In 2003, Manhunt was considered to be one of the most violent and controversial video
games ever made. Even to this day, it stands out as being a particularly disturbing experience.
You play as James Earl Cash, an inmate on death row, who is about to be executed. You’re
saved however, by a mysterious man, but there’s a catch. The man is filming a snuff movie
and so has sent in gang members, known as hunters, to track you down and murder you.
So in order to escape you have to play his game and kill for his cameras.
It’s a stealth game. You have to sneak around, clearing out area by area, all the different
hunters, so that you can move onto the next.
As you approach an unsuspecting victim you have to hold down either square or cross,
to execute them in a particularly brutal fashion.
The longer you hold the button, the more violent the death gets.
At times it would make even Jason Voorhees proud!
You get a better score for using the most violent kills, so the temptation’s always
there for you to hold onto the button for as long as possible. But often you get greedy
and the waiting ends up back firing on you.
The game features all of the usual stealth game tricks. You can lean and peak round corners.
You can tap on the walls. You can hide in the darkness. You can move bodies around.
You can throw stuff to cause distractions.
My favourite throwable object is an actual human head. If you decapitate a guy, for example
using the garrote wire, in its most violent fashion…
then there you go! Now that’s what I call using your head.
Like many old 3D games, the controls do take a little getting used to. It’s nice that
when you stand still, you can go into first person mode. But why is that when in third
person, the X axis HAS to be inverted. In the options you can un-invert the Y axis,
but not the X. Doesn’t make a whole lotta sense.
The AI’s pretty dumb. In fact, at times it’s hilarious.
They lose interest in you extremely fast…
"OK scumbag- it's the end of the road!"
... and often they can’t even see what’s right in front of their face.
If they do spot you, the fighting then switches to a pretty basic hand to hand combat system.
Plus you eventually get a variety of different guns to help you out, particularly useful
when you get into those tight situations.
"Bodies are starting to pile up nicely- we're getting some great footage."
As you progress, the mysterious man starts to give you different requests.
He’s like a combination of the Jigsaw killer, and the way he encourages you reminds me of
a sick version of Micky from Rocky.
"That's it! Golden thunder- that's what you are. Unstoppable."
I like that by default, the screen always has this grainy look about it- it keeps with
the snuff film theme. And even considering that this is the remastered PS4 version, I’m
surprised by how well the graphics hold up.
The environments are a little bland and the lack of any brightness wears a little thin,
but other than that, looks wise, it’s not too bad.
The game has had a rocky history. First it caused a near mutiny amongst Rockstar workers,
about whether the game should even be made or not. Then it was banned in countries across
the globe. It was even linked to a real life murder, here in the UK.
But let’s not forget, it’s just a game.
"This is a game man."
It can’t be proven that it’s any more likely to make someone flip, than the lyrics
to a song, TV, movies or even news or religion. Remember, for every gamer who is affected
negatively by a game, there are a million more who went on to enjoy the experience as
it was meant to be enjoyed. It’s fun to feel uncomfortable at times. Violence and
horror have always been a source of entertainment, long before video games were around. So perhaps
the problem isn’t with the game itself, but with the individual. If it wasn’t Manhunt
that made someone do something terrible, then I’m sure it would have just been something
else.
It’s a controversial topic, but what do you think about violence in video games? Is
there such thing as going too far? As always, I love to read your comments, so please leave
any thoughts you’ve got below.
Thanks for watching.