Review By: J. Michael Neal
Developer:	Rockstar North
Publisher:	Rockstar
# Of Players:	1
Genre:	Urban Survival Horror
ESRB:	Mature
Online:	No
Accessories:	Memory Card, USB Headsets
Date Posted:	3-2-04

Rekindling that sense of good, old-fashioned childhood danger alone is almost worth giving Manhunt commendation. It’s fun to revisit, and it’s remarkable that something can actually come along and ruffle the feathers of seemingly jaded gamers. We are a community that met Running With Scissor’s immature shockfest Postal 2 with yawns; surely we’ve seen it all. Well, Rockstar North continues to prove that we have not.

The secret to Manhunt’s shock value is its subject matter. “Snuff” films are such a huge taboo, such a grimy, seedy, repulsive reality we’d all rather pretend doesn’t exist, that the name alone makes you feel a bit dirty. It’s the kind of word you can only utter half under your breath. So when you hear, “snuff game” the first thing that pops into mind is “I shouldn’t be playing this. I’m going to end up seeing something I’ll regret.” And for the most part you’re right, you will see and hear a number of things that cross the line of good taste, but all in all it’s nothing the director of an R rated film couldn’t get away with; and if video games are ever to progress to the point that motion pictures have, shouldn’t they be afforded the same freedom to cross lines and push boundaries?

People who think consoles are just glorified children’s toys, though, will no doubt freak when they get a whiff of this game. Manhunt wears its sleaze like a badge of honor. It has depictions of violence that dwarf any to come before it, a story dark enough to make Twisted Metal Black look like Twisted Metal Pastel, sexual allusions that will make you squirm (“I want your head juice” – please tell me you mean the stuff my brain floats in…), enough foul language to fluster sailors, drug references, and enough racism to that make that silly “Kill All Haitians” mission look like a Martian Luther King Day parade – and that’s just in level four! This is clearly the kind of content people just aren’t ready to accept from a video game and it will definitely draw a lot of heat for being too harmful to fall into the hands of children.

Luckily this game wasn’t made for children. It was made for adults, by adults. The average age of gamers now is 26. How long do we have to put up with primary colors and floating platforms just because little Billy’s mummy and diddy would rather let TV do their parenting for them?

If by now you’re wondering why an “adult” would even want to play a game that sounds this repulsive and “immature”, I would tell you it’s the same reason why someone would want to watch Silence of the Lambs or Se7en– not only are they excellent achievements in the field of horror and suspense, but it’s the fact that they go as far as they do that makes them scary. If you still don’t get it, if you don’t like to be disturbed, disgusted, or freaked out, don’t watch those movies and don’t play this game; but if you’re constantly on the look-out for new thrills, the next thing to keep you up at nights, Manhunt is right up your ally.

Comparisons between Manhunt and films like Silence of the Lambs and Se7en don’t end there, however. Like these films, Manhunt chooses to use human “monsters” instead of fictional boogiemen. These aren’t the zombies of Resident Evil; these are thrill killers, cultists, hate groups, and violent sex offenders. This lends a spooky kind of realism to this game that’s hard to shake. You know it’s just a game, you know it’s just the product of Rockstar’s sick and fertile imagination, but deep down instead you get the feeling that somewhere something like this is really happening; that in some god-forsaken open sore of an inner city, in some forgotten armpit of the country, a woman is being abducted and murdered in front of the unblinking eye of a security camera for the amusement of someone with enough power to throw away human lives for personal pleasure. Even if you don’t, at the very least, you feel that something like this is realistically possible. It makes you feel somehow involved. It makes you feel dirty and wonderful all at the same time. Why wonderful? How wonderful? Well, because this IS just a game. It’s safe; it’s harmless. No one was hurt making it and no one’s hurt playing it. This feeling is completely the work of those design geniuses down at Rockstar North. In many ways, it’s what Hitchcock did for film. Men and women watching Double Indemnity or Strangers on a Train for the first time felt the same exact way.

Does that mean gaming has its first Psycho? Not exactly – Rockstar borrows more from visceral Slasher flicks like the Texas Chainsaw Massacre than from Hitchcock’s intelligent suspense thrillers, but you can say this is gaming’s Deliverance. It’s more concerned with disquieting your psyche and scarring you for life than with squeezing some knee-jerk scream out of you. Does this mean that Manhunt is without “cheap scares”? Not at all. This game has its moments, boy does it have its moments, but those aren’t the scares that linger. Having to chase a “plushophile” through a death row for the criminally insane, on the other hand, will. Not to mention the final level, which is without a doubt the most terrifying experience in the history of gaming. Go ahead, think I’m lying…

Page 3 of 5-->