Member the games you used to play? We member. The basement at the Hardcore Gamer office has a section known as the Crust Room, with an old grey couch and a big old CRT TV. All the classic systems are down there collecting dust, so in an effort to improve the cleanliness of our work space, we dust off these old consoles every so often and put an old game through its paces, just to make sure everything stays in working order. We even have a beige computer with a floppy disk drive.

Rockstar Games put themselves on the map as the current kings of video game controversy in 2001 with Grand Theft Auto III. GTAIII was chock full of immoral and criminal behavior, but it was a fantastic game on every level which was as profitable as it was controversial, leading to several successful sequels. When 2003 rolled around the media seemed desensitized to the antics of the two current generation carjacking simulators so Rockstar upped the ante with Manhunt. Manhunt's premise of murder for sport makes the deplorability and criminal empire building of Grand Theft Auto seem like a petty misdemeanor.

The player steps into the toetag of James Earl Cash, a recently-executed death row inmate. Execution may be a strong word as his lethal injection was replaced with a sedative, but it got him out of prison with no one asking where he is during institutional count. Cash comes to in an unknown area where he receives instructions via earpiece from someone who refers to himself as the Director. The Director promises Cash his freedom on the condition that he kills Hunters which are gang members that have been rounded up to hunt Cash. He's also being filmed and forced to star in the the Director's snuff films. It's an ironic turn of events where killing people on film leads to incarceration and possibly execution but doing so may be Cash's only ticket to survival and freedom.

Things continue to get worse for Cash as after he completes the first objective he ends being transported to other parts of Carcer City where he has to kill even more people. The killing continues against different gangs, some of which have rather creative and disturbing costumes such as the Babyfaces whose gang attire is a literal representation of their name. As Cash kills more and more dangerous members of society the true extent of how terrible the Director actually is comes to light and the snuff film ring is much bigger than anyone originally realized.

Manhunt takes place in twenty different areas called scenes with four unlockable bonus scenes. The objective of each scene is kill every Hunter the Director has sent to kill you. Survival at any means necessary is Cash's mentality, but since this is all for him the manner of execution matters. Taking out someone in fight just doesn't have the same cinematic appeal as pulling off a stealth execution, which can be done with any number of weapons whether it be a crowbar, knife or ultra basic plastic bag. Long drawn out and gory executions will result in better ratings than just a quick execution. The Director fancies himself an artist, so he has expectations for Cash. An unique feature of Manhunt is that people who owned the respective PlayStation 2 or Xbox microphone peripheral could use their own voice to distract the Hunters, which sounds like an interesting way to get the advantage on Cash's prey.

It's an interesting take on the role of what it means to be a video game protagonist. In most games the protagonist is a hero fighting for all sorts of manner of wholesome virtuous rubbish. Antiheros have become more common and popular over the past couple decades, and while they aren't the norm criminals and outright villains are protagonists exist. Cash's point on the ethical continuum is trickier to plot. One one hand he's gruesomely killing people to line the pockets of snuff film makers, but he's also forced into the situation where if he doesn't kill them they will kill him. Freedom from imprisonment and execution will make the most virtuous of us commit atrocities, but Cash was an death row inmate so he probably wasn't a candidate for sainthood before he ended up starring in the Director's films. Plus the people he's killing fit the criteria for the bad guy label and the Director is clearly some twisted sicko, so basically everyone in Manhunt is terrible. But that's okay sometimes it feels good to be bad in a game.

Manhunt was a fun game back in its day. It did garner a lot of attention due to the gruesome subject matter and being developed by Rockstar and that's how it ended up on many people's radar. When it was new it was one of the darkest games to reach mainstream attention. The cat and mouse format worked well with the story, and stalking the Hunters to pull off an execution was a delightful challenge. The game mechanics weren't good when it came to face-to-face shootouts. The characters were unsavory, and I still remember how it was somewhat disturbing when the Director was giving feedback through the earpiece on Cash's kills in a manner that was more befitting to someone viewing a more acceptable form of adult entertainment. There's just something unsettling about a man saying "you're getting me off" in reaction to a violent kill.

Manhunt was a controversial title when it was released but its name being in the crosshairs of people like Jack Thompson and the PMRC wasn't as long. This was a for a few reasons. Pro-censorship people just had a heyday with Grand Theft Auto III and that did kind of take away some of the shock value with this release. More importantly, Manhunt was a good game but not a genre-defining masterpiece. It did achieve respectable sales and a generally favorable critical reception, but it didn't have the popularity to have much staying power to remain the video game to blame for all of society's problems du jour for long. Besides, it should be common knowledge by now that video games don't cause violence, they simply cater to our more aggressive tendencies.

Manhunt is an interesting title in gaming history. It was controversial due to its subject matter and gruesome depictions as such, but ultimately it was a commercial and critical success. Man is a violent beast, and violence has existed all throughout history whether it be due to the conflict of warfare or entertainment in gladiator days, we have predatory instincts and eat this stuff up. Toning down the shock factor, Manhunter is a little above average stealth action game where it's good enough where it's still worth playing today but not considered one of the all time great games.

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