Gaming Target - Xbox: Manhunt

Written by Ryan Genno on May 26, 2004

Full Review: It's raining men?

When I was a young kid, I used to love playing this popular Nintendo game called Duck Hunt. On the surface, that game may appear to have cute family friendly cartoon-like visuals, but the whole idea of Duck Hunt is to shoot down wild ducks while your dog collects the corpses; kind of sick if you think about it. The makers of the controversial Grand Theft Auto series (Rockstar North) are taking the idea of the hunting game one step further in their new title Manhunt. Instead of gunning down harmless ducks, you have to kill actual human beings to survive in a city with no laws or rules. What makes Manhunt so disturbing, however, is that all the gory violence is being filmed by a creepy director for a new snuff movie. Can you fight your way through the brutal hordes of demented gangs just so you live another day? Will you even care?

The game begins with a high note as you get to witness someone get executed. James Earl Cash is a death row inmate and he has been finally ordered to die by lethal injection. Although all records say that he died that day, James suddenly awakes up to the sound of a director's voice. Since the world now thinks he's dead, the director plans to have him be the star of a real life murder flick. In Carcer City cameras are everywhere, and so are a group of killers ready to hunt you down for sport. You have no choice but to listen to this man and play his twisted game if you want to continue to live. This is a great story for the adult player who wants a more mature theme in their video games, but the only problem I have with it is that your main character is nothing more then a bald, one-dimensional Vin Diesel wanna be. James has no personality whatsoever and I really didn't care when someone would kill him or not. If I wanted to see a one-dimensional story line, then I would watch a real Vin Diesel movie instead!

Sure, being encouraged to kill some local low-lifes sounds like a good excuse to go wild, but to survive in Carcer City you must kill your enemies wisely (boring!). If you don't want to be discovered, it's a good idea to go for the instant kill by sneaking up behind them with one of the many nasty weapons available. Plastic bags, chainsaws, guns, nothing is off limits and remember; the bloodier the better! Most of these guys are no pushovers either. All the gangs won't think twice about beating you to death, and a lot them look like some freaks from the band Slipknot.

That brings me to what this game has for graphics. Manhunt looks a lot like Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, minus the colourful scenery and lack of usable vehicles. The characters are well designed but they still have some blocky textures and stiff animations that plagued the GTA 3D games. The backgrounds are very dull compared to other high profile Xbox games like Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow. The sounds don't fare much better either. Although the game has some great voice samples that may actually help you in the game's strategy (enemies may give away their location by talking or your director buddy may drop a few hints), the music here is very forgettable.

If the name Manhunt sounds familiar it is because this hyped game was released for Playstation2 just a few months before the Xbox version was released. There is also a good chance you never even tried it because like a lot of you out there, I didn't bother playing it. Although Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto games were mega hits on the PS2, Manhunt didn't sell nearly as well. The Xbox version would have been a great way to improve on some of the Playstation 2's problems, but the graphics still look rather plain and there is no new Xbox Live support either.