle to find any enjoyment in it. And that's besides the fact that you need fan patches to make it work properly on PC. Yes, it sucks, but I play old games on Steam all the time, it's not something I'm not used to.

The stealth is janky as fuck. I am not expecting Hitman levels of detail, but the AI is clearly very bare-bones and easy to cheese. They never felt that threatening, my strategy often devolved into baiting them into the shadows and just quickly killing them off, and that was on the higher difficulty. Using sound and objects to distract the enemies felt like it had very random levels of effectiveness, and never felt like I could do it consistently. The combat itself is clearly intended to be the last resort, but it feels like it's rather easy to abuse as well, and can be the easier way to get past. The first couple levels I did get past felt incredibly linear and not really remarkable in any way.

Perhaps it's the disturbing feel and context of the game that is intended to be the real hook, but I have not felt even remotely absorbed in it. It all feels too scripted. The basic AI aside, the enemies just sometimes feel like they're explicitly lined up for you to be killed. I know the setting is that you're basically helping a guy record his snuff film, but with how everyone seems to be right in for the show, it almost feels like a silly battle royale or something. Maybe I'd be more accepting if the game wouldn't feel so fucking pleased about how "disturbing" it is. Also, while I'm not advocating vigilante justice, when you're explicitly told most of these people you kill range anywhere between a serial rapist and Hitler, it's a bit hard to find this game that morally questionable. The most messed up thing I did was kill a bunch of pretty much objectively evil dudes, which sums up almost every violent video game I've played.

In summary, I've played Postal 1 before, a game with even more basic gameplay, fewer graphics, even less narrative and detail, and it managed to feel more disturbing and morally questionable than this game, which I see as proof that it's mainly the fundamental design decisions that aged like rotten milk.

Manhunt is a game that's always really interested me. I've always had a grim, morbid fascination in the transgressive and controversial, the way the media can make people fear a film or game more than the actual work itself could. When I was younger, I probably had the entire Rockstar history memorized and would spring into a hearty speech about how "games aren't really the problem, it's the people", but you'd never really find me playing any of Rockstar's games; in an ironic reversal, I was just as fixated on the controversy of the material rather than the material itself. Of their entire catalog, Manhunt was the game that piqued my curiosity the most, since the very concept was so boiled down: you just kill people in gruesome ways, no morality tests, no philosophical questions. I played the first few levels when I was 13 or so, and thought I was a real scary edgelord for loving a game where brutality was so rewarded (guess what my favorite fighting games were), but I never really got far in it. I felt satisfied with the couple hours of exposure I got, and I think that feeling hasn't changed for me now, years later.

Manhunt lays its cards on the table early, and lets you know what you're getting into quite clearly: a dark, almost noiresque atmosphere, aided by the gritty PS2 visuals and clearly Carpenter-inspired soundtrack, and the sneering voice of Brian Cox cheering you on as you brutally murder the people in your way. For the first hour or so, it really is effective. The camera angles and quality of the Executions, along with the fluid mocap work, provides a grisly realism that works to unsettle even the most grizzled of horror vets. Combine that with some high-level sound design, and the end result is a spectacle of potently macabre entertainment, but it's not something that lasts.

As with most horror-adjacent media, exposure and desensitization are its Achille's heel. Not only is the arsenal of weapons surprisingly limited, a good third or more of that arsenal aren't available for Executions, and some of the weapons even reuse their Execution animations, which leads to even the most effective kills feeling dull after a couple levels of repeats. Unfortunately, rather than try to "up the ante" and make the game progressively more disturbing, it feels as though the developers completely throw in the towel somewhere around the third act, and turn the game into something more like Max Payne (sans bullet time) or even a "3D Hotline Miami"; the difficulty spikes, stealth is thrown to the wind, and guns become your primary tools against enemies, drying what remained of the atmosphere out completely, and turning it into a repetitive chore as the game gets closer to the finish line. And once you get to that finish line, is there a grand revelation waiting for you? Something that completely changes the context of the game, and perhaps even gives an "explanation" of the savage bloodthirst that you willingly took place in?

No. The antagonist dies, and the game ends with a brief news montage giving a slight bit of depth as to what happened, but never any concrete answers or commentary, which leads me to ask: what was the point? Was this a meta-commentary on how the elites are the real monsters, how police are just as cruel as the sadistic gangs you've been victim to, but society still finds a scapegoat to blame rather than looking at root causes? Is there perhaps an ironic connection between me, the player, never finding out any reasoning for why this all happened, leaving me in the same shoes as the protagonist? Could Rockstar be criticizing themselves, using the antagonist as an obvious stand-in for game developers who revel in the controversy garnered from subjecting the world to gruesome imagery?

Then I remember that this is a game that actively applauds you for performing more sadistic kills, with no cartoonish overexaggeration or a detached "silliness" to the bloodshed, just a jagged realism to everything you see. I believe there is no deeper meaning to be extracted from it. The game is sick, and I'm sick for playing it through to the end.

Manhunt é um dos jogos mais irresponsáveis que eu já joguei na vida.

A Take-Two e a Rockstar toparem esse jogo nos tempos atuais é muito sem noção. Não tem nota de repúdio à violência que alivie o que foi feito.

Vai m0rrer gente por causa desse jogo, escuta o que eu tô falando.

[part of what initially brought me to this site in late 2020 was that in early 2020, i had already begun trying to take writing a bit more seriously by writing condensed reviews of games that i had finished. low ambition, maybe, but it combined a hobby i was sinking back into again with the potential for experiential learning vis-a-vis a skill i valued and respected in others during a pandemic that locked me inside for some time. a lot of that writing i don't quite stand by, but some of it i do. figured i'd post at least one for archival purposes. this was june of 2020. with that, i think ill take a break from writing for the year! happy holidays, ty very much for the cool year everyone]

Years of playing Yakuza has conditioned me to forget that a particularly vicious baseball bat swing can cave an individual’s skull in, and that’s only the most optimistic scenario. Manhunt, bundle of cruel violence that it is, serves as a quaint little reminder of the frailty of the human physique pitted against blades, bullets, and all other manners of grievous bodily harm. It’s downright inventive in its murder at some points, and what sets it apart in its depiction of savagery 17 years later is terrific sound design rather than cutting edge visuals. Listen carefully as protagonist James Earl Cash, ‘freed’ from his execution at death row and forced to participate in illegally produced snuff films at the behest of a mysterious director, strains to choke the life out of a common enemy. The panting, the struggling, the movement of men at the edge of their mortal coil serving as a coda to life itself before a sharply accented note ends it all: the grisly snap of one’s neck. Add a soundtrack influenced by John Carpenter’s particular lineage of horror, dark visual designs, and a narrative ethos recalling 70’s film vigilantism and you have a recipe for controversy. It’s survival of the fittest against thugs, Nazis, the criminally insane, cops, and paramilitary forces – a conservative ideologue’s worst nightmare and sadistic wet dream given form.
Needless to say it is the context of violence that sets Manhunt apart from its peers at the time – so much so that the game incited a wave of moral panic and remains infamous to this day as an emblem of violence in video games. Here it is unapologetic, squeamish, laborious, and yet titillating for players, audiences, and directors alike. As the medium grapples with these questions yet again it became worthwhile to return to Manhunt – a game so dedicated to its emulation of illicit film that it’s presented as a DVD and adopts film grain, conventions of found footage, and visual artifacts to convey its gameplay and narrative. It is brutality incarnate in the era of digital art, which makes it especially funny that in the face of numerous worldwide bans, my home province of Ontario had to market it as a film in order to sell it. It’s also worth noting that the game sometimes has interesting subtext, the kind that makes violence purposeful and artful, which is a hilarious contrast to The Last of Us Part II. We’re a long ways away from the era where Rockstar almost had an internal mutiny over the development of this game.
Unfortunately, the most interesting questions Manhunt raises are tertiary as it is host to numerous design issues that plague the experience which only get worse as the game increasingly outstays its welcome. A heavier emphasis on trite, unengaging gunplay in the second half distracts from atmospheric stealth which already at its best was predatorial but at its worst, which was much of the time, suffers from downright terrible A.I, awful level design, and questionable balance which turns the game into a cheeky exploitation of systems rather than an immersive and cutthroat struggle. That this is lampshaded as a part of the game’s intent and craft feels insulting and cynical rather than genuine. Setpieces that are genuinely great are ignored in favour of bowing to video game convention of the era, and the mechanics that are illogical but thematically appropriate stop being resonant as a result. Toying with the conventions of ranking systems is welcome, but this only registers as worthwhile if the game is actually fun to play, which Manhunt often isn’t. I very often welcome games that aren’t traditionally fun, but I don’t believe it works here especially since Manhunt’s audience condemning metanarrative and its musings on society register as juvenile rather than meaningful and yield very little in the way of a compelling textual or visual experience. In our efforts to condemn voyeuristic violence we often forget that a better point to be made is in its intoxicating allure, or in its usage in institutions of power, or violence as a means of self-expression and liberation. Manhunt is perpetually disinterested in this to its own disservice.

A game you’ll want to like more than you can

The subject matter of Manhunt is one I’m enthralled with. Mock found footage snuff films such as August Underground are not good films whatsoever, but they are quite peculiar. I’ve always been morbidly curious in such things and I can’t quite put a finger on why. Maybe it’s a fascination with death, maybe it’s just a desire to see how far the gore can go. Either way, these low quality amateur films have an indescribable atmosphere. It’s quaint, yet menacing. They are without polish, but that’s what makes it so raw and intense. There’s no expert cinematography or editing to create a coherent film. It’s just vile acts and you’re witnessing it. Manhunt, through its expert sound design and brilliant aesthetic, captures this atmosphere flawlessly.

It all starts with the manual. It reads like a magazine for a snuff film site, complete with accurate pseudonyms such as “Mr. nasty”. Then there’s the main menu. It looks and functions like a VHS tape, and the haunting score sets up Manhunt’s dismal aura.

The gore in Manhunt has been topped twice over, but the context of the gore has not. You’ve seen ridiculous fatalities in Mortal Kombat way gorier than anything found in Manhunt, but Manhunt’s snuff film design makes the player feel it even more. The sound design ensure you feel every bone break, every decapitation, and every gargle of blood. The atmosphere creates a melancholic sensation in the player. It’s not a celebration of how far violence can be pushed, although pushing limits is part of its appeal. Manhunt is more of grim reminder of the depravity that goes on in this world.

The banter the Hunters have in this game is great. Each gang is very distinct. There’s white supremacists, mental hospital patients, and those that continually repeat lines of domestic abuse. They all add a ton of personality to each section and help with the variety. Starkweather, the director behind the twisted snuff films the player is participating in, also has lines that hint towards his debauchery. He’s the type of guy to get his rocks off to these brutal murders. There’s tons of lines in this game. Each playthrough you’re likely to hear something new.

The gameplay in Manhunt however isn’t amazing. What starts as an intense game of hide and seek turns into a bad third-person shooter filled with trial and error.

The stealth in Manhunt is fairly well constructed, but unfortunately has simple exploits that dampen its impact. Manhunt has a clear indications of how quiet and shrouded in darkness you are. The game will never lie to you. Finding pockets of darkness makes you invisible unless an enemy runs right into you which can only happen when they’re on alert. The mini map shows enemies you have a sight line on or who are making noise. Making a loud noise will alert enemies to your position. This is where the exploit is. It’s way too powerful to alert enemies while hiding in the dark. Through this mechanic, it doesn’t even matter how the game designers set up the patrols for the hunters. They’ll always come running, and as soon as they turn around you execute them. Sometimes more than one will come and you’ll have to think on the fly, but generally, Manhunt is a exploitable and simple game.

The levels have some nice open design throughout. Some levels are completely linear which is disappointing, but a few such as White Trash or Mouth of Madness have open areas with many enemies. This is where the game is at its best because it isn’t easy and it’s engaging to figure out the best way to tackle the challenge.

Then there’s the third-person shooting. Good lord. Now, I want to preface this by saying I’m not against the third-person shooting in theory. Manhunt is a fairly long game. If it was all slow-paced stealth, it would have suffered. However in practice, it’s terrible. The shooting sections keep what makes Manhunt memorable. The soundtrack and intensity is still there through these sections, but the shooting is bad. You die in very few shots, so shooting without cover is usually suicide. It feels like the only way to succeed in these sections is to use exploits or go through the motion of trial and error. It’s boring and tiring. Enemies stop following the rules and just stand behind cover. A lot of sections feel like the only way to win is to shoot one guy and then run to darkness, rinse and repeat. It’s not engaging or fun.

Manhunt means a lot to me. It’s the only game I can think of that fits this niche of horror. But when it’s all said and done, I’m able to look past the my nostalgia and fondness of the subject matter to tell you that the gameplay is below average. Manhunt is a chore to get through at times. The second half has the worst dip in quality I’ve seen outside of Resident Evil 7. But the atmosphere is peak. It’s one of my favorite aesthetics ever in a video game. It kept me playing until the conclusion, once again.

6/10

Manhunt is a game I always wanted to play but never got to it and here we are. Manhunt is about playing as a criminal who was sentenced to death by lethal injection and his name is James Earl Cash, suddenly you awake and you're forced to partake within this snuff film directed by a sadistic freak who gets high off of gruesome immoral acts known as Director Lionel Starkweather. You're his star and you must gruesomely kill the men he has hired in this film to hunt you and you must kill as violently as you can to get rid of these sadistic killers hunting you, you are being hunted by people who are objectively immoral and even worse than you are. Neo Nazis,Pedophiles,Child Killers,Rapists and you name it, these people are all wanting to kill you gruesomely within this snuff film in Carcer City. the Director will even use your family as bait to give you an objective during one of his scenes, then the next scene no matter what you do he'll kill them off anyways because he is a sadistic freak

The Gameplay of Manhunt is incredibly fun and satisfying. while the Gore and Executions seem unsettling, it's rewarding and satisfying to pull them off and even though you won't relate to Cash's cold and calm nature of pulling these executions off, you won't feel bad about executing these sick people you're being actively hunted by. the game is best during it's stealth sections where you have to calmly get by and carry out executions, but the game gets heavy in gunplay within the last 6-7 levels of the game. which make sense in the narrative perspective as you aren't being setup in the snuff film you survived but surviving being hunted by the police and trained killers Starkweather hired to neutralize you, the final scene is incredible and the atmosphere and ambience in the final boss is amazing.

The Music and Atmosphere of this game is incredible. the ambience you feel within the music and sfx can make the player chill, it reminds me of John Carpenter's Halloween with it's music. while the Atmosphere and Setting is perfect with the snuff film grain throughout the entire game and every scene being shown with a camcorder

My biggest flaw with this game is just some of the jank within rockstar's old engine and how the gunplay can get a bit frustrating and carried away near the end of the game.

Overall Manhunt is a near Masterpiece for me that almost barely misses the mark due to some outdated game design flaws. Manhunt is close to being a near perfect example of something that could only be done in a Video Game

A brutal disgusting game showing the worst humanity has to offer...awesome?

This game just gets under my skin. The core concept alone is enough to turn me off with the game taking place inside a snuff film. That is terrifying especially when you consider those types of movies exist and they do get distributed on the dark web and such. They sound fucking horrible they are literally movies with real death and other horrible things for the enjoyment of disgusting people I have no desire to look into them (you shouldn’t either it’s not worth it)

But luckily this all works in manhunts favor. Everything great about this game from the story, atmosphere and gameplay all ties back from its concept. This is a intense stealth game literally requiring you to think like a killer stalking and sneaking up on your enemies. It’s both difficult and disturbing learning enemy patterns and trying to sneak up on enemies alone to kill them. This game doesn’t pull any punches if your not ready or if you don’t carefully plan out your killings you will die quickly. That’s because the core melee combat and shooting is incredibly clunky feeling even worse than gta 3. It’s a downside when you need to rely on it but for the most part the game encourages you to be stealthy.

This game really wants you to think like a slasher movie villain, hiding in the shadows and slowly studying the environments along with understanding the enemy locations. It’s a rewarding experience but never stops being disturbing because there really is no escape from the killings you have to take part in.


The atmosphere is bleak and unnerving. I really like the vhs aesthetic this game has with the menus and filters on the executions along with the cutscenes. It ties in with the underground snuff film story but also gives this game a vhs 80s horror film feel. The soundtrack is this dark ambient soundtrack with some industrial noise along with a lot of use of 80s synths and sometimes some guitars I think. Sounding like it takes a lot of inspiration from John Carpenter scores and various other slasher scores. It’s one of the greatest horror game soundtracks of all time.

The story is really interesting. The characters and gangs are all creepy in there own right and I feel like this game really tries to break down the type of people who like these types of movies. Essentially each gang is either a differnent type of degenerate or some type of person with mental issues. It’s this games way of exposing the awful things that happen in those movies not just with the violence but with the people who take part of them. Manhunt seems to want to expose the very thing the game is based on and it doesn’t hold back. Resulting in a unique horror experience.

strong 4/5

There won’t be anything like Manhunt ever again. It’s a game that is so brutal, so nihilistic and shows such a total disregard for human life that anything that treads similar boards in 2022 is going to be by an independent studio and likely assumed to be the product of some alt-right arseholes, regardless of whether that is actually the case or not, by most of the mainstream gaming press. It certainly won’t be the big budget new release from the people who just put out Grand Theft Auto: Vice City. Christ, can you imagine Rockstar put out a new Manhunt after a decade of GTA V and Red Dead Redemption 2? It’s just not going to happen.

It was Naughty Dog’s The Last Of Us: Part II that has come closest to treading similar boards in regards to the violence on show, with the blunt reality of murder and/or survival being presented very effectively but, unsurprisingly for what is one of the most ‘AAA’ games ever made, they spend the whole game smoothing things over with saccharine character moments, zombie movie clichés and a predictable ‘violence begets violence’ narrative.

Now, despite my distaste for Naughty Dog’s game, this extra trimming is a hugely important part in allowing for that level of violence to be shown. In 2009, a Japanese horror film called ‘Grotesque’ was banned by the BBFC. Their reasoning - among a few other reasons - included this statement.

“Grotesque is also markedly different to the Saw and Hostel ‘torture porn’ series, in that those films contain a more developed narrative and there is therefore more contextual justification for the strongest scenes.”

Manhunt has very little in the way of narrative or character development and that is entirely by design. The main character, James Earl Cash, is a horrible human being, a murderer who begins the game receiving a lethal injection, only to wake up and find himself part of some macabre game. In his earpiece is the ‘director’, Lionel Starkweather, who runs a snuff movie ring and requires you to kill your way through gangs of horrible bastards - nazis. sadists and psychopathic killers - to give him footage for his films.

And, for the first 2/3rds of the game, that is it. That’s all the exposition you get. It’s a game about killing killers for an evil entity. There’s nothing to get you rooting for Cash and, well, you’re not supposed to. The whole game has a particularly grim tone, with the infamous executions ranging from the almost hilariously OTT to the disturbingly realistic and matter of fact. It makes you feel a bit icky and a bit like you shouldn’t be seeing these things, never mind instigating them.

Everything about Manhunt is about this nasty vibe. It’s supposed to evoke the imagery of 80s video nasties, of early internet gore sites and that one time you tried to download some big titty MILF porn off of Limewire only to be confronted with a 240p video file of a real life execution. Manhunt feels naughty, forbidden, sometimes even evil. This is why it is so memorable - there’s very little like it and - perhaps - with good reason.

The world has changed and such a harsh presentation of brutality requires some kind of narrative sweetener to get it past the censors. Despite The Last Of Us 2 being significantly more graphic, due to the much better visuals, there’s enough about it that ensures that it isn’t just a game about killing, despite that being your main means of interacting with it. There’s a moral message and character development, as well as the implication that you’re doing this for your character’s survival - not for the pleasure of a deviant filmmaker.

The droning synth soundtrack is reminiscent of John Carpenter’s music for Assault On Precinct 13 or Escape From New York, which fits perfectly for the desolate night time backstreets of Carcer City, the abandoned buildings and warehouses that provide the backdrop for your night of killing. The only other thing that you hear is Cash’s heartbeat, constantly drumming up the tension levels as you wait for the perfect moment to strike and batter your victim to death with a hammer.

As a stealth game, Manhunt is very primitive but I feel that works in its favour. You hide in shadows and, when you’re classed as hidden it is a totally binary situation - an enemy can come right up to you and look you in the eye and as long as you’re deemed as ‘hidden’ by the game’s logic, they won’t see you. The A.I. isn’t particularly smart and therefore, can be easily exploited. It’s designed to get you performing those brutal kills and flip the tables, making you the hunter, not the hunted. It’s balanced by the fact that anything more than 1v1 direct combat will usually result in you being killed but if you keep your nerve and plan your kills - hell, premeditate your murders - you’ll be alright. It almost feels more like a puzzle game than an organic stealth experience, where you’re figuring out the optimal safest way to off your opposition and proceed to the next area.

In the final third, there’s a notable increase in having to use guns (the weakest aspect of the game) and the sudden inclusion of a plot device - a reporter who saves Cash from a trap and tells him about her plan to take down Starweather’s snuff ring. There’s a few gimmick levels, like an escort quest and a level where you have to perform specific kill types, to flesh things out, but Manhunt regains momentum for its final act - a showdown on Starkweather’s estate with his private militia and one of gaming’s most horrific bosses - Piggsy.

I mean, what else is there to say about old Piggsy? He’s a gigantic naked man (cock and balls out, the lot) wearing a pig’s head who is apparently the now completely insane ex-star of Starkweather’s movies. He runs around the dark attic of Starkweather’s mansion waving a chainsaw around in a section that is just straight up gore horror and a wonderful upping of the ante for the final section. Oh, and he’s a cannibal.

Despite a few clear issues with the mechanics and the fact that it spreads itself a little thin towards the end, Manhunt is a perfect game. A perfect game doesn’t need to be the best game ever or an incredible example of a particular genre or anything like that. Manhunt sets out to create a specific atmosphere, to evoke emotions of fear, dread, disgust and macabre curiosity. It wants to remind you that there’s a darkness out there that you might not want to admit exists. Not the sort of thing that sits below the surface of society, where a bit of scratching can unearth some horrible stuff but properly beneath it all, right down in the proverbial sewers. It’s a game for anyone who has that morbid fascination with the worst in humanity, for anyone who ever visited Ogrish.com, has watched awful YouTube documentaries on ‘Red Rooms’ or the deep web. It’s a game that embraces the fact that it isn’t for everyone and maybe shouldn’t be for anyone and it manages to do it without coming across like an edgy teenager trying to shock.

Manhunt 2, its somewhat more controversial sequel, due to being outright banned for a while, doesn’t get that final part right. Despite being a much more mechanically refined game, it is far more plot-driven and far more OTT with the extreme violence, to the point where it is almost funny in the absurd. It doesn’t quite get the gritty, nasty atmosphere right and if Manhunt is a video nasty directed by Carpenter, Manhunt 2 is the remake helmed by Eli Roth. It’s bleeding, punctured heart is in the right place but it completely misses the mark.

We won’t get another one like this. Hell, they couldn’t even do another themselves.

Cinematic only as peak Rockstar could do. Much as Max Payne is inspired by John Woo and GTA Vice City was by Scarface, Manhunt is clearly inspired by the gritty horror movies like Texas Chainsaw and the New French Extremity movement (which at the time was starting to find it's footing), and wears it like a glove throughout. Some of the best stealth gameplay you can find for this era, also gets brutally hard in the final stretch. Takes a bit for the story to get going, but once it does, it's a smart relentless reverse-slasher, a self-statement on violence in media and a gritty horror-crime thriller with a brilliant musical score, although more story on it's bones would have been recommended. Heard 2 has more story, so can't wait to get around to that soon

Manhunt é violento, brutal, sujo, nojento, e aterrorizante e isso... é incrível, que jogo bom, foi a primeira vez que a Rockstar fez algo do tipo, e provavelmente a ultima, hoje em dia é muito difícil lançar um jogo assim, foi um tiro no escuro, que deu muito certo, muita gente confunde as coisas, Manhunt não é um jogo que glorifica a violência, ele faz você ter repulsa a ela, você faz tudo que você faz porque você é obrigado, mas você também não é uma vitima de tudo isso, você pode não ser o doente lunático do starkweather, mas você também não é um santo. Manhunt é um jogo Stealh, seu dever é realizar as ações conforme o diretor do filme pede, mas sempre sorrateiramente, pois MEU AMIGO, você não vai querer ser notado, primeiro porque você ira ficar em desvantagem, e em segundo PORQUE O COMBATE DESSE JOGO É UM LIXO, mas propositalmente, o jogo desincentiva o combate mano a mano, justamente porque isso estraga a proposta do jogo, a tensão e o horror, enfim, não vou me estender demais, se você nunca jogou, jogue, não existe nada como Manhunt

What becomes a violent and interesting horror stealth game about being a death row inmate reborn as a merciless killer for the pleasure of a snuff filmmaker is a less-than-mediocre third person shooter... from the PS2 era. It's really a shame in my opinion, I don't hate that this game has guns, but some levels (mainly the end levels when shit gets real) put you through this linear shooting spree that just doesn't feel good. You take turns shooting each other and just pray you have enough health to endure it. Other than this and a few other minor nitpicks, It's a great game.