Originally posted here: https://cultclassiccornervideogames.wordpress.com/2018/10/09/manhunt-2003-pc-ps2-xbox-review/
Rockstar Games has received quite a bit of controversy of the years for a lot of their games. While a lot of it is completely unwarranted, probably one of the more infamous games that got a lot of flak was Manhunt. It’s dark and mature content got the game banned in several countries, such as Australia, New Zealand and Germany. Manhunt was released in 2003 for the PlayStation 2, and in 2004 for the PC and Xbox.
In Manhunt, you play as James Earl Cash, a death row inmate who is thought to be dead by everyone after a lethal injection. But Cash finds himself waking up in a locked room with a man known only as “The Director”, played fantastically by Brian Cox (X-Men 2 and The Bourne Identity), speaking to you through an earpiece. “The Director” promises Cash his freedom, but only if Cash follows his instructions.
Soon, Cash finds himself part of a snuff film ring that wants to use him as its newest star, having to kill for the cameras, all for the sick twisted pleasure of the audience. Through the night, he has to make his way through several psychotic gangs who are trying to kill him in the most brutal way possible. The game’s story is pretty dark in nature, which will turn off most people from playing it. The whole concept comes off as “The Running Man” mixed with “8MM”.
The game is the standard Third Person stealth action game that draws from similar games such as Hitman: Codename 47 and Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell, with the standard trial-and error approach that quite a few standard stealth-based games had at the time. It’s no Thief: The Dark Project, but it was never trying to be. Stay hidden in the shadows, and if someone spots you wandering around, run around until you lose them, and go back to hiding in the shadows. Nothing too complicated.
The bad guys routes are limited to their areas of the map though, so you can’t drag an enemy out to a completely different area. You have to take enemies out in the location that they’re patrolling.
However, Manhunt’s main focus is the way you kill other characters. Since the hand-to-hand combat on the GTA III engine has always been bad, the game had to compensate by having you brutally execute the enemies. There are 3 different levels of execution, Hasty, Violent, and Gruesome, each more violent than the last. The severity of the execution depends on how long you hold the button down.
There’s a chance that while preparing to execute your “victim” (a word I use loosely since the enemies of the game are pretty much pure evil), there is the chance that either another enemy will spot you, or the person you’re following will turn around, causing you to run off, hide in the shadows, and try again when the person loses interest and goes back to patrolling, so you have to be somewhat careful in picking someone off. Thankfully, the game does have a block ability just in case you have to defend yourself, but the melee combat should always be avoided since it’s more frustrating than anything.
Unfortunately, the controls are not the greatest. While the PC version uses the standard WASD keys to move and mouse to look around in third person, but for some reason on the console version, when you use the right thumb stick to look around, your perspective suddenly shifts to First Person, which makes looking around at your surroundings more frustrating. The only way to look around corners in Third Person is to have the character put their back to the wall and have them peek around the corner.
While First Person is a neat addition for observing your surroundings, it could have easily been a button press for when it was needed. The majority of the game can be played with Third Person with no problem, and is always the preferred play style. So making it necessary is quite frustrating.
Unfortunately, the second half of the game implements ranged weapons, making it more run-and-gun oriented. The game’s shooting mechanics aren’t that great either, making this half of the game for frustrating than it should be. It isn’t terrible, but it can get frustrating if you slip up. Guns can cause a lot of damage, resulting in a quicker death if you decided to go up against someone head on rather than stealth, so when stealth is an options, it’s preferable choice.
There is a cover system to compensate for the not so great ranged combat, and it works OK. It is possible to sneak up on someone and get a head shot with a shotgun, or get a lot of damage in with a handgun. So if you plan it out right, gun combat can be alright. But as it goes on, it can feel tedious, losing a lot of what made the early game stand out.
A surprising addition to the game is the use of the USB headset for the PlayStation 2. Instead of banging on the walls while you’re hiding in the shadows to attract the enemies, you can make noise into the headset instead. On top of that, if you’re using the headset, the “Director” speaks to you through the earpiece, like the character in the game, instead of through your TV’s speakers. This feature wasn’t a necessary addition, but it does add this weird sense of immersion to the game, and is a welcome addition.
There are a few bumps along the way that also bring the game down. One level of the game is an escort mission, and while it is manageable in that you can hide the person in the shadows and distract the enemies, it did feel slightly out of place. While the guns and escort missions were added in to have some variety, i just wish they were implemented better.
Graphically, the game uses the same engine as GTA III/Vice City/San Andreas, so it isn’t pushing the limits of the hardware. But because the game uses smaller areas instead of the open world of the GTA III trilogy, the graphics do get a noticeable bump in quality.
The entire game has an 80’s horror movie feel to it, with grungy feeling locations in it, such as old and abandoned buildings, streets cluttered with trash, and dark back alleys, as well as a VHS filter over the whole game, making it feel like you’ve found something that you shouldn’t have on some old cassette tape somewhere.
On top of that, Manhunt’s soundtrack is fantastic, with lot’s of 80’s John Carpenter inspired synth, helping to emphasize the dark and creepy atmosphere, making a lot of the parts where you’re being chased around feel more tense, and the moments where you have to sneak though the shadows feel like you’re about to get seen at any moment.
The sound design in Manhunt is top notch, with guns having a good oompf behind them. And when you’re taking out someone with an execution, you’re getting every last uncomfortable detail. If there is one thing this game really excels at, it’s the presentation.
The game surprisingly also features unlockables, which you can unlock after receiving a certain number of stars out of 5 from each level, which you get from how well you “perform” during a level. Besides the standard Concept Art, you unlock “Bonus Scenes”, with each one having their own objectives, such as killing as many of a specific enemy as possible and seeing how long you can survive waves on enemies.
These unlockables and star ratings add a surprising amount of replayability to the game, and poke at that part of your completionist part of your brain that wants to see 100% of everything the game has to offer, all while perfecting the game while doing it.
Manhunt is clearly not for everyone, with both it’s gruesome violence and dark themes. But with the fantastic presentation and for the small group of people who enjoy the more extreme type of horror this game has, Manhunt is definitely worth checking out.
Rockstar Games has received quite a bit of controversy of the years for a lot of their games. While a lot of it is completely unwarranted, probably one of the more infamous games that got a lot of flak was Manhunt. It’s dark and mature content got the game banned in several countries, such as Australia, New Zealand and Germany. Manhunt was released in 2003 for the PlayStation 2, and in 2004 for the PC and Xbox.
In Manhunt, you play as James Earl Cash, a death row inmate who is thought to be dead by everyone after a lethal injection. But Cash finds himself waking up in a locked room with a man known only as “The Director”, played fantastically by Brian Cox (X-Men 2 and The Bourne Identity), speaking to you through an earpiece. “The Director” promises Cash his freedom, but only if Cash follows his instructions.
Soon, Cash finds himself part of a snuff film ring that wants to use him as its newest star, having to kill for the cameras, all for the sick twisted pleasure of the audience. Through the night, he has to make his way through several psychotic gangs who are trying to kill him in the most brutal way possible. The game’s story is pretty dark in nature, which will turn off most people from playing it. The whole concept comes off as “The Running Man” mixed with “8MM”.
The game is the standard Third Person stealth action game that draws from similar games such as Hitman: Codename 47 and Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell, with the standard trial-and error approach that quite a few standard stealth-based games had at the time. It’s no Thief: The Dark Project, but it was never trying to be. Stay hidden in the shadows, and if someone spots you wandering around, run around until you lose them, and go back to hiding in the shadows. Nothing too complicated.
The bad guys routes are limited to their areas of the map though, so you can’t drag an enemy out to a completely different area. You have to take enemies out in the location that they’re patrolling.
However, Manhunt’s main focus is the way you kill other characters. Since the hand-to-hand combat on the GTA III engine has always been bad, the game had to compensate by having you brutally execute the enemies. There are 3 different levels of execution, Hasty, Violent, and Gruesome, each more violent than the last. The severity of the execution depends on how long you hold the button down.
There’s a chance that while preparing to execute your “victim” (a word I use loosely since the enemies of the game are pretty much pure evil), there is the chance that either another enemy will spot you, or the person you’re following will turn around, causing you to run off, hide in the shadows, and try again when the person loses interest and goes back to patrolling, so you have to be somewhat careful in picking someone off. Thankfully, the game does have a block ability just in case you have to defend yourself, but the melee combat should always be avoided since it’s more frustrating than anything.
Unfortunately, the controls are not the greatest. While the PC version uses the standard WASD keys to move and mouse to look around in third person, but for some reason on the console version, when you use the right thumb stick to look around, your perspective suddenly shifts to First Person, which makes looking around at your surroundings more frustrating. The only way to look around corners in Third Person is to have the character put their back to the wall and have them peek around the corner.
While First Person is a neat addition for observing your surroundings, it could have easily been a button press for when it was needed. The majority of the game can be played with Third Person with no problem, and is always the preferred play style. So making it necessary is quite frustrating.
Unfortunately, the second half of the game implements ranged weapons, making it more run-and-gun oriented. The game’s shooting mechanics aren’t that great either, making this half of the game for frustrating than it should be. It isn’t terrible, but it can get frustrating if you slip up. Guns can cause a lot of damage, resulting in a quicker death if you decided to go up against someone head on rather than stealth, so when stealth is an options, it’s preferable choice.
There is a cover system to compensate for the not so great ranged combat, and it works OK. It is possible to sneak up on someone and get a head shot with a shotgun, or get a lot of damage in with a handgun. So if you plan it out right, gun combat can be alright. But as it goes on, it can feel tedious, losing a lot of what made the early game stand out.
A surprising addition to the game is the use of the USB headset for the PlayStation 2. Instead of banging on the walls while you’re hiding in the shadows to attract the enemies, you can make noise into the headset instead. On top of that, if you’re using the headset, the “Director” speaks to you through the earpiece, like the character in the game, instead of through your TV’s speakers. This feature wasn’t a necessary addition, but it does add this weird sense of immersion to the game, and is a welcome addition.
There are a few bumps along the way that also bring the game down. One level of the game is an escort mission, and while it is manageable in that you can hide the person in the shadows and distract the enemies, it did feel slightly out of place. While the guns and escort missions were added in to have some variety, i just wish they were implemented better.
Graphically, the game uses the same engine as GTA III/Vice City/San Andreas, so it isn’t pushing the limits of the hardware. But because the game uses smaller areas instead of the open world of the GTA III trilogy, the graphics do get a noticeable bump in quality.
The entire game has an 80’s horror movie feel to it, with grungy feeling locations in it, such as old and abandoned buildings, streets cluttered with trash, and dark back alleys, as well as a VHS filter over the whole game, making it feel like you’ve found something that you shouldn’t have on some old cassette tape somewhere.
On top of that, Manhunt’s soundtrack is fantastic, with lot’s of 80’s John Carpenter inspired synth, helping to emphasize the dark and creepy atmosphere, making a lot of the parts where you’re being chased around feel more tense, and the moments where you have to sneak though the shadows feel like you’re about to get seen at any moment.
The sound design in Manhunt is top notch, with guns having a good oompf behind them. And when you’re taking out someone with an execution, you’re getting every last uncomfortable detail. If there is one thing this game really excels at, it’s the presentation.
The game surprisingly also features unlockables, which you can unlock after receiving a certain number of stars out of 5 from each level, which you get from how well you “perform” during a level. Besides the standard Concept Art, you unlock “Bonus Scenes”, with each one having their own objectives, such as killing as many of a specific enemy as possible and seeing how long you can survive waves on enemies.
These unlockables and star ratings add a surprising amount of replayability to the game, and poke at that part of your completionist part of your brain that wants to see 100% of everything the game has to offer, all while perfecting the game while doing it.
Manhunt is clearly not for everyone, with both it’s gruesome violence and dark themes. But with the fantastic presentation and for the small group of people who enjoy the more extreme type of horror this game has, Manhunt is definitely worth checking out.