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Manhunt | List Price: $19.99
Discount Price: $12.27
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Platform: Windows 98, Windows 2000, Windows Me, Windows XP
Brand: Rockstar Games
Binding: CD-ROM
Release Date: 2004-04-22
ESRB Age Rating: Mature
Features: - Action/adventure horror game
- Manhunt explores the depths of human depravity in a vicious, sadistic tale of urban horror
- Continues Rockstar North's tradition of world-class gameplay with high production values and sardonic humor
- Explore the depths of human depravity
- For 1 player
Very slow paced and difficult [Posted on 2005-04-13]
This game is deadly dull. It is mostly a stealth game that requires you to SLOWLY and quietly scope out your surroundings and note the locations of all of your enemies. Then you wait for them to walk by you and pounce on them from behind. The cut scene animation of your characters violently killing your enemy is the most graphic of any video game. They are cool to look at, but after you've seen the same one a couple of times they get boring. Another problem is that the cool from-behind killing sequences are only available with a few weapons, not all of them, so shooting someone in the back of the head with a pistol is less damaging than a plastic bag. It's also a really hard game. The developer's made the mistake of not allowing you to save at any point, just at designated save locations. There are only 2 or 3 or these per level, and since the game is so difficult and slow paced, you end up playing the same 20-minutes of game over and over again. Your character cannot duck, crawl, or jump, so you are basically limited to hiding in corners. The game is really gory and creepy, but not scary in a stuff-jumps-out-at-you kind of way.
Worst I've ever played [Posted on 2005-12-28]
This game consists of you walking down a street and killing gangstas. Your character can't duck, jump or anything else that you'd expect. The only way to survive is to sneak around corners; it's so slow paced that it will take you at least 40 minutes to get past a level.
But what I really hate is the darkness. I had to close all my windows, turn off all the lights, crank up the brightness to the max, and only then I could barealy make up the character's white shirt. I was guessing where the enemies would be since I couldn't see anything during the whole game.
Avoid.
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you James Earl Cash. [Posted on 2006-05-01]
By this point, it's safe to say that Rockstar Games in general -- and Rockstar North in particular -- will be known for all time as the makers of the hugely popular Grand Theft Auto games. Nothing wrong with that; I happen to love GTA, and I probably always will. But that doesn't mean they can't do something different every once in a while.
And believe me, friend, this is something COMPLETELY different.
James Earl Cash, a death row inmate, is set to be executed...and he is. No, wait; he isn't. He's tranquilized by the corrupt staff and his life bought by a man named Lionel Starkweather, to be the "star" of the latest MANHUNT, a lethal bloodsport/snuff film where Cash must fight to survive against murderous gangs out to kill him on sight. So while it has shades of survival horror games like RESIDENT EVIL, or stealth games like METAL GEAR SOLID, this is a whole different beast. You can't survive a fight against massed numbers; you have to be quick, quiet, and utterly ruthless, and strike from the shadows.
Weapons are like nothing you've ever seen, ranging from the conventional to the brutal to the inconsequential. They're arranged in four color-coded categories. GREEN weapons are completely silent, one-handed affairs, but they're used up after a single use, and they include such everyday items as a plastic bag or a glass shard. YELLOW weapons are more useful as lures; you throw them to draw a hunter into a trap, and they include such simple things as bricks, bottles, or cans. BLUE weapons aren't as quiet as greens, but can be reused, and are more varied; a hand axe, a scythe, a crowbar, handguns, etc. RED weapons are two-handed, and are the most powerful and brutal in the game; metal baseball bats, rifles, you get the idea. You can only carry one of each class of weapon, so you'll have to choose carefully, depending on the situation.
Carcer City itself is a very different animal from the other cities in the GTA games. I'm pretty sure it's supposed to be Detroit, but you can forget thinking you'll be on foot in a place similar to Liberty City. Carcer is a decaying metropolis; nearly every level takes place in a location that's been closed down and abandoned. City blocks, shopping malls, apartment complexes, you name it; they're all dark, shadowy, and rotting, sprayed with graffitti, festooned with garbage, but far from being empty. In fact, they're literally pulsing with menace and dread.
The gangs of hunters you'll face are psychotic in their own way, and barely human. Hoods, Skinz, Wardogs, Innocentz, Smileys...they're all more animal than man, and they need to be put down like the rabid dogs they are. Even the corrupt Carcer City police and Starkweather's personal guard, the Cerberus, will be lining up against you. And with the weapons you'll acquire, you'll be able to take them down in some very imaginative and gruesome ways.
That's not to say the game doesn't have its occasional flaws, however. One of the most glaring being: precisely what was it Cash did that got him on death row? Did he actually do it, or was he set up by Starkweather? Not knowing these things made it a little harder for me to be able to sympathize with him, unlike Tommy Vercetti or Carl Johnson. In fact, Cash is such a walking cypher that he's only a few steps above the mute protagonist of GTA3; he actually speaks, and you know his name, but that's about it. And while one mission introduces two men and two women identified as his family, they're never named, and we never learn just HOW they're related to him. Are they his brothers and sisters? Cousins? We never know.
But in spite of all that, this is still a harrowing, thrilling game. It's long been a habit of mine to compare a game to movies I find similar if I were to explain it to someone else. And in this case, I'd have to say if you took the blighted urban landscape of ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK, the death-as-a-game-show aspect of THE RUNNING MAN, the gangs of human jackals from THE WARRIORS, the depths of human depravity you'd find in SAW, and combined it all with the absolute, inhuman garbage you'd find on most of today's reality TV game shows, you'd find MANHUNT staring right back at you just seconds before it plunges a glass shard into your eyes.
And blood?
Oh, yes. There will be blood.
Splonter Ceel [Posted on 2006-12-15]
You take splinter cell, you take away the engaging story line, you take away complex level design, you take away character versatility, you take away advanced graphics, you take away objective variety, you got manhunt.
Zip, zap, zoop.
A mediocre steath game [Posted on 2007-03-11]
The premise of Manhunt seems fresh enough: protagonist gets off death row, is dropped in a dangerous part of town, and is hunted by thugs while the cameras are rolling. On the good side, the game has convincing atmosphere, the gameplay mechanics work well, the cutscenes are good, and the voice acting is appropriate for the theme. Bad side: very repetitive gameplay, cheap tactics can get you out of most tight spots, and you never really feel connected to the character or his story. This is too bad, given that the developer (Rockstar) has made some truly amazing games (like Grand Theft Auto 3) using similar mechanics and themes.
Manhunt is pure and simple a stealth game. Cash, the protagonist, can fight hand-to-hand, but the game is intended to be placed in stealth mode. Some of the stealth killings are indeed intense and gruesome, but after about 5 missions they become less shocking. The game primarily consists of distracting an enemy, finding a hiding place, sneaking up behind him, and executing him. Wash, rinse, repeat. Some people are going to like this, and I must admit that the brutality of the kills is morbidly fascinating, at least at first. However, this kind of gameplay has been done much better in games such as Hitman. If you can stand the very repetitive nature of the gameplay, this might be worth checking out. Otherwise, try something like Hitman: Blood Money or one of the Splinter Cell games instead.
Pros
+Good idea for a game
+Some truly over-the-top executions
+Good voice acting
+Typical controls for this sort of game
Cons
-extremely repetitive after a while
-merely decent graphics
-not enough tension
-little character development
-the checkpoint save-game system
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