Manhunt
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 You awake to the sound of your own panicked breath. You must run, hide and fight to survive. If you can stay alive long enough, you may find out who did this to you.
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Manhunt is a 2003 stealth game developed by Rockstar North and published by Rockstar Games. The first entry in the Manhunt series, it was released for the PlayStation 2 in November 2003, followed by Microsoft Windows and Xbox releases in April 2004. Set within the fictional Carcer City, the story follows James Earl Cash, a Death Row prisoner who is forced to participate in a series of snuff films, earning his freedom by murdering criminal gang members sent to hunt him on camera. The game was added to Steam in January 2008. The game was included for free for players who pre-ordered the PC version of Manhunt 2 in November 2009. The Xbox version is also backward compatible with the Xbox 360. On May 14, 2013, Manhunt was made available for purchase on the PlayStation 3 under the PlayStation Network's PS2 Classics category. It was released again for the PlayStation 4 (which is also available for PlayStation 5) on March 22, 2016, upscaled to 1080p and with support for trophies
Plot
Players control James Earl Cash, a death row prisoner forced to participate in a series of snuff films for a power-hungry underground director, former film producer Lionel Starkweather.
Why It's An Manhunt
- Unlike other stealth games, the stealth aspect in this game is unique as it makes the survival horror element all the scarier as the atmosphere is so quiet and elusive that it makes the minute-to-minute gameplay feel tense and terrifying, especially the sudden blaring of retro synths when a hunter spots Cash.
- The soundtrack helps set the tone for the environments as it mostly drones, giving you the feeling that something or someone is going to attack you at any moment. What helps is that it's in the style of John Carpenter and 1980s slasher films.
- The designs and taunts of the enemies are pretty unique from each other since they all act differently depending on what gang they're with.
- In the beginning, you fight standard enemies: Joisey-accented Hoodz, the southern-fried Skinz (who constantly calls out Cash with ethnic slurs), and the Wardogs, who are more composed of wannabe-Rambos than actual soldiers. The Innocents, however, is where things get interesting. The whole lot of them are insane gangsters dressed up as Grim Reapers and Skeletons, and whose taunts seem to relate to Satanism.
- There are 30 weapons in the game from sharp and blunt force objects to firearms. Each weapon has its animation for stealth kills and is split up into four different classes. The player can hold four weapons at a time but only one of each class.
- Yellow Class Weapons: These aren't exactly weapons, but simply items that can be thrown to distract a hunter. They can be thrown at the hunters, but it takes a lot of hits to kill them.
- Green Class Weapons: These weapons are small items used to execute hunters silently, making them very useful in multiple enemy situations but unfortunately each weapon can only be used once. Alternatively, they can be used in a fight for a little extra power.
- Blue Class Weapons: These weapons can be used multiple times to execute enemies and are better for combat, however, they make some noise and will alert any nearby hunters.
- Red Class Weapons: These are the same as the Blue weapons but they are a lot bigger and noisier. They tend to alert multiple hunters when used. They're also the best weapons available for combat. Running with this type of weapon equipped requires more stamina than usual.
- Good voice acting especially Brian Cox as Lionel Starkweather who manages to get across the sociopathic and carefree attitude Starkweather has over people being executed.
- Impressive graphics for its time that has this grimy, dirty, and dilapidated look to it, really selling the fact that you're participating in a snuff film. It's also amazing for 2003 standards and still looks great to this day, it helps that it runs on a more improved 3D GTA Engine: RenderWare.
- Stealth kills aren't your standard takedowns. Instead, they are "executions": if a player waits and charges the attack, the reticles will change colors ranging from green to yellow to red. This relates to the three levels of executions.
- Hasty - Represented by three white reticles around the hunter's head. Hasty executions can be achieved by simply tapping the execute button which results in shorter, less gruesome executions.
- Violent - Represented by three yellow reticles around the hunter's head. Violent executions are achieved by keeping the execute button down for two seconds before releasing.
- Gruesome - Represented by three red reticles around the hunter's head. Gruesome executions are the most severe of all three execution levels and can be achieved by holding the execution button down for three seconds before releasing.
- Piggsy's boss fight is terrifying. A naked, huge, insane psychopathic man-child who believes he's a pig, wears the head of a pig for a mask, wields a gigantic chainsaw, and feeds on the remains of dead Starkweather "extras". The boss "fight" against him is particularly unsettling, as you try to sneak around the decrepit, corpse-filled attic of Starkweather's mansion, trying to find a weapon you can use all while desperately trying to run and hide from this unhinged psycho.
- The game deconstructs and satirizes the conventional relationship between player and player character in violent video games. The player character, James Earl Cash, is being controlled from the outset by Starkweather, a weird creepy guy sitting in a dark room in front of a computer screen, who watches him through cameras and urges him to commit unspeakably horrific acts. And why does Starkweather urge Cash to carry out these shockingly violent murders? For no better reason than finding the violence entertaining.
- The game also deconstructs the controversy of games glorifying violence and murder, like in Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto series. In GTA, the game gives you the choice to kill innocents, but in terms of the overall story, they're just collateral damage from player decisions. Whereas in Manhunt, you are forced to kill your enemies in the most gruesome ways to progress and survive. The game hides under no pretenses of glory and esteem, as it shows its executions in a long, gory, and brutal fashion which comes with Cash's victims gagging profusely, screaming, asphyxiating, gurgling on blood, etc. and you can't skip any of it. It's as if Rockstar is distinguishing the difference between real-life violence and video game violence, and how real-life violence is far more ugly, inexcusable, and less glorious compared to what happens in a video game.
- Lots of bonus features that add to the lore of the game world, giving plenty of characters backstories and so on.
- The console version comes with an exclusive feature where talking to a USB Microphone will make noise and attract enemies which adds to the immersion of the survival horror.
- It also has a feature where Lionel Starkweather will speak through the microphone jack.
Bad Qualities
- When playing the PC version on modern systems, it suffers from several issues like crashing, sound loops, and a bug that prevents you from opening a gate in the first level as the enemy that is supposed to open it will do absolutely nothing. These issues can be fixed with Manhunt Fixer.
- Difficulty Spike: There are times when you will be involved in third-person shooting sections as opposed to stealth. The shooting mechanics are sloppy and can make certain scenes quite frustrating (listed below) since it removes the advantage of stealth almost completely. It doesn't help that the AI can get pretty aggressive by this point and will swarm Cash. The worst part is the fact that Cash doesn't have enough health pickup for these sections.
- Divided They Fall: In this Scene, Cash has to make his way up an apartment complex while fighting numerous Wardogs to kill their leader: Ramirez. The difficulty comes in when you reach the top, to which Ramirez will flee and call for backup, at which point you have about two minutes to kill him before he does. You then have to go all the way back down while killing another batch of Wardogs, then killing his bodyguards and sneaking up behind him and shooting him in the back of the head (you can't execute him, because he'll just shove you off of him if you try). You have to do all of this with the notion that if you die you will spawn back where you started at the top of the apartment complex, meaning you'd have to redo that whole process all over again.
- Wrong Side of the Tracks (Not to be confused with the GTA San Andreas mission of the same name): Cash is in a subway station occupied by police searching for him and eventually the SWAT Team. He needs to activate the power and get on a Subway train. The worst part of this level is the lack of melee weapons so unless you saved one from the level before, you won't have a reliable way to quietly execute the SWAT, and trying to shoot one will bring the wrath of the rest of the team upon you, who will cut you down in seconds. To make matters worse, most of them come with flashlights on their shotguns, so hiding in the shadows is almost futile. Finally, towards the end of the level will be another few squads of SWAT that you can't run past without a fight, so avoiding the ones that tried to ambush you and engaging the other squads will very likely end up with the squad you tried avoiding earlier to rush you from behind.
- Border Patrol: This one involves Cash trying to infiltrate Starkweather's estate while having to fight Starkweather's elite squad: Cerberus. They're armed with shotguns and assault rifles meaning you'll have to constantly run around and take them all down while trying not to get swarmed. You also can't silently execute them just like in Wrong Side of the Tracks. Fortunately, you'll get your hands on a pistol at the beginning of the level. There are also snipers stationed on the balcony of the estate so you also have to find a blind spot. The difficult part isn't just dealing with Cerberus, but the fact that you have only one save point and there are no painkillers in fixed locations (they only spawn if you kill one of the mooks and your health is low enough).
- The main protagonist, James Earl Cash, is not as memorable of a character as opposed to Leo and Danny from its sequel. He only talks a few times in the game and commits many atrocities. The game also never gives any backstory to Cash nor does it even hint as to why he was on a Death Row to begin with.
- Although he did do redeemable stuff such as saving his family and rescuing a news reporter.
- It uses that Bond Villain Stupidity trope where Ramirez captures Cash and has him dead-to-rights after he's been given explicit instruction to kill him, and decides that now would be a good time to have his men continue hunting him rather than simply shooting him dead., why he didn't kill him yet is never explained.
- Some cut content, likely due to the controversy, leads to some plot holes. For example, the Tramp you escort was supposed to lead to a boss fighting with him as "Scarecrow", but instead, he completely disappears after that mission and is never seen again, although this can be restored with a mod.
- Since September 1, 2023 it was revealed that the Steam version uses a pirate copy DRM.
Reception
The PlayStation 2 and PC versions of Manhunt received "generally favorable reviews", while the Xbox version received "mixed or average" reviews, according to the review aggregation website Metacritic.
As of March 26, 2008, the Manhunt series has sold 1.7 million copies worldwide. At the 7th Annual Interactive Achievement Awards, the game was nominated for "Console Action/Adventure Game of the Year". Manhunt received a "Gold" sales award from the Entertainment and Leisure Software Publishers Association (ELSPA), indicating sales of at least 200,000 copies in the United Kingdom.
In 2010, it was included in 1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die, and listed at #85 in IGN's "Top 100 PlayStation 2 Games".
Trivia
- The game takes place in Carcer City, which is the city right next door to Liberty City, the locale of Grand Theft Auto III (2001), and was also mentioned numerous times in that game.
- While waiting for the credits to end, there is a secret scene after that where it was revealed the film "Manhunt" was filmed in a kids' show tape with a robot saying the god mode cheats backward.
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