Manhunt 2 Preview

Rockstars, videogame nasty finds an unlikely home on Wii. There's currently a lot of disquiet in the wii community about the preponderance of PS2 ports among the 3rd party output for the system. Their frequently creaky cross platform visuals and ill fitting controls justify that disquiet. But it's also true that an eventual solution to the problem of bringing traditional games to the wii is just as important to its long term future as bespoke experimentation and that one of its very best games -one of Nintendo’s flagships-is a subtle port of a last generation title that knows just when the remote can add something and when it gets in the way. Twilight Princess is that game and the wii version of manhunt 2 has learned a lot from it.

After playing Toronto's conversion it's clear that it will be the pick of the bunch and not just because of its persistent progressive scan blood spatter and the extra layer of grimy conviction to its visuals. Wii manhunt 2s elaborated controls make it slightly harder and considerably more viscerally involving from its PS2 sibling.

The most significant difference is the stealth kills. These gruesome interludes are executed with a single button press on the PS2 but on the wii that's just the beginning of a sequence of timed prompted gestures with both halves of the controller that mimic the on screen brutality - jabbing the remote to stab, jerking both upward to strangle etc. These become particularly involved with the new environmental kills and intensify the bloody pay offs by adding the risk of failure.

Like Zelda, Manhunt 2 uses motion sensing for extra dynamic range involving the remote at key moments and letting it melt away to no more than a couple of buttons during downtime. The perfect expression of its savage, imaginative economy is when trying to avoid detection by a guard peering into shadow, in place of the PS2s quick fire button prompts you simply have to hold perfectly still. We played two new levels of the PS2 version straight after the Wii demo one of which was a flashback, feature the games second lead character Leo suggesting a more sophisticated plot structure for this sequel.

While still model of pacing and design they had a considerably lesser impact without the wii controls and we were reminded of out concerns that this might be a more conventionally and gratuituously gross splatter house than the first game. With the Wii remote in your hands though, your heart will be racing too fast to care.

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