Manhunt 2 Review

Let's get this out of the way right now. This is one sick f***ing game. (Editors note: Sick is used here not in the teenage parlance of meaning good, but rather "twisted" or "disturbed.") Amid all the controversy and free press that a game could get, there is but one thing left to do upon such a heralded title's release: play it. I can tell you right now, I'm sure many people are going to be disappointed in this title, no matter how good it is, just because of the immense hype. Whether you cared about the game being good or if you just wanted to play the sickest damn thing that you could get your hands on, it is going to be a tough act to follow such huge hype with the original AO rating and global banning reports. For those of you who just simply enjoyed the first Manhunt as a good game and couldn't wait for the follow up, no fears: this one is good too.

Does a game of this type sensationalize violence? Of course it does! Is that really a problem? Well if you have a problem with movies, music, magazines, and the news, I guess it does, but then you would have a problem with everything now, wouldn't you? Manhunt 2 takes place amongst the seedy underbelly of society filled with the violently insane, sexually deviant, and profoundly disgusting. These attributes could describe individual folks or just about all of them in one. The story of Manhunt 2 isn't that much deeper than the first game, but it has enough narrative to make you feel like it is. Your antagonist isn't watching you this time around, though sometimes you wonder if your friend that is guiding you is really your friend at all. There is a sense of mystery and danger at every turn, however you seldom mind dying thanks to a bevy of random taunts or phrases from your killers after you die. For example, I nearly ruptured my stomach muscles after laughing my ass off when one guy, dressed very much like the Gimp from Pulp Fiction, ceremoniously beat the hell out of me, killed me, and then, as I died, yelled out "I'm coming! I'm COMING!" Any game that manages to be entertaining and piss off Jack Thompson will always get a few extra points in my book. Unfortunately, thanks to the crusade by ratings boards and that famous crackpot attorney, this game is as butchered by censorship as your victims are by you. Executions are distorted, shaky, and sometimes downright impossible to make out.

The controls and game play manage to work hand in hand. If you are franticly nervous the controls seem to lend to you feeling even more frantic and nervous. That's not to say that the game is overly loose feeling, but just that it's loose enough to lend to the nervous and sketchy atmosphere that you pretty much feel just from the presentation of the game. Ambient sound effects, grainy video, and hollow screams do well to make you absolutely pensive in turning that corner, even though your screen shows where the bad guys are along with a color coded representation of their awareness and mood. The weapons and environmental executions in this game improve over the formula of the first as well as the way your progress is structured. The game is still linear but the things you have to do to reach the end of a level are more varied and not always obvious. In one level you can't enter a certain area because a guard will only let a "face" that he recognizes through that door. My first instinct was to drag a body to the door and see if I could hold it up for him to see, but that was not the solution. Let's just say that it took me a few minutes to find a hidden axe that wasn't really all that hidden and figure out what I had to do from there. It's a good time.
Manhunt 2: The Bottom Line

Overall this game is better in just about every way than the original. The PS2 version isn't overly a graphical masterpiece, but for what it is the PSP version looks great for a portable game and the Wii version seems to have the best graphics out of the lot with more immersive controls. Each version of the game seems to be JUST the right length. Any more and you would probably start to run out of new things to do and any shorter and you would probably be upset. If you have a Wii get it for that, and if you are never home get it for the PSP.

UGO Rating
Gameplay: B+
Presentation: B
Fun Factor: B+
Value: B-
Overall: B

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