Rockstar's Manhunt

The master of horror movies - John Carpenter, to create suspense combines the use of sound design and lighting. His end goal is to evoke unsettling, dreamy, yet very morbid and curious feelings, similar to the ones you have when you wake up at the hour of the wolf that puts you on legs at 3 AM and tortures you with insomnia. Carpenter's obsession with Hitchcock grew stronger from witnessing his black and white horror flicks and inspired him to step into the realm of cold colours that added to suspense even more. It's hard to not realize that Rockstar Games follows in his steps and not only tries to emulate the already familiar concepts, but are willing to integrate them into a completely new media format - which is interactive entertainment or simply computer and video games. Rockstar is known for their impeccable taste and the ability to breathe life into their creations, but Manhunt is a whole new level even for them. Manhunt's presence on a game industry timeline bears a lot of significance. Rockstar created a phenomenon that pushed the graphic violence of video games beyond it's initial boundaries, thus widening the borders of mature commercial consumer gaming even further. Manhunt became a sort of a beacon for other developers, a beacon that showed them exactly the final frontier, a beacon of violence - to never be crossed.

Manhunt is a mature rated survival horror and stealth action game set in a Grand Theft Auto universe. The story of Manhunt takes place in the abandoned parts of Carcer City that judging by the lore is the most infested with criminals town. So infested in fact, that government had to build a fence around the most dangerous parts to at least somehow contain the anarchic attitude of the local inhabitants and arriving prisoners. Just like Carpenter's Snake Pleesken is thrown into fenced New York with a biological virus and a promise of freedom, Rockstar's James Earl Cash is being treated similarly, but instead of rescuing the president of Darpa - the insane film director Lionel Starkweather throws him into the fenced parts of Carcer City and promises freedom in exchange for his contribution in mad director's snuff film. The virus and the antidote used in Escape from New York are being referenced too. In the first couple of cutscenes Cash is forcefully being prepared for a lethal injection, then some time later finds himself alive with the knowledge of being rescued by a psychopathic film director. The worth mentioning irony is that both characters at the beginning of their hellride are fully equipped and capable of escaping their personal New York, even more, both are virus free, but the contrast between them is evident. Pleesken believes that he's a walking biohazard and wants the antidote to be able to take revenge, but Cash already has been resurrected from the fake poison and is taking steps towards his retribution. The plot of Manhunt is structured in a classic fashion. It ascends the whole way until it reaches the very end where it fulfills it's goal that was explicitly suggested from the very beginning. 

The game itself can be divided into four sequences that represent the protagonist's mental state and the level of adaptability he reached. The first couple of levels Cash is a prey evolving into a liberated hunter. He adapts to his new situation and tries to stay alive. These first levels serve not only as Cash's introduction, but also as gamer's tutorial cleverly blurring the line between the reality and the game itself. Coincidentally enough when James Cash escapes the clutches of Cerberus he finds himself in a level called - Hunters, referencing the the gang's name that debuts in the same level and symbolises the hunt that started after Cash escaped, but ironically no one in the game realises that Cash is the real hunter by now. That part of the game is painfully slow madness incarnate, but in a good way. Your clutched into the mouse and unholy WASD combination hands - pouring cold sweat - evolve into fast, violent and gruesome movements of James Earl Cash himself. He becomes the evolution of your arms. You await the change of the scenery because your sanity can't take anymore, but whoever designed this rollercoaster decides to shake the carriage even harder than before by changing the game's pace to a new degree of escapism. Your stealthy, paranoid - sickle to the balls justice - transforms into a - double barrel whoever shoots first is right statement - that will explicitly suggest that you were wrong if your brains are splatterhoused on a nearest wall. As you carefully approach your revenge destination leading you to the fourth act, your expectations are being twisted from inside out because you actually have to meet the lurking horror from the manor that wears the scalped face of a pig. The insanity meter reaches the top and starts to boil. In that instant you realise that video games are not for everyone. They are the invisible line drawn by our cultural preferences to - as Roger Waters specifically suggested in a Pink Floyd song called Us and Them - divide us from them, and carefully studying the surroundings of your room you find one of the rarest gems of heavy metal music called Andromeda by a band of the same name, released in 1969 - that sounds like a New Wave of British Heavy Metal record, but it saw the light of day ten years prior to the appearance of the movement itself and even prior to punk of the middle to late seventies that killed hard rock and made it dead. The end of your autonomous subconscious intermezzo reaches the realisation that you are rather with us than with them. Revenge has happened. Starkweather died.

Manhunt's feeling of dread and hopelessness is being invoked not only by the horror aspect of it, but also by functioning stealth mechanic. Each level of the game is populated with patrolling enemies and the level design of each map numbers a handful of spots for you to hide and observe enemy's route for further successful backstabbing with a weapon of your choice, be it a pair of bare fists or a piece of mirror. Enemies are aware of the sounds you produce and the unfortunate appearings in their line of sight. They have three states of awareness - calm, suspicious and fully aware of your presence. Calm hunters usually talk to themselves. 

Suspicious ones will start looking into the source of the fuss you produced and if you stay quiet enemies will switch back to their previous state. Otherwise you will be hunted as a dog by a screaming group of them to say hello to their baseball bat. If you are by any chance enjoying Manhunt on a PlayStation 2 console, you have the ability to attract hunters with noises picked by PlayStation's microphone and hear Starkweather's mumbo-jumbo transmitted directly into your ear, thus completely destroying the fourth wall, which means that the definitive version of the game is only available on Sony's console. Manhunt is a heavily stealth focused game. If you are not careful the game punishes you severely and if you can somehow survive an encounter with only one enemy, dealing with three of them can only be accomplished by Manhunt veterans. While running like hell for your life you can notice a stamina bar. By not hiding from enemies before stamina depletion you're almost certainly dead. Cash himself is capable of stalking, walking, jogging and sprinting. Jogging is especially handy when you need to replenish your stamina while sprinting away from a group of unstable gentlemen. Stalking is good if you approach your target on a noisy surface. Your victim will not hear you, but you will be very limited by the slow speed of your movements, thus excluding this kind of approach if your enemy is constantly moving. You'll have to find a stationary target or stick to more traditional ways of silently eliminating hunters.

 

To monitor every hunter's awareness the UI contains a radar in the left bottom of the screen. Designed specifically for chicken shit players, it can help you illuminate the path to elimination of your next victim. The real rocka rolla difficulty eliminates the radar altogether and leaves you alone, paranoid and dependant of your own senses and instincts. Now with the radar out of the way, you can notice that every yellow, orange and red notifications you saw earlier on it are being accompanied by actions performed by every dead man walking, which means that by turning off the damn thing, while switching to hardcore difficulty, you also make your walkenthrough of Manhunt a lot more immersive, adding value to each swallowed painkiller you took to replenish your health points situated on the user interface nearby. That being said, hardcore difficulty also grants access to receive a full five star rating after each level, where one is granted for level completion and maximum of three are awarded for the violence happening on the screen. The fifth star is given for fast and know-how level completion. It also unlocks cheat codes, meant to breathe a dosage of silliness into the game and every five maximum rating stages upon beating will unlock four secret missions, three of them being death counting mini games and one cut out level that Rockstar left in the game as a bonus. Upon earning stars the extras menu grants access to a gallery of unused gang designs for being too bizarre and disturbing. One of the bonus levels unfolds in the zoo and uses a gang of monkeys shown in the gallery. Death counting mini games are separated by themes. The mentioned one featuring a gang of monkeys is all about shooting. The other two are a stealth course and a bare fist fighting challenges. The fourth bonus level is about the remaining members of the hoods that must die by the sword. The most interesting of them all is the extra stage called - brawl game - is probably one of the strongest aspects of the game that combines the simplicity of and genius of Manhunt's fighting mechanic and a cleverly borrowed inspiration from Sega's legendary Streets of Rage. Manhunt's simple, yet functioning beating mechanic is a powerful tool in capable gamer's hands. It consists of two attacks - heavy, but slow, and weak, but fast. Each punch is chained in three consecutive blows, but if the need arises, they can be combined. Let's say you want to be sure one hundred percent that you'll be the one initiating the attack, but also deal as much damage as possible. To perform this task you must approach your victim with a fast attack and finish your three blow chain with two heavy punches. The mechanic also possesses a special attack that can be initiated by simultaneously pressing your left and right mouse buttons. It consists from three very heavy blows in a row that must be executed with precision by simultaneously pressing two mouse keys per blow. If your precision isn't adequate Cash will end the chain executing only the portion of the attack, or it won't start it altogether if you failed even the initial trigger. Enemies can't break free from the clutches of your hug unless there is another hunter nearby massaging your back with an iron fist. 

Another thing from which your kill interest can't break free is the initiated execution. As soon as you approach someone from behind Cash will change his stance suggesting that you can perform a violent takedown. These sequences are action free and are being demonstrated from cinematic angles, reminding you that Starkweather indeed was serious about the snuff movie he's working on. The genius behind the execution mechanic is contained within the theme of the game itself. You are watching them as film and don't feel disappointed that the game takes away controls from you because there's a clever reasoning behind the whole idea, unlike Human Revolution where players were forced to watch Jensen's executions without any apparent reason rather than - it's a game. Manhunt's execution mechanic is of course nothing too special in terms of gameplay, except it's obvious significance as an inspiration for the likes of Naughty Bear, Velvet Assassin and Human Revolution, but the end result - after you release that mouse button - is a shocking revelation. There are three animations for each melee weapon in the game ranging from gory to goriest. Weapons are categorised into three different types. The green colour indicates weakest ones, like plastic bags that remain on your victim's head after you choke him or a piece of glass that breaks while you gauge someone's eyes out. Blue weapons punch almost the same amount of damage as the previous type, but they don't break. The variety here is huge - hammer and sickle included. The last type of weapons are indicated by the colour red and deal huge number of damage. A baseball bat is capable to satiate even Johnny's desire of bashing someone's brains in. Or out. Of course the damage you produce is being calculated only if you are fighting hunters face to face. Executions are a one way ticket only. All that arsenal variety doesn't mean that you can carry it with you all at once, like in Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto titles. Manhunt almost like the first Mafia is grounded in realism. 

That allows you to keep one weapon of each kind and even see all of them attached to Cash's body all the time. In the same fashion as melee weapons are divided also the firearms. You can't execute hunters using they, or to be more precise, you can't contextually trigger the gory animations, but you certainly can release one healthy buckshot in someone's face. If you do that make sure there are no nervous relatives around. Additional features of Manhunt are taking cover and contextual auto jump. Jumps are performed automatically a couple of times during the game. You just need to run forward till you reach the edge, then Cash autonomously passes above the precipice. There is no dedicated key. Someone might find that a little odd, but Rockstar didn't want to break the game's pace and it's unique paranoid and claustrophobic mood. If you have cramped locations it is better to not destroy the immersion by giving players a chance to jump somewhere they are not supposed to be. By taking cover Cash glues his balls to the wall and moves along it sideways until he reaches the edge, capable of peaking out like Kojima's Snake. 

Unholstering your gun means that the game is also a slow paced cover based shooter, but it uses these sequences only as a feature for developing the correct emotional build-up, not abusing it to the extreme because it is Manhunt after all, not kill.Switch. If you approach the edge holding melee weapon you'll notice that Cash can surprise attack enemies. You can use that tactic if you're fleeing from hunters, but also want them to follow you right into your trap. It is convenient when spaces are are more cramped than usual or the hiding spots are located too far and you want to perform your executions in a fast manner. It is also worth to mention that you can attract enemies not only by punching walls with your fist, but also by kicking the scattered around the maps garbage. To manipulate hunters in going somewhere you can throw objects. These objects, one at a time are placed in the yellow UI slot. These include bricks, bottles and cans. Some interesting things are involved here as well. 

Throwing a bottle means that it will shatter on impact, which suggests that if you don't want a single use throwable item you better find yourself a brick or a can. If you aim carefully and hit someone in the head - it will stun him for a couple of seconds opening you a time window for approaching from behind and executing the poor bastard. By decapitating someone you acquire yourself a victim's head as a throwable object. By throwing a head you'll immediately plant panic among enemies. In contrast with yellow alert - after hearing just a simple noise, a laying around head will put them in full red alert status immediately. Sometimes to progress further you need a specific weapon in your possession. Some of them are contextually sensitive and can act as a tool. That means that if you have a crowbar and think that it can be used only to split open someone's cranium like it's a can of beans, behold, because you have the power to break through padlocked doors. The same logic applies to knifes that cut the rope. If you don't have a knife you can improvise by breaking a window and taking a glass from it's shattered pieces. Occasionally Manhunt surprises you even more by giving you a fuel canister and a hint that you must replenish the juices of a nearest crane, but standing right beside the enormous heavy metal in disbelief you realise that can actually operate the thing personally, releasing whole fridges from it's magnet and squashing a number of nervous individuals in the name of Isaac Newton. Depending on the layout of the map you can find more help from the environment itself. Environmental hazards include hanging metal rails and explosive barrels. Manhunt is one of the few games that doesn't use the red colored barrels. Instead it uses blue barrels, presumably because they contain liquid gas. Shooting one of these in the vicinity of your victim - will send him flying high. The low altitude flying is achievable as well. By pushing the hanging metal power right into the chest of white power you will hear a satisfactory mumble confirming that you did well. Now all you that is left for you to do is end this. Close your drapes, lock up your daughters, shoot your sons, barricade your door, turn off the lights and get ready to kick.

It is not a secret that violent computer and video games will always be a target for all kinds of committees trying to attack and kick in the mud everything they fear or don't understand. Howard Philips Lovecraft perfectly summed up their behaviour way back in space and time when all of them weren't even born, stating that the worst kind of fear is the fear of the unknown. For these inquisitors of postmodern ages Manhunt is the unknown factor that drives them insane, making them to believe that all gamers are dormant killers, but Manhunt is not an Old One. It is postmodern form of expressionism that delivers the already established canonical elements of the classic genre into a new format. The heavy metal band Scorpions way back in 1976 released a song called Virgin Killer describing people that are desensitised to violence, which means that a normal person would never become a killer psychopath just witnessing violence, it would just make him immune to seeing it, and vice versa, a person sick in his mind is already a serial killer, even without playing Manhunt. Remember Walter Sullivan? The thing is that art exhibition can take different forms. It was already done and it will be done again and again, even when humanity reaches the technological heights to render a Manhunt novel right into a holodeck. Knowledge will always be the main requirement for enjoying art and superstition will always be the religion of fools.