Most Helpful Customer Reviews
|
|
19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A violent (but solid) stealth game, May 24, 2004
Overall, I found "Manhunt" to be a pretty enjoyable stealth game. It has very simple and reliable mechanics, and it's easy to pick up and play. Thus, it manages to be somewhat fun by avoiding a lot of the unsatisfying trial-and-error that accompanies most stealth games (like "Splinter Cell"). The game also throws in some token shooting sequences which aren't as well fleshed out, but also end up being kind of enjoyable as a change of pace, if nothing else.Manhunt is a great setting for a stealth game. You are a death row inmate, being hunted on a great big movie set by gangters, lunatics, and other scum of the earth. All the while, a sick perverted director talks into your ear and eggs you on. He is constantly badgering you to kill, kill, kill. And when you do, it's not a pretty sight. The game is dripping with atmosphere. This is the most brilliantly atmospheric stealth game that I have played since System Shock 2. It's not really scary so much as disturbing. Especially one chapter that takes place in an old mental institution. There's basically nothing extraordinary here as far as game mechanics goes. Manhunt has a simple formula that borrows heavily from other stealth games. You hide in shadows, and guards have three stages of alertness: clueless, suspicious, and fully aware. The behavior of the guards is pretty predictable, and the stealth routine is easy to learn. Everything works well here because of the setting. The hunters make for some really good fodder. Generally, they are lazy or just screwed up, which explains why they give up looking for you so soon after you alert them. The visuals for the game are not spectacular or cutting edge, but they get the job done. What the game lacks in high-tech eye candy, it makes up for by throwing a large variety of environments and scenery at you. All of it fits in well with the dark and disturbing theme of the game. Still, the areas could have used more detail. Where this game really excels is in the sound category. Sound is crucial for a stealth game, and here it is perfect. The music is dynamic. It is quiet when you are hidden, and it picks up when you step out of the shadows. When somebody spots you, it picks up in intensity again. The voice acting is top-notch, and there are tons and tons of great sound bites filled up with it. Some of them are disturbing, while others are just funny, like the radio stations in the "Grand Theft Auto" games. "Manhunt" shows the same attention to detail in the sound department that Rockstar's other games have shown. The guy who really steals the show is the voice actor for the main villain. The raving mad, wealthy genius, Starkweather is one of the best villains to show up in video gaming in a long, long time. The biggest fault with this game as that it still gets repetitive about halfway through, despite attempts to give you different goals every level. You find yourself repeating the same few actions over and over - bang on wall, hide in shadows, wait for guard to pass by, sneak up on guard, kill guard, repeat. A few the levels are too loaded with enemies to use stealth, and end up being incredibly frustrating. The game also has essentially zero replay value, because of its linear nature. "Manhunt" is a really good game. The excessive gore and violence enhance the experience, but they aren't the game's only features. Don't be put off by reviews saying that the game has nothing besides gore imagery. There is a good game here. If you like stealth-action games, or if you like Rockstar's other games, then you will like "Manhunt".
|
|
|
17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
sick, twisted, brutal, but fun, August 9, 2004
Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars
This is probably one of the best stealth based games made of recent years. But it is also one of the most brutal games I have ever played, it has some parts that are hard for even I to watch, which is saying a lot.
The basis of the game is that you are playing a bad man named cash, who was put to death for murder. But it turns out that he wasn't killed, he was put unconscious. When he wakes it turns out that he is being put into a form of a "snuff film". Where he is being filmed by some rich, eccentric, sicko that likes to see people murdered, and is going to make him a film star. You are put into preselected areas with gangs of various types that are trying to kill you, and you can't get out of the level until you either kill all of them or kill enough to open the door. Most of the levels are stealth, but there are some that are more traditional first person shooter apects of shooting and killing all enemies. Including some levels where stealth is tertiary to shooting skills. Unlike most first person shooters though, you never have access to body armor, and can't take many shots at all.
The weapons are more of a personal type. The first being plastic bags, shards of glass, and billyclubs. The first two are one use weapons, you kill someone and it is lost. Some are multi use, like the billy club, baseball bat, crowbar, machete, etc....... When you are doing a stealth kill you can be patient and quiet enough to sneak behind the target and wait until your target sign goes from white, to yellow, to red. The higher the color the more brutal the death and the more bonus points you can get. Creating a sick way to play the game harder. You can face them mano e mano, but this is harder since they are pretty tough and usually armed, and doesn't get you any bonus points. You also have the ability to throw various objects to get people to investigate, then you can sneak up on them while they are exploring the noise.
This game was fun, but it was sick in the tradition of Grand Theft Auto, and above. Just the premise of being in a snuff film is enough, but the insane brutality of the games kills. You stab peoples eyes out, crack their heads with bats, or decaptitate them with machetes. You can even keep heads to throw and attact the enemy to the area. The only aspect that makes it even is that the people you are killing aren't good people. the first group you face are gangbangers dressed in hoods, the second group is white trash aryan white supremists, the third are mentally ill in halloween masks, crazed survivalists etc.... The conversations you can overhear shows that they are murderous hateful individuals. so it is redeaming morally in that point alone.
Definitely don't play this game if you have an impressionable mind or don't like violence or gore. This game is probably more graphic and violent that grand theft auto, which is saying a lot. But it was a well made game, with good mecahnics, a decent interface, and challenging aspects. hopefully this group will put something else out, but I shudder to think what they will have to do to push the envelope this time.
|
|
|
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you James Earl Cash., April 30, 2006
Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars
By this point, it's safe to say that Rockstar Games in general -- and Rockstar North in particular -- will be known for all time as the makers of the hugely popular Grand Theft Auto games. Nothing wrong with that; I happen to love GTA, and I probably always will. But that doesn't mean they can't do something different every once in a while.
And believe me, friend, this is something COMPLETELY different.
James Earl Cash, a death row inmate, is set to be executed...and he is. No, wait; he isn't. He's tranquilized by the corrupt staff and his life bought by a man named Lionel Starkweather, to be the "star" of the latest MANHUNT, a lethal bloodsport/snuff film where Cash must fight to survive against murderous gangs out to kill him on sight. So while it has shades of survival horror games like RESIDENT EVIL, or stealth games like METAL GEAR SOLID, this is a whole different beast. You can't survive a fight against massed numbers; you have to be quick, quiet, and utterly ruthless, and strike from the shadows.
Weapons are like nothing you've ever seen, ranging from the conventional to the brutal to the inconsequential. They're arranged in four color-coded categories. GREEN weapons are completely silent, one-handed affairs, but they're used up after a single use, and they include such everyday items as a plastic bag or a glass shard. YELLOW weapons are more useful as lures; you throw them to draw a hunter into a trap, and they include such simple things as bricks, bottles, or cans. BLUE weapons aren't as quiet as greens, but can be reused, and are more varied; a hand axe, a scythe, a crowbar, handguns, etc. RED weapons are two-handed, and are the most powerful and brutal in the game; metal baseball bats, rifles, you get the idea. You can only carry one of each class of weapon, so you'll have to choose carefully, depending on the situation.
Carcer City itself is a very different animal from the other cities in the GTA games. I'm pretty sure it's supposed to be Detroit, but you can forget thinking you'll be on foot in a place similar to Liberty City. Carcer is a decaying metropolis; nearly every level takes place in a location that's been closed down and abandoned. City blocks, shopping malls, apartment complexes, you name it; they're all dark, shadowy, and rotting, sprayed with graffitti, festooned with garbage, but far from being empty. In fact, they're literally pulsing with menace and dread.
The gangs of hunters you'll face are psychotic in their own way, and barely human. Hoods, Skinz, Wardogs, Innocentz, Smileys...they're all more animal than man, and they need to be put down like the rabid dogs they are. Even the corrupt Carcer City police and Starkweather's personal guard, the Cerberus, will be lining up against you. And with the weapons you'll acquire, you'll be able to take them down in some very imaginative and gruesome ways.
That's not to say the game doesn't have its occasional flaws, however. One of the most glaring being: precisely what was it Cash did that got him on death row? Did he actually do it, or was he set up by Starkweather? Not knowing these things made it a little harder for me to be able to sympathize with him, unlike Tommy Vercetti or Carl Johnson. In fact, Cash is such a walking cypher that he's only a few steps above the mute protagonist of GTA3; he actually speaks, and you know his name, but that's about it. And while one mission introduces two men and two women identified as his family, they're never named, and we never learn just HOW they're related to him. Are they his brothers and sisters? Cousins? We never know.
But in spite of all that, this is still a harrowing, thrilling game. It's long been a habit of mine to compare a game to movies I find similar if I were to explain it to someone else. And in this case, I'd have to say if you took the blighted urban landscape of ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK, the death-as-a-game-show aspect of THE RUNNING MAN, the gangs of human jackals from THE WARRIORS, the depths of human depravity you'd find in SAW, and combined it all with the absolute, inhuman garbage you'd find on most of today's reality TV game shows, you'd find MANHUNT staring right back at you just seconds before it plunges a glass shard into your eyes.
And blood?
Oh, yes. There will be blood.
|
|
|
Most Recent Customer Reviews
|
