Manhunt 2 - Hands On Preview

What a week it's been for Rockstar Games; not so much a manhunt as a witch hunt, it seems that every official board and authority has jumped on the bandwagon to deliver an electric cow prod right between the legs of the publisher - a real shock to the system. Given the first Rejected non-rating from the British Board of Film Classification in ten years, smacked with the Adults Only kiss of death by the ESRB in North America (leading to the subsequent ostracising comments from both Sony and Nintendo), it's been a...great week for free publicity for the game.

With the ESRB and BBFC's decision, coupled with Take-Two's decision to put the game on indefinite suspension, perhaps the most pertinent question is this: why do you want to play Manhunt 2? Like a white-knuckle rollercoaster ride or a horror movie, people like to be scared knowing that ultimately, everything is going to be alright - and the tangible sense of relief that follows. This sense of relief is something that permeates through every level, every location, and every shadowy corner of the game; the only difference being that the relief comes not through finishing the story of Leo Kasper and Daniel Lamb rather, it emerges through surviving every deadly encounter that Manhunt 2 has to throw at you.

Waking to the sound of his own screams, the body of a strangled nurse in his padded cell, and a six year gap in his memory, Daniel Lamb isn't your average protagonist for a videogame. But then again, neither is 'co-star' Leo Kasper. Originally part of the shadowy Pickman Project Team, Lamb volunteered himself as a participant when the experiment found itself starved of funds - and with the mental asylum in a state of riot, he finds the perfect opportunity to make his escape and figure out what exactly happened to him.

Rockstar gave us the opportunity to play through three scenarios in the game, one on PlayStation2 and the others on Wii, set in various stages of Lamb's search for the truth. Very much a plunge into the deep end, our first hands on scenario took us to one of the Project's seedy fronts, an S&M club populated with hunters. The third chapter in the game, appropriately entitled "Deviant", opens with Lamb clambering through a window and into one of the club's bathrooms, where a hunter just so happens to be coming to relieve himself. The first opportunity to demonstrate the game's new Environmental Executions, involving the hunter, Lamb, and the hunter's head colliding with the porcelain in a bone-splintering action. Or two. Moving into the club itself, the tension ramps up with further encounters with hunters and a hick-like bartender, which Lamb counters with measurable force. Using the light and shadow dynamic of the game, together with the additional safety net of the thumping music, Manhunt's trademark cat and mouse gameplay comes to the fore here, making the player deliberate on when the necessary defensive kill should be made.

Whilst dodgy (and deadly) enough above ground, unlucky clients also have a habit of ending up in the club's dungeon, a place where (not unlike 2005 Eli Roth movie, Hostel) all sorts of vile activities are performed: electric chairs, iron maidens, and a dentist that makes Steve Martin's turn in the Little Shop of Horrors seem perfectly normal. Eventually coming to the end of the labyrinthine corridors that snake underneath the club, Lamb manages to achieve his objective and speak to Judy - an ex-associate from Project.

For our introduction to the Wii version, Rockstar dialled us back to the start of the game, covering Lamb's original escape from Dixmore Asylum. The tutorial section of Manhunt 2, the scenario does little more than set the scene for the story, and get players used to the various control systems of the game. Dealing with Daniel and Leo's past, Manhunt 2 also features missions set in the time before they were both thrown into a basement cell in Dixmore - one of which was the last scenario we got to play through.

Described as a challenging scenario, the final mission sees Danny drawn to an island by a former colleague called Michael. Swarming with Project goons, Danny and Leo's only chance of escape is to get the start key to a boat from Michael - who has now run away in some of the factory buildings found on the island. As well as throwing in a couple of Environmental Kill points (a rather nasty shredding machine and an electrifying fuse box), the mission relied on shadow and stealth much more profoundly because of the distinct lack of weapons early on. Concentrating the 'Cat and Mouse' dynamic even further, the larger number of hunters meant that enemies all too often wandered around in close proximity, increasing the number of quiet escapes into the shadowy corners spread throughout the map. In the end however, it came to a gun fight against Michael, with sharp accuracy of the Wii-remote needed to take him down - and the foresight to use bales of hay as cover, at least until they caught fire from the hail of bullets.

If the PlayStation2 version was shaping up to be the more pure iteration of the game, the definitive version of Manhunt 2 would have undoubtedly rested on Wii. Beyond the obvious levels of tension and apprehension created from the control system, Rockstar also implemented additional touches to the lighting, dynamic blood splatter, three exclusive weapons (including a razor blade), and a completely different dynamic when the hunters are gazing into the shadows. When this occurs, the view changes to a first person perspective, with movement of the Wii-remote translated into a small dot on the centre of the screen. Whether you're seen in the shadows or not depends on if the dot moves outside a circle that shrinks down to barely its diameter. A steady hand is a necessity in order to survive these sequences, especially when several hunters are on the prowl for you in a single room. We were doing quite well with our nerves until one Rockstar representative pointed out how little our hands made the dot shake...cue twitchy anxieties from then on. This is perhaps the first time that a 'port' of a game hasn't felt out of place on Wii, instead Manhunt 2 was a natural on the machine - the control system didn't feel contrived.

Even though the Wii control system mimics the movement of Execution Kills, something that was originally cited as one of the reasons for Manhunt 2's rejection by the BBFC, it doesn't make the experience a sadistic thrill or a 'murder sim'. In actual fact, there's a real sense of apprehension tacked onto the already heightened tension of the gameplay, an emotional response that adds to the anxiety of the game. The plethora of weapons and objects that can be picked up ramp up from shards of glass and syringes, through to electric saws, cattle prods, and wire cutters (don't ask). Guns can also be used, and also come with their own set of execution moves (headlocks and a quick dose of lead poisoning seemed to be the order of the day), though in general use the game switches to a more 'Resident Evil 4' point of view. On Wii, using a gun obviously has that extra something thanks to the remote, though that doesn't make distance kills with a handgun any less challenging. Fighting with your fists can sometimes be a necessary strategy, and like Wii Sports Boxing, gamers would get quite a workout through the jabbing motions implemented into the control system.