For those who aren’t up to snuff with the background of Manhunt, allow me to bring you up to speed. Manhunt offers a slight twist with the whole “Hunter-Prey” scenario, and puts you in the position of being the prey. Instead of a revenge based story, you’re looking at survival in its simplest form. You play James Earl Cash, a convicted con who is sentenced to death. Even though his death seems as real as the injection sent through his bloodstream, he can not explain why he wakes up…still alive! It seems that someone behind the scenes is pulling the strings. Giving you orders and parading you around like a white rabbit at a dog race, you have no choice but to listen and survive at all costs in a type of “Running Man” fashion.

The title “Manhunt” gives you a great description before you even begin. It’s a game of survival, stealth, and havoc all wrapped nicely in a box of insanity. I seriously wonder sometimes what the people of Rockstar North consume in order to come up with some of their ideas. Here we have a game that focuses on the main character being the prey. This leads to a lot of stealth movements, hiding in the shadows, and trying not to make a lot of noise. This is more so apparent in the first few levels when you’re armed with small weapons i.e. bats, knives, glass shards, wire, and a plastic bag. You could try to take someone on head to head but the hand-to-hand combat is a bit weak and really doesn’t offer a lot. You’re given a weak and strong attack, but hitting someone with a bat while he blocks with his wrists is a bit unrealistic. It seems that most people can take five or six big whacks in the face before going down. If you’re outnumbered 2-1 you’ll most definitely get your arse handed to you. So instead of trying to be Mr. Tough Guy, you can take them out, execution style.

Executions are the bread and butter of Manhunt. It’s what makes the game so disturbing, and shows off some extremely brutal ways to die. When you approach an enemy (called Hunter’s) with a weapon you can perform one of three different executions. The longer you stand behind them, the more gruesome the execution. For instance, standing behind someone with a baseball bat for a few seconds will give you an execution of choking the hunter out and smashing his skull apart. You can literally see pieces of skull on the floor and even watch the flesh rip off his face! This game is definitely not for the faint of heart. Slashing off heads, ripping someone’s stomach open, crow baring a hunter’s crotch, and even choking a hunter’s head off with a wire are just a few examples. Since you’ll be spending most of your time in the shadows, you’ll grow familiar with many different types of executions. While they never get tiring or old, sneaking in the shadows kept me on a leach I sometimes did not want to be on.

Fortunately Manhunt isn’t all about cowering in the darkness and waiting for a passerby. With handguns, revolvers, and shotguns, there are levels that allow you to get rid of some pent up hostility by placing a few shells inside someone’s head. It’s during these levels that the Hunter-Prey theme stands out to its fullest. It seems that hunters with guns have a bigger brain capacity and actually give more of a chase. During the first few missions you can run away (at a fast pace I might add) from the hunters and not expect them to follow. Later on however, hunters will chase, and shoot at you with more intensity. Now that isn’t to say that there aren’t some slight problems with the AI. Sometimes they would walk right past me, other times they would spot a fallen comrade and not get too concerned about it. Hunters also follow a predictable waypoint and you can distract them very easily to disrupt their pattern. Though it doesn’t affect the overall ambience of the game, a smarter AI would have helped.

While Manhunt has a bit of a slow start it definitely picks up speed and every level raises the difficulty, gore, and violence as does the malady factor. This is one dark game that will disturb the hell out of you from start till finish. And even if the gameplay is nothing entirely new, the atmosphere is well worth the play time.

Though Manhunt might lack the big special effects that surround other games, Rockstar has done a great job in creating a dark and twisted world. The texturing on each level portrays a haunting scene where graffiti and blood stains run rampant. Every location in Manhunt is unsettling. To give the title its own persona, Rockstar added a camera-like grainy effect throughout the entire game. This effect makes it seem as if players are watching Cash instead of playing. There is also a nice lens flare effect created by the lighting which furthermore adds to the effect of watching the game instead of playing it.

Since darkness plays such a big role in Manhunt it’s no surprise to see how well light and dark areas work with each other. Though it might not be as good as Splinter Cell, it still portrays that heart pounding feeling you get when you creep in and out of the shadows.

Character creation is also well done and you’ll witness a plethora of different characters and gangs throughout the game. From normal street gangs to psychotic dress wearing inmates, Manhunt features some insane bastards to reckon with. Each gang has their own style and demeanor which Rockstar does a great job of putting together. Though the animation might be a bit rough around the edges, it’s the creativity that is most noticeable.

One of the biggest problems faced, surprisingly, was the dip in frame rates. There were too many times I can remember when the frame rates dropped significantly. I’m talking about a big drop, where the game would stutter for about 2-3 seconds until guns would stop firing or I would run away to lessen the amount of on-screen characters. Though it only occurred when a lot of people were on the screen at once; situations like that tend to happen a lot in Manhunt. Not something I would expect to see from Rockstar and hopefully the PC version won’t have the same outcome.

Grand Theft Auto had a killer soundtrack, Max Payne had killer voice acting, and now Manhunt shares a bit from its older siblings. Most noticeable are the comments throughout the game from gang members. The dialogue is vulgar and harsh. They’ll curse, insult, and pretty much call you everything under the sun. They have no respect for you, which you’ll find out the first few times they open their mouths. The comments made are downright raunchy. I would try not to play Manhunt with any little kids around; they might be scarred for life after a game like this. That being said, if the shoe fits…Rockstar knows how to create a world and does so by adding some killer voice acting. I’m convinced some of these actors spent some time in a gang. Even the director, played by Alan Mozes, does a great part as a demented sadomasochist.

The music is more subtle and light than anything else and there won’t be a whole lot of tunes. To keep the mood dark and mysterious, Rockstar keeps any real notion of music low-key. The constant heartbeat of Cash brings the quiet and eerie night alive and the only time you hear music is if someone spots you (or thinks they saw something). So in that essence, you want to keep the music off as much as possible.

One of the cooler things the X-box version of Manhunt offers is compatibility with the X-box Live headset. At the beginning of the game the director (the man behind the scenes) gives you an earpiece. The director’s voice will come in through the headset, acting as that earpiece. For those without the headset, his voice will come in through the speakers like normal sound. This unexpected and exclusive X-box feature works extremely well and helps keep the directors voice from interfering with other sounds throughout the game. It also makes things a bit more realistic.

The in-game interface is pretty straight forward. Your radar is at the bottom left hand side of the screen while health and stamina are at the bottom right. Weapon selection is quick and easy and the weapon currently displayed is right above your health. It’s all pretty basic and clear cut stuff.

It seems like whenever Rockstar releases a game they go above and beyond the call of duty. Everything from the box, to the booklet, and the game itself oozes life. With Max Payne it was the whole film noir story. With Vice City it was the surroundings of the 80s. Now with Manhunt, it’s a twisted, black, corrupt, cancerous world that you must escape. A game that brings out that darker side in us all, Manhunt will give you a good 10+ hours of gameplay. After that, depending on how much of a sicko you are, you can go back and play the scenes over and over again. It’ll probably come in hand when you need to release all that tension you have.