Manhunt 2 Review

BY Rohan Anchan | POSTED: 24 December 2007

'Tis the season for hunting men...again.



The original Manhunt was a game that took the gaming world by storm with its brutal, bloody, over-the-top execution sequences and extreme graphical violence. Never before had we seen such satisfying death sequences in a stealth game before, and killing people never felt so good (yes, we’re a sick-minded whacko bunch of freaks here at MEgamers). Four years down the line, and Rockstar is ready with a sequel which promised to be better than the first in every aspect. Which basically translates into more violence, more gore, and more blood spills. While it’s a pretty respectable title with good gameplay, Manhunt 2 does have its fair share of muck-ups, and it certainly isn’t going to be bringing home any awards. Let’s find out why…

First off, (and this is what will piss most gamers off), is the fact that the retail copy available in gaming stores all over the world has been heavily censored in order to earn a ‘Mature’ rating. Yup, you read that right. The game, originally rated as ‘Adults Only’ by the ESRB, has undergone a lot of censorship in order to be made available to a wider audience. What does this mean for us gamers? It means that the execution scenes -- which form the crux of the game and are the sole reason why many sick-minded gamers like myself would want to play it – are distorted, blurred, and interrupted with colourful static throughout. You can just about make out what’s going on in the scene, but the censorship strips off nearly 80% of the fun. So you’re stuck with a half-baked execution system wherein you’ll mostly hear enemies gurgling like sick chickens and then some crunching noises as their heads are bashed or necks are snapped. The visual excitement is totally lost in this title, and it’s severely disappointing.

Going hand-in-hand with the badly censored executions is the blood detail in this game. For a game this violent, you’d probably expect to see so much of blood that it’d make Jigsaw and Leatherface look like juvenile criminals. But what do you actually get? A game that displays one big blood patch on an enemy’s back once you’ve killed him – no matter how you did it. That’s it. I mean, come on! I strangle a guy with a plastic bag, and after the cutscene, he’s got a big blotch of ugly red on his back? The same thing happens irrespective of whether you shoot a guy in the head, smack him with a 2x4, or stab him with a shard of glass. Booorrriiing!!!

Ok, now that my rants about how ‘unbloody’ and ‘unviolent’ the game is (according to my standards, that is), let’s get to the good bits, shall we? That includes the gameplay, audio and storyline.

Manhunt 2 is a sequel only as far as the name goes. The game has nothing to do with our former protagonist Mr. James Earl Cash. This time around, you take on the role of a young dude called Danny, who starts off in Dixmor Asylum. You’re given no idea or clue as to what happened before or why you’re in the asylum, but you gotta get out of it with the help of a dude named Leo. And here’s where things start to get crazy – you start performing some pretty nasty, stomach-churning moves on anyone who stands in between you and your freedom. The first level basically serves as a tutorial of sorts, where you get to learn about your HUD, the radar, using the shadows, controlling Danny, and of course, engaging in combat. From the second level onwards, the story starts to unfold, and you get to know things about your past – your family, friends that betrayed you, etc. The story is pretty good and is told fairly well through the game’s many cutscenes.

Coming to the actual gameplay, the game makes controlling Danny fairly easy. I say ‘fairly’because it’s not exactly a breeze either. It could take you about thirty minutes to get used to the control setup, and about an eternity to absorb the fact that you have no control over the finicky camera. Like in the original game, you can walk, sprint, hop over low obstacles, and take cover behind many objects. For the action part of it, you get to use some very different yet satisfying weaponry – glass shards, plastic bags, saw blades, two-by-fours, syringes, pistols, shotguns and whatnots. Each of these weapons have their own durability ratings, which means that some are one-time use items only. And again, following the original, you can pull off three ‘levels’ of executions – quick, fatal, or gruesome. A crosshair appears around an enemy’s head when he’s in execution range, and it changes colour the longer you hold down your attack key and follow him. Let go of the button when the crosshair’s red, and you’ll be rewarded with some gratifying (but unfortunately censored) cutscenes, as Danny unleashes the beast hiding behind those nerdy-looking glasses and innocent looks. Speaking of executions, there are certain spots where you can even perform environmental executions, where in Danny uses the environment to inflict some real pain on his foes. Good stuff, and it could’ve been great had it not been for the ridiculous censorship.

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