Manhunt 2 (PSP)

Surprise! There's a shockingly decent game buried beneath all the spurting blood, exploding faces and leather-masked corpses in assless chaps...
1/31/2008 12:00 AM | 0 Comments | Page 1 of 2

Sick... twisted... capable of turning otherwise normal children into homicidal maniacs. Between attacks from headline-hungry journalists, overzealous parental groups and the usual ambulance chasers, we've heard nearly every charge in the book levied at Manhunt 2. However, the grim reality is simply this: It's just a decent action-adventure with an especially grisly hook, and one you'll probably tire of long before any killer instincts implant themselves within your shriveled cranium. A shame, really -- the tale works frighteningly well on the PSP platform, making it one of the few adult-oriented outings worth at least a quick peek.

So how does it compare to the original Manhunt? Slightly unfavorably, with neither the last outing's storyline nor characters returning for another crack at interactive stardom. Instead, you play Daniel Lamb, who awakes amidst a power outage at Dixmor Asylum to find a needle in his arm, his hands around a female doctor's throat, and the inmates brutalizing the orderlies. You immediately rush off with comrade-in-arms Leo Kasper, who tells you that the hallucinations you're suffering and reason you're in this dump are because of 'The Project,' a faceless organization that's ruined your life. Kill, or be killed, he says...but first, learn to tiptoe softly through the shadows, lest you find piss, crap and spit flung at you by the wackos inhabiting nearby cells, the first of just many degradations to come.

It's not a scary setup -- there's no sadistic director snickering in your ear at every turn this time around. Think more schizophrenic and disorienting instead. Daniel's obviously got mental problems, as evidenced by the ghostly images that constantly appear before his eyes, and with his bespectacled, shaven-headed look, he's hardly someone you'd identify with as a hero. The countless foes you'll face -- from thong-sporting perverts to redneck bounty hunters to impeccably suited, mask-wearing hit men -- also come off as more contrived than horrifying (basically, every B-movie stereotype you can envision come to life). Audiovisual quality is also of solid caliber, but markedly on par with what you'd expect from a last-gen (i.e. PlayStation 2) title. Red/grey-colored blurring (meant to depict your bloodthirst-clouded vision -- and a concession to ban-happy censors, who forced the game's original content to be toned down following an initial, potentially sales-killing AO rating) further obscures especially brutal kills, dissociating you even more from the on-screen action. But by and large, the irony is this -- as a total package, everything comes together remarkably well for a horror-themed handheld outing.

Play-wise, the setup's much the same as last time: Hunted by small- to mid-sized groups of heavily-armed foes through claustrophobic environments (sex clubs, decrepit houses, harbors, etc.), you must avoid capture by slowly thinning enemy ranks from a third-person perspective. The secret to doing so is monitoring foes' positions and awareness levels on your radar and sneaking around in the darkness, waiting for the right moment to lethally strike. As before, direct confrontation is all but suicidal, despite a control scheme that lets you quickly and effectively swing sledgehammers, barbed-wire covered bats, glass shards, buzz saws, and other implements of death, or fire pistols and Uzis on command. If you get the jump on an opponent, however, the longer you hold down the attack button, the more brutal the instantly-effective execution move you'll unleash, helping to greatly even the odds.