Manhunt Review

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(More customer reviews)I've seen far too many reviews of this game (and others) by people who played it for two days, got 1/10 the way into it, and felt that qualified them to write a review. It doesn't. Especially for a game like this.
First of all, and this must come right up front, this is *not* a game for children, or even teens. The game is rated for 17 year-olds and above. That might even be young. This is by far the most graphically violent and grotesque game ever , and it will gradually desensitize you from the first to the last level, until it feels perfectly normal to gut someone and hollow out their head with a chainsaw. Absolutely not for anyone under 17. Furthermore, later in Manhunt you will be killing cops - the one area of the game where I felt truly uneasy - so again, no kids.
The Story
Those people at Rockstar are disturbed if nothing else. From the makers of Grand Theft Auto comes Manhunt, a game that makes the aforementioned series look as tame as Super Mario Cart. You are Cash, a murderer on death row who receives a lethal injection. But something unexpected happens - you wake up, fully alive, in a strange place. You begin receiving messages from a strange voice in your ear, from a man named Starkweather- the voice of Brian Cox. Cox is an actor you would recognize if you saw him - the head trooper in Super Troopers, he was the father of the girl in "The Ring" - and he lends a large amount of credibility to the game.
You soon find out that Starkweather is a snuff film director. Snuff films are more commonly associated with hardcore pornography, but technically a snuff film is any movie where people die - I mean *really* die. Starkweather forces Cash - you - to act in these films in order to stay alive. He places you in a slum where he has cameras placed everywhere to capture the action, pitting you against different gangs that he employs.
From the first moment this game turns your stomach. It's the first game I've seen use the F-bomb and other profanity so liberally. In fact, about 20 seconds into the game you will come up behind a gang member and spraypaintedon the wall with an arrow pointing at him are the words "kill this dumb ..." You are initially armed with a plastic bag - one of the many weapons in Manhunt - and you sneak up behind him and perform an execution, the signature move of Manhunt. You can kill people the old-fashioned way, fighting toe to toe, fist to fist, but the real way of Manhunt is the executions, of which there are 3 levels. You carefully sneak up behind an enemy, and when you are close enough (your hand will move, letting you know you are in execution range) you press and hold the x button. A target will lock onto his head and the longer you hold the button, the more gruesome the execution will be. Each weapon has only three levels of execution. When you perform an execution the game "takes over" and you simply watch it happen in low-fi video "security camera" mode.
With your first execution comes the uncomfortable feeling that this is very, very wrong. But you'll keep playing. Starkweather guides you through each level, "directing" you exactly where to go and what to do. The point of these levels? To be as gruesome as possible. You get rated at the end of each level by a star system and the more gruesome and violent your kills, the higher you score. So not only is Manhunt the most violent game ever made, the actual strategy of the game requires you to be violent to score well.
Each level gets harder and more weapons become available to you, including a crowbar, a glass shard, a knife, a machete,a bat, a blackjack - and then there's the guns - a sawed off, the sniper rifle, even machine guns, and yes - a chainsaw. Rockstar also gradually paces the gore so you are eased into it. After the initial shock of suffocating a man with a plastic bag and then snapping his neck, ripping someone's throat out with a crowbar has less impact on you than it otherwise would.
This is where most reviewers have played the game to. Many got bored after a few levels and assumed this is all there is to the game. Not true. After several levels of killing the gang members, Cash is able to escape from Starkweather's cycle. Starkweather sics the police on him, and Cash becomes a fugitive, eventually going after Starkweather himself. So the story does develop if you stick with it.
The Game
Gameplay is stealth based, similar to Splinter Cell. It's not a run and gun game - it's a hide in the shadows and sneak up behind people game. If you don't like stealth games, I'd recommend against Manhunt, since it epitomizes the genre.
The optional headset is incorporated. It's how you receive Starkweather's messages and you can also speak into the mic to attract hunters (the gang members). The game isn't all that intelligent. The hunters can't see you even if they are inches away from you (and you are in the shadows), though they do have less defined patrolling patterns than other games I've played.
Graphics
Great and bad. Most noticeably, the rain looks terrible. That's my biggest complaint. Otherwise, the incorporation of "security-camera" style footage is very cool.
Bottom Line
If you liked GTA Vice City *and* Splinter Cell, my guess is you will like Manhunt. It's the next step in the evolution of video games, for better or worse. Rockstar just doesn't care. You probably haven't seen movies as disturbing as this game is. If you have the stomach for it, it's worth getting just to see where games are headed.

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