Manhunt 2

November 7,2007 - The oft-vilified game of the year for 2007 was unquestionably Manhunt 2, the sequel to Rockstar’s 2003 gore fest which could’ve easily drawn as much controversy if the politicos weren’t too busy attacking Grand Theft Auto: Vice City. Let’s not fool ourselves, the ESRB fell under political pressure and downright censored a form of speech here; but that argument is best left for another time. So what is Manhunt 2 exactly? Most succinctly put, it’s a mediocre title in almost ever technical aspect, but yet so entertaining in every other way that it’s worth any interested gamer’s time.

We’re going to say from the jump that Manhunt 2 shouldn’t have received an AO rating. Its subject matter is certainly adult, but it never crosses the line into the extreme and its depictions of violence – filtered or not – are no worse than what can be witnessed in movies like Hostel.

You play as Daniel Lamb, a patient in an insane asylum who isn’t too sure what he’s doing there or who he is. All he does know is that his buddy Leo Kasper is there along the way and he gets terrible migraines in the presence of televisions. After escaping the asylum, Lamb follows clues to unlock the mystery of his past despite Kasper’s insistence that the past be left alone and the two get the hell out of “The Project’s” territory. The Project is the main focus of the story, as it appears to be the organization hell bent on finding both Lamb and Kasper before they find their true identities.

The story is entertaining and fairly engrossing, regardless of its fairly cliché plot progression which is a common fault of many games. It certainly holds your interest and always moves forward even during flashback levels. Everything ties into a tight, well paced adventure of self-discovery; and that experience alone is enough to warrant your gaming time.

From a pure gameplay perspective, Manhunt 2 is very mediocre. It’s your typical everyday stealth action game. Hide behind walls, sneak up behind enemies on predetermined patrol routes and kill them in as bloody of a way as possible. The only reason the stealth action is of any interest is because of the multitude of kill animations available in the game. Each weapon has three kill levels. Just like in the first Manhunt, in order to perform the controversial kills, you have to sneak up behind the enemy, lock on, and then hold down the execute button in order to vanquish your foe. As you hold down the execute button, the arrows around the head of your target will change colors from gray to orange to red. Each color represents a higher level kill animation than the one before it, with the red being the most brutal of all. Because of the ESRB, however, we aren’t treated to the full uncensored violence but rather a censored “blurred” version of the execution which kind of takes away from the experience but doesn’t hurt it very much.

There are familiar gameplay elements in Manhunt 2 as in other stealth games. You have to occasionally hide bodies in case any other guards come and spot it on the ground. Also, you lean up against a wall and knock in order to distract a guard and lure him into a trap, though there are only a handful of situations in the game which require such guile in your methods.

Why is that exactly? Well, to put it as simply as possible: the AI is atrocious. There are situations in which you’d believe the cast of America’s Most Smartest Model could wipe the floor with Manhunt 2’s AI in a battle of the IQs. At one point there were two guards in an identical route. We were hiding in the nearby shadows and when both faced their backs to us, we slipped out of the shadows and performed a stealth kill on the closest one. During the animation we could see the other guard gasping and quivering as he watched us bash his boy in the skull with a manhole cover. So what does he do after the animation ends? He turns around and continues his route. Similar situations took place several times through the game.

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