Manhunt 2

"Manhunt 2's a mess; a clearly rushed game that's ugly in every way possible"

One great thing about video games becoming more of a mainstream entertainment over the past couple console generations is the surprisingly great collection of video games aimed at adults. And one of the best developers of this content is Rockstar Games, (and their publisher, Take Two Interactive,) who have developed some of the best adult-targeted games of the last console generation, from the rebirth of Grand Theft Auto to the innovative Max Payne (and the FANTASTIC Max Payne 2,) the developer has shown a knack for mixing dark, controversial, and gritty gameplay with equally compelling stories and characters. Manhunt 2, though, is simply Rockstar phoning it in. When Manhunt 2 was first announced (and coming to the Wii, of all systems,) my hopes were high that Rockstar would be offering a game that would take advantage of the Wii's features and incorporate them into a dark, violent, disturbing, and well-plotted stealth game that took the genre to the next generation. Unfortunately, that turned out not to be the case, and the game we have here feels rushed and entirely thrown together; everything, from the half-assed storyline to the unbelievably ugly graphics, shoddy gameplay, unbelievably stupid AI, and uninspired level designs, reeks of a "rush job" and it's unfortunate because they really had a great opportunity here and they failed miserably.

Graphics: It's almost shocking how ugly this game looks. I'm not talking "ugly" in the "gritty environments" type of way, though, I'm talking "ugly" in the "what the hell is this, it looks like a PSP game!!!" type of way. Characters are all extremely blocky and poorly defined; at their worst, they look like something dug up from the early PS1 era. Despite 3 development teams each working on a separate version of the game, each version (Wii, PS2, and PSP) looks exactly the same. If you thought the PSP GTA ports to the PS2 looked dated, wait until you play Manhunt 2, the entire experience completely reeks of "slightly enhanced" PS1. At times I couldn't even tell what facial expressions were being used, as the characters' faces in some cutscenes look like blobs of clay. My favorite scenes are when they show characters on a TV screen; they all look so pixelated and so completely two-dimensional that you'd think they were paper cutouts photographed and then thrown into a blender. At one point in the game the main character barges into an adult movie theater and the camera lingers up at the screen, and the sex scene on display is made entirely laughable not just by how gratuitous it is, but by how cheap the graphics look. The environments are a jaggy mess, featuring an embarrassing lack of textures or detail. Any time the camera gets in close to an object we're faced with extremely jaggy, blocky, or unintentionally deformed features on it. Aside from the hyper-stylized death sequences put in place to tone down the game's violence, there's almost nothing in the way of any type of advanced lighting effects. The blood and gore looks unconvincing and poorly-defined. The environments are all extremely dull, linear, and lacking any color. Everything has an ugly look to it. There's nothing noteworthy about any aspect of the game's graphical presentation. It looks bad on the PS2, and it looks AWFUL on the Wii, which we know is capable of better.

Gameplay: The game doesn't redeem itself in the gameplay department. As a stealth game, the focus in Manhunt 2 is on controlling Danny Lamb, the main character, slowly, sneaking up on enemies and taking them out one-by-one while progressing through the very linear levels. If you manage to sneak up on an enemy, holding the A-button triggers an Execution (holding it longer triggers a more violent one,) and you use the Wii Remote and Nunchuk's motion sensing to follow on-screen prompts to pull off the kill. Unfortunately, though, it ultimately doesn't matter which level of kill you choose, as you are barely able to see them anyway. In order to release the game with an M-rating, Rockstar had to go in and edit these scenes, adding everything from motion blur to color filters to quickly-moving cameras....90% of the time, you have no idea what's going on during these kills. Now, the required censoring was not Rockstar's fault, exactly, and I hate to have that affect the review of a game, but the simple fact is that there were BETTER ways of making the game work than simply putting a filter over it. Had Rockstar spent a bit more time and gone in and re-shot these Executions so more was left up to the imagination, it would have worked better. But the game was rushed, and as a result, so was the censoring. Very little was re-done, they simply made it impossible to tell what's going on. It's unfortunate and it hurts a big aspect of Manhunt 2's gameplay, but it's by no means a game-ruiner, since through very graphic sound effects and quick glimpses of what's going on, you still can "get a feel" for what happened, and certain Executions, presumably the ones the developers were most proud of, seem a bit more "visible" than the others, and as much as I hate the idea of censorship, I have to say that if this game had released uncensored with an M-rating there would have been something truly wrong with the video game ratings system. Without the censoring the kills would be completely sickening and almost pornographic and WAY too much for an M-rating. The sad truth, though, is that AO-rated games aren't carried at very many retailers AT ALL, so Rockstar was forced to implement this lazy fix rather than simply releasing the game with an AO rating. On a small positive note, however, the Wii-exclusive gesture controls during these Executions actually work pretty well, and add quite a bit to the game. Still, though, Rockstar's hasty censoring left these Executions a confusing mess.

Even uncensored Executions, though, couldn't save this game. If detected by the AI, you are mercilessly beaten, and if there's ever 2 or more enemies beating you up, forget about it, you're dead, back to the last checkpoint. (And the UN-SKIPPABLE CUTSCENE!!!) You die a lot in this game. More times than I could even try to count. One step out of the shadows and into the light and the enemies could be all over you, with a combat system designed to be in their favor. As it is, the system doesn't really work much anyway; if you're spotted by an enemy, you can run back to the "shadows" and as long as the enemy doesn't see you ENTER the shadows, you're safe. Even if he chased you to the end of a dead end hallway and there's no possible escape. With such an unconvincing gameplay engine, it's even more frustrating when things don't work the way they're supposed to. Sometimes when you simply open a door to the next room you'll be ambushed by enemies who just happened to be walking in the area. Whoops. Other times your radar would show an enemy disappearing only to have him re-appear seconds later right behind you. Whoops. At other times the game will glitch entirely, forcing me several times to die and restart at the checkpoint. For example, at one point in the game, to progress you must hide in the shadows in a tiny stairwell and attack the enemies once you lure them there. After searching for you, the enemies (stupidly not seeing you, despite you being inches from their badly-designed faces,) do not walk away or turn around like they're supposed to, but stand there....not moving. For over 10 minutes. It was clear that they would never move. There was nothing to do in this situation except have my character reveal his location, get killed, and have to start at the last checkpoint. Fun. During one "memorable" moment that showcases the care that went into making this "quality product," the radar, my health meter, and ammunition display disappeared from the screen ENTIRELY, for no reason....in the heat of a gun battle. Whoops.....of course I was dead within seconds. Surrounding this weak stealth gameplay is a brain-dead AI, and while they'll brutally attack your character if they see him, other times they wander the areas like brainless zombies, sometimes incapable of even walking a straight line, especially if more than 1 enemy is in a small area.

The game controls okay on the Wii when simply moving around, although at times I noticed my character suddenly freezing in place at random points. I thought there was something wrong with the game, but eventually I discovered that tilting the Nunchuk enters this mode. It's pretty useless, and unfortunately there's no way to turn it off, so you've got to hold the Nunchuk still constantly while playing, which becomes a bit of a pain. Even the slightest movement of it causes Danny to freeze and go into a stealth maneuver.

Such weak stealth mechanics would be the kiss of death in any game centered on stealth, but in Manhunt 2's case it gets worse. The tasks they have you doing when going through these levels are often very tedious and not much fun. Things like searching for crowbars to open air vents to crawl through, using oil containers to burn up files....it's all tedious and all very much "work." Despite the fact that you can't see the Executions clearly, eventually you long for the game to return to the simple act of wandering corridors and pulling those off, rather than the stupid tasks they have you doing in the later parts of the game. At certain points in the game, you're encouraged to pick up guns and engage in shootouts. Failure to use a gun will make these scenes nearly impossible, and all sense of stealth is lost as you engage in full out gun battles in these confined areas...unfortunately fighting some of the worst shooting controls yet on the Wii. Still, it's during these moments that the game becomes anything even resembling fun, and a shootout that takes place in a suburb near the end of the game is actually pretty fun and intense. Unfortunately moments like these are few and far in between. Manhunt 2 is not fun to play. At all. It's a very frustrating game, centered around a stealth mechanic that's as dumb in practice as it sounds on paper, and the try-and-die gameplay, brain dead AI, often poor controls, uninspired tasks, lame levels, and hard-to-see Executions don't help matters at all.

Sound: The music went in one ear and out the other; it felt practically non-existent. There are occasional "horror game" sound effects thrown in, and things like heart beats and of course the graphic sounds of the kills add a bit to this department but overall there isn't much to write home about. The voice acting's pretty bad as well, demonstrating yet again the fact that Rockstar didn't put much effort into this game at all, as their games are usually very well acted. The actors aren't exactly done any favors by a horrible script, though.

Story: The story here feels cliche'd and thrown together without much, if any, thought, as it borrows shamelessly from past Rockstar games as well as pretty much any medium under the sun. Cutscenes last no more than a minute at most, and these characters are never, even for a second, likable or developed. When a life-changing plot twist occurs to the main character towards the end of the game he barely reacts. Things like "The Project" are never even explained to us, (or if they were, I missed it,) and I have no idea what these scientists hoped to gain by doing it. Only one scene in the entire game affected me in any way, and it was a scene where Danny watched a video that was shown to him. We don't actually get to see it, but we get to hear it, and it's a very chilling scene. Unfortunately, nothing else in the game manages to carry that much weight. The plot only serves to get us from one unoriginal location to another. Manhunt 2 takes us through many "never-before-done" locations like strip clubs, seedy hotels with mirrored glass in the rooms, the main character's childhood home in flashback.....sound familiar? These locations have all been done (and better, too,) in so many games, including Rockstar's own Max Payne series. Not only are the locations in Manhunt 2 affected by an incredible lack of development, but they all LOOK awful, too, and feel extremely limited. Don't even ask why a strip club only has 1 performer in a big room with only 3 people watching her. Don't bother. These areas don't even look a fraction as nice graphically as the locations even from the first Max Payne game (in 2001!!!) which is just disgusting. So often the game throws under-developed and "controversial" plot elements at you. It tries so hard to be edgy and shocking and it just doesn't work. There's nothing new or interesting about this plot at all. The end credits completely pop up out of nowhere; never have I seen such a rushed resolution.

Overall: This was not a game I expected from this often-acclaimed publisher. Rather than attempting to make a next gen game, Rockstar was instead content to simply design a PSP game and port it to the PS2 and Wii. Even without the game's awful graphics, though, it would be entirely sunk by its awful story, flawed and inherently stupid gameplay, bad controls, lack of any original ideas whatsoever, totally unfinished feel, mentally challenged AI, and the fact that you'll have to sit through some cutscenes well over 5 times as you keep dying. Manhunt 2 is a bad game, a rushed effort that had no ambition other than to be a quick, low-budget source of cash for Rockstar and Take-Two Interactive. Don't give them the satisfaction. If you MUST play it, rent it. There are A COUPLE fun moments in there and some of the Executions (or what you can see of them, anyway,) are actually pretty imaginative. But that's not enough to recommend it. It's a very frustrating game with very few redeeming qualities. Hopefully Rockstar's got some better games in the pipeline for us Wii owners, because Manhunt 2's a disgrace.

Reviewer's Score: 4/10, Originally Posted: 01/14/08, Updated 04/06/09

Game Release: Manhunt 2 (US, 10/29/07)