Beyond that, you do have the ability to grab a gun occasionally, or even just beat up on enemies head-on. There was an attempt to incorporate microphone peripherals that allow the player to generate verbal distractions, but they are inconsistent at best. Stealth in this game doesn’t really go far beyond sticking to the shadows and trying not to flaunt your presence to the game’s mostly inept killer guards. Read More: Silent Hill, BioShock, and the Art of Scary Games It’s easy to tell that they were trying to keep the stealth mechanics as simple as possible, but even that focus on minimalism didn’t help Manhunt’s dodgy camera, iffy controls, and general lack of deeper gameplay elements. It was a stealth game made by a development team that wasn’t particularly skilled at the subtle art of the stealth genre. In fact, Manhunt suffered from its refusal to follow the Grand Theft Auto formula. No, that Rockstar game is called State of Emergency. It also wasn’t a game that was trying to capitalize on the craze for more violent open world content that Grand Theft Auto had created. This was not a game made by a company that needed cash and hoped to generate some by making something exploitative. It feels more significant than that.Ī part of this has to do with Manhunt’s pedigree. However, much like it isn’t fair to write off the grindhouse genre as a cheap attempt to rake in the cash of gore hounds and perverts, Manhunt is a game that is difficult to merely treat as a gimmicky attempt by a major developer to create controversy while also giving a nod here and there to the films that inspired its aesthetics. These are movies obsessed with the idea of a snuff film being able to disrupt polite society, which is what Manhunt’s Director has been trying to accomplish since his exile from the Los Santos film scene. The more stylish elements and the general vibe the game is trying to create by resembling a fabled “snuff film” are reminiscent of 1975’s Snuff or The Last House on Dead End Street. The very basic plot of a convict being given the chance for freedom if they are able to survive a hellish gauntlet is straight from the script of films like The Running Man, Escape from New York, and Battle Royale. The game is perhaps still often far too slick to be a card-carrying piece of grindhouse entertainment, though, despite the better parts of its presentation being lifted directly from that genre. It certainly has all of the elements of the latter, with its grainy graphical filter meant to instill a sense of cheapness to the production value, even though the game was made by a major video game developer. Manhunt is easy to label as one of those slick homages to the grindhouse era as opposed to a genuine piece of grindhouse entertainment. Should Cash survive each of the director’s twisted scenes, he will receive his freedom. Cash must now attempt to get past a series of psychopathic killers who will all be rewarded handsomely if they manage to kill the convict. It is then that Cash is introduced to a mysterious “Director,” who informs Cash that he is now the star of an elaborate snuff film. Read More: 13 Excellent Grindhouse Movies You Need to Watch Cash’s lethal injection, he awakens to find that his fatal shot was in fact just a powerful sedative. Released in 2003, back when Rockstar was using its Grand Theft Auto money to fund pretty much whatever it wanted to make, Manhunt told the story of a death row convict named James Earl Cash.
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