Review: Manhunt (PS2)

Ah, Manhunt. Now this is a game I hold close to my heart.

I remember when Grand Theft Auto: Vice City was released, I got it for my sixteenth birthday. The whole world had its eyes on Rockstar, the power house who pumped out success after success. Not long after Vice City people started to thirst for another installment. San Andreas. But that’s when I found out about Manhunt – which was also a Rockstar game set to be released a year before San Andreas. Initially I thought ”cool, a game to keep me occupied while I wait for more GTA!” and started researching it (as I do with most games I buy). Manhunt had a pretty hard time, as it would turn out, promoting itself. It was so gruesome and violent that no store really cared to put up any promotional stuff for it – and in some countries rumor had it that it was going to be severely censored. So… It was sort of an underdog game, with (for the time) insanely violent content and a graphical style (we’ll get to this in a bit) that was like no other. I just had to get it. I pre-ordered it as soon as it was available to do so and a few months later it arrived.

"sort of an underdog game, with insanely violent content"

Even the cover looked brutal. I remember almost feeling a bit uncomfortable staring into the eyes of that thing. I turned off the lights, put the game into my PS2 and just minutes later I was knee deep in a violent gorefest that had me dropping my jaw every five minutes. I loved it. I absolutely loved it! But it was very hard. In fact, it was so hard I soon gave up on it and kind of forgot about it until very recently. It popped up as ”Unfinished” as I scrolled through my backlog and I immediately decided to give it another go. And so, here we are. I’ve finally beaten it and I’m here to tell you why Manhunt is my absolute favorite of all Rockstar games.

The story is fairly straightforward. We take the role of James Earl Cash who is about to be executed. But he wakes up shortly after the procedure, in a dark and gritty room. There are speakers in the room and from them comes a voice ordering Cash to partake in a game of death. This voice wants to create authentic snuff films by having Cash fight through heaps of ”bad guys” to regain his freedom. And Cash really has no option. It’s either do as the voice tells him or die. So he picks up the earpiece from the tray in the room and embarks on the journey that is Manhunt.

"The sneaking is the challenging part but we do it to get to witness exquisite violence"

At first we’ll have to perform simple tasks to get a grip of the controls (it’s a third person view kind of game, much like GTA but without the cars) and the enemies are few and far between. We learn that we often have to rely on melee weaponry such as chains, sickles, knifes and bats – which means that if more than one enemy spots us – we’re as good as dead. Stealth is the name of the game as we crawl through the shadows of run down areas and sneak up on people to kill. The more gruesome the better, and this is determined by how long we charge our attack from behind. It’s a risk and reward kind of thing with three levels of goryness. I can absolutely see why this game had a hard time with lawyers and age restrictions because the way Cash kills his victims is pretty much the core of the game. The sneaking is the challenging part but we do it to get to witness exquisite violence – where people get strangled, stabbed, their throats cut, their skulls smashed to bits with brains flying everywhere. And the sounds, the gasping for air, the panic in their voices as Cash tears them apart… Man, it’s so cool.

The whole game is coated in an ”old VHS”-vibe, which ties in with the notion that it’s all part of the snuff movie making. Movie grain, static and those classic VHS artifacts and tracking issues are all present to make it feel like you’re watching a forbidden movie about real snuff. This is what I talked about earlier when I said it had a graphical style not really seen before. Not to my knowledge at least.

But it’s not all good. The later part of Manhunt is much more action focused with a lot of shooting. I really prefer the stealthy aspect of the game (something I never thought I’d say as I’m normally not entertained by stealth segments), because it’s where the game shines. The silent sneaking up on someone that’s soon to be a bloody puddle of meat. The shooting, while also very graphic, just makes it feel a bit too similar to a regular shooter – and it doesn’t really have the shooting nailed. Think of GTA 3 and you’ll understand. It’s just… a lot of auto locking to be able to hit anything at all and the controls are too clunky to feel natural. But I got through it, from start to finish in a couple of days with two instances where I had to look up a walkthrough just to get some advice. Certain areas had me pulling my hair out with over 20 retries.

When the credits rolled I thought ”Damn, minus the controls, this is a gem, an absolute gem, even today!”. And that pretty much sums it up. If you like gore and sinister themes then Manhunt is a must. No question about it.

Review: Fable (Xbox)

Here’s one of those ”this is why I got an Xbox”-games that I have never really beaten, but started so many times. I don’t really know why I haven’t played it all the way through because I remember I was utterly impressed with the graphics and the amount of fun stuff to do. Anyway, I’ve beaten it now. Here’s what I think. (Note: I’m skipping the explanation of the formula, if you’re reading this blog you probably already know about the franchise.)

At first I thought Fable was about a vast and unique world to explore. Then I realized the map wasn’t all that big to be honest. So I changed my mind and had Fable pegged as a game with endless choices and possibilities. Then I realized there wasn’t all that much to change. Sure, the story is changing depending on my choices, but not in a lot of ways. It’s more or less ”Do you want to be good or evil? Here’s good and evil quests and things to do.” A or B. So what is it about Fable then, that makes it so appealing? Having played it half-way through multiple times and now finally ALL the way through once, I’d say it’s the immersive setting. It’s the dialogue, the music, the mood of it all!

"It feels like I’m taking part in a old fairytale"

It feels like I’m taking part in a old fairytale (albeit a very grim one from time to time). There’s excitement, there’s sadness, there’s humour, there’s bravery and all the good stuff that makes a great story. My main problem with the game, because I actually have one, is that the storyline is way too short. I went on every side quest I could find and the credits still rolled not 10 hours into it. Granted I didn’t care about most of the demon doors (doors that open when certain more or less cryptic requirements are met) and I had a build that focused on strength/melee so I didn’t expand on my magic abillities (I bet that’s where a lot of grinding and character development takes place). This might have been why it was over so quickly, but even so, the story quests could’ve been a lot more. If you rush things and are a good player I bet you could wrap this game up in under 5 hours.

On the other hand it’s pretty nice with a game that isn’t unrealisticly long. Fable doesn’t overstay its welcome one bit. It just delivers a short but sweet tale of magic, action and revenge. I get to make a few decisions along the way that somewhat tweaks the turn of events and when it’s over I really feel motivated to look up Fable 2. (I’ve already beaten that as well but it was on Xbox 360 so that’s no candidate for review here.)

Review: The Bard's Tale (Xbox)

The Bard’s Tale is a self-aware humorous action RPG with a witty brittish narrator and a randy main character that is only after ”coin and cleavage” as it were. Sounds like a simple concept, right? It is. It’s perhaps even a bit too simple.

The story begins with the Bard sending in a magic rat into a tavern to scare the owner, ”rescue” her from the rat and then recieve… rewards… The things he need to do to get laid and earn the silver snowballs on him and before he know it he’s knee deep into quest after quest over the, rather small, land. Gradually we earn stronger abilities, stronger helpers to summon (through songs, because the gimmick has to make some sort of sense I guess) and after a few hours of fetch quests, peculiar meetings with strange people and a whole lot of senseless killing it dawned on me that this is a pretty repetetive action RPG with only the most basic of components. It feels like one of those ”what if we did this sort of video game, lol”-ideas that shouldn’t have seen the light of day. Not in it’s current form at least.

"I was fed up with the humour and the gameplay but I still had 15 hours to go"

After a handful of hours I was fed up with the humour and the gameplay but I still had 15 hours to go. That’s right. A game that showed me everything it had to offer during the first three hours dragged out to a 20 hour journey. I didn’t care for the Bard or his quest what so ever and I honestly picked it up mainly because I thought it’d be much funnier with more good jokes. But it just didn’t deliver. So once again, I played through a game just so that I could mark it as cleared. Out of duty to my backlog. Not because I wanted to keep playing. It’s a curiousity and a time killer, sure, but I can’t see myself going through it again in the future. It wasn’t very good. A pity.

Review: The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay (Xbox)

Disclaimer: I haven’t seen the movie so I went in to this game without any expectations.

Riddick is a badass. He’s also a caught badass. He’s a prisoner at Butcher Bay and the object of the game is simply to escape, as one would’ve guessed from the title. It’s a first person shooter with emphasis on melee combat, much like the Condemned games. The physics are sluggish, you feel heavy moving around and throwing punches have both timing and planning to it if you want to succeed. If you throw a huge punch and miss your opponent, then you’re open to counters for a few seconds – an opportunity they seldom ignore. Much like the Condemned games. There are weapons in the game but often times you can’t pick them up because they are ID protected only to be used by guards. When you do have the delightful possibillity to wield a firearm it’s a bit tricky to hit your targets unless you stand still and aim carefully. The environments are gritty and dark and psychopaths are lurking in every corner, just waiting to gain the upper hand on you. Much like the Condemn… You get the picture at this point I’m sure.

"It’s actually a really impressive looking game for its age and I’d argue it has grown old with intact integrity."

The frame rate is not the most solid thing in the world, but I guess that’s the trade off they made to have such detailed textures, beautiful lighting and a dusty filthy atmosphere everywhere. I can live with a few dropped frames. It’s actually a really impressive looking game for its age and I’d argue it has grown old with intact integrity. Well, apart from one thing. One glaring thing that makes the game really feel old. The stupid checkpoint system. It’s one of those ”ooh, you don’t need to save, things just saves automatically, what a seamless game this is, wow, cool”-games. I mean for the love of god, I know I’m playing a video game. Give me the option to save when I want to save. Give me a save option in the menu or put out save locations in the game. As it is now, I have to keep an eye out for ”Saving...” that pops up on screen from time to time. Problem is, I’ve had numerous problems with this. I remember clearly how it said ”Saving...” after certain passages only to have me replay the whole section again if I were to turn the game off. It’s never clear when it’s ”safe” to turn off the game and in some cases I had to start almost half an hour back. I kid you not. Half an hour worth of progress just vanishes from time to time, even though you pass multiple ”Saving...”-sequences. So there’s a constant fear of losing progress whenever the gaming session is coming to an end. Should I stop here? Or here? Or…

Other than that it’s mostly a great game. Once I accepted the flawed checkpoint system I had a complete blast with The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay. Sure, there were times I was completely lost and had to consult a walkthrough to get some hints and pointers, but that’s to be expected from a maze like open ended stealth game when you have as little patience as I do (I have ADD).

Now I’m almost tempted to watch the movie.

Review: Halo: Combat Evolved (Xbox)

Oh, so Master Chief did talk after all? I thought he was a silent hero… Well, I never did care much for the Halo series. In fact, I only got half way on Halo and beat Halo 2 on a burned disc off of a chipped Xbox ”back in the day” and played the later installations of pure duty. Anyway, where was I going with this? Oh yeah, I played Halo. On my new original Xbox (I recieved a clear cased one as a gift from a friend recently). My old Xbox has been broken for many months now, hence the lack of Xbox content on this blog. Well, not anymore my friends. Let’s take a brief look at one of the most important FPS games in later years.

"Spaceships're boring."

The Flood's boring. The Covenant's boring. Spaceships're boring. Lasers and plasma's boring. I'm an iron, bullets and blood kind of guy. I like my weapons to feel heavy and the bullets to sound off like they exploded. The ”pew pew” side of shooting is… not for me. It’s just so weak, so bland and so boring. That’s why I didn’t care for this game’s story or setting. What I did care about, a great deal, was the game’s execution. I really appreciate what Halo did. Putting consoles on the FPS map once and for all, and paved the way to a gloriously successful genre (outside the PC realm where it oviously already flourished). It’s almost unbelievable how Halo manages to chug along on a comfortable 30 frames per second during most of the game, only dropping a few frames during the very extreme moments. I understand the impact and I’m completely convinced this was the game to open the developers' eyes towards consoles as a viable FPS game platform. But again, the story, theme and setting is utterly lost on me. I yawned through the whole thing. But I still enjoyed playing it. The gameplay is just that satisfactory. I would use Halo more like an example in game development.

Anyway, the game ended with me blowing up some stuff I guess. I jumped straight in to Halo 2 to continue my journey because no matter how much I didn’t enjoy the space side of this shooter, I loved the controls and the technicals behind it. Not amused, but amused. Ehm. Yeah.