reviews
- 3.0
- Manhunt 2 - Wii
- Posted About 1 year ago by Veggie Jackson
Name: Manhunt 2
Genre: Stealth Action
Platforms: Wii, PS2, PSP (Reviewed on Wii)
I get it now. I finally see why there was so much controversy about the release of this game. Surprisingly, it has nothing to do with the blood-soaked storyline or the gruesome murder animations. This game DOES, in fact, incite violence...towards the developers of Manhunt 2.
Rockstar's second entry in the notorious Manhunt series follows the saga of neuroscientist Daniel Lamb, a mentally unstable former research study subject who escapes institutionalization with the help of fellow inmate Leo. Along the way, you'll traverse a variety of dismal and allegedly creepy looking environments assassinating enemies with a wide array of weapons and everyday items. The story unfolds at a nice pace, and is surprisingly one of the high points of the game, but, despite a few surprising twists, lacks the emotional punch of the original Manhunt title. But let's be honest; you aren't playing this for the story.
This is NOT a stealth kill
The real draw of Manhunt 2 is the killing. Bloody, gruesome executions are everywhere in this game, and it's obvious that far more effort went into this aspect of the game than any other. Using the wii-mote and nunchuk to simulate the motions of injecting a victim in the neck with a syringe or slamming them over the head with a crowbar is certainly fun for people of a certain persuasion. Sadly, to avoid a dreaded Adults Only rating, the developers were forced to use shaky camera effects and blurry color bleeds to severely obscure the action when these sequences arise. The overall effect is that these scenes are almost completely unrecognizable as executions. You could just as easily be watching a sloppy waltz or the heimlich maneuver being performed.
What's most disappointing is that, blurry camera notwithstanding, these are actually the only sequences in the game that are remotely worth playing. The rest of the game consists of stealthily sneaking up on your victims, occasionally engaging in melee combat and gun fights, and fetch quests. None of these are particularly well-executed. Keeping to the shadows and not being seen works well enough, but camera issues and touchy motion sensitive controls for things like leaning cause a lot of blown stealth opportunities. When this happens, you'll be forced to fight it out with the less-than-spooky array of maniacs and bounty hunters that impede your progress. At the outset of the game, sledgehammers, axes, crowbars and your fists will be your only means of defense. These melee battles consist of thrusting the wii-mote and nunchuk forward. That's it. It's exactly as much fun as it sounds. It really doesn't matter, though, because early in the game, you'll pick up your gun and be able to abuse the idiotic enemy AI as they stand perfectly still, taking bullet after bullet to the head. Add in clipping and collision detection issues and it's obvious that Manhunt 2 is running on a five year old game engine that just doesn't cut it any more.
If the scenes weren't blurred and chopped beyond recognition, this would have been what a syringe execution looked like.
Rockstar went to lengths to present a certain creepy, ugly mood; they just didn't go to great lengths. The environments are certainly dark and gloomy, but textures are decidedly last-gen, realistic light sources are non-existent, and environments lack any sort of interactivity short of some hotspot kill opportunities. Character models suffer from low polygon counts and flat, muddy texture. To make matters worse, it's as ugly on the inside as it is on the outside. Manhunt 2 is filled with blood, filth, psychos, vomit and worse. Less than 5 minutes into the game, a naked prisoner threw his feces at me. In a game that is essentially trying to convey the feel of a horror movie, there is a lot more gross-out content than actual scares, suspense or feelings of creepiness. The presentation is disappointing to say the least, and for many people, the game will be too unpleasant to bother with.
Manhunt 2 is uninspired, gratuitous, unoriginal and not much fun to play. It works, which I guess is good, but there's nothing here that hasn't been done much better dozens of times. I know that there's an audience for all the ultraviolence, but even they're getting shafted by the excessive editing done to the kill animations. I honestly can't recommend this game to anyone.
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Comments
Good review. Icky game.
Oh, and Alone in the Dark was worse than BloodRayne. Much, much worse. -_-
Normally, John, I'd say that suicide is never the answer. But this is Bloodrayne, so stab away.
oh, and bloodrayne the movie just came on scifi, so don't expect any more posts from me, as i will have committed sepuku.
it's unfortunate that the esrb almost has the power to kill a game. i'm not supporting this game, far from it. the game sucks. hard. however, if they wanted to rate it AO, and rockstar didn't back down, the game dies. no one would sell it, much less agree to publish it and allow it on their respective systems. ratings should be used to inform parents of video game content, not as some veil for censorship.
It seems that they spent more time on building the controversy than the game...
God, this was painful to watch. I have a problem with any game working so hard to cause controversy that every other aspect of the game suffers.
I'd like permission to leave the army, sire
@Coop: The ESRB is not in place to stop shoddy game design. That's what the game developer's internal QA people are for.
The ESRB function is to tell buyers (nee: parents) what the games' content consists of so that they can make "informed purchasing decisions"...
any game with an adult rating will in almost all cases not be sold by any retailer unless it's a mom and pop video game store and even then i doubt they'd carry it.
though the developer/publisher can sell it on the internet, it wont be a blockbuster that ever game developer hopes for.
The ESRB is in place to stop shoddy game design. This is a good example. I watched the reel of what was taken out and it was downright stupid for them to even try. Good review though, nice trashing of this mess.
Its a shame that Rockstar managed to quell their target audience by removing all the gory murder details. I have a problem with all the media hype about such an uninspired title.
Jess, no one is blocking it yet. If anything, the ESRB protects video games by making them more like movies, in that parents can gauge what their children watch and play, and that games with inappropriate content (ideally) cannot be sold to young children. With the lack of understanding about games, it alerts people that not all games are created equal and is an understandable way to communicate this to adults who buy for children.
This isn't to say that the ESRB is perfect, I think it would benefit from merging with the Film Ratings system. A lot of people know that a G Movie is suited towards kids, but don't know that EC and E are safe for them as well.
Conversely, a game rated EC could also reflect on educational or developmental value... where movies don't have a similar rating.
It's sad... as long as the esrb exists, video games are never going to be considered a real form of entertainment. If we have can this kind if stuff in movies, I see no reason to block it in games, as long as little kids aren't allowed to play it... and this is coming from someone who actually hates these sorts of games!
have you killed anybody in real life yet?