Founded by the very controversial members of Rockstar North, Manhunt is still considered today as the most unhealthy and violent game of its generation.
You are James Earl Cash, sentenced to death and executed on a day like any other, by injection. Except you wake up in a rotten hole... but no, you are alive and well. A guy speaks to you from the loudspeakers, and tells you that he's giving you a "second chance." He makes you put in an earpiece before opening the doors for you. Until you understand that he is organizing a filthy snuff movie/reality TV game, in which gangs of sick people have been paid a lot of money to kill you. Your goal: to get out alive. Yes, but the guy wants blood, a lot of blood. If you don't take a plastic bag and choke a guy while punching his nose with your right hands and breaking his neck, or blow someone else's head off with a baseball bat metal, it will not open the next door to your freedom. Add to that that in this guy's scenario, under no circumstances should you make it out alive. Let the manhunt begin...
Manhunt is a title for adults, really for adults. The extremely unhealthy atmosphere of the game is completely hypnotic, and lets the player get lost in primitiveness rarely achieved. The game's soundtrack is excellent, terrible dark ambient, great voices and the sound of gunshots sends San Andreas to hell once and for all!
To put it simply, Manhunt doesn't make fun of the player hungry for visceral violence. It also combines action sequences/gunfights and infiltration/executions. However, we must not forget that Cash is alone against a host of ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, and that therefore, discretion will necessarily be required. It will take 10-12 hours to complete the game. Gameplay-wise, I've always enjoyed it, and there hasn't been a time when it caused me difficulty. Camera management, as a whole, is good, although sometimes hit and miss. Some bugs are also worth noting, more or less painful, notably in the chapter "Divide and conquer", you will understand with a pad in your hands. Love makes you blind, these few worries have not, to say the least, made the adventure unpleasant.
If you would like a short description of the different clans of hunters that await you throughout the game:
Some really cool little finds, like Piggsy, a sick man with a pig's head on his face, imitating "oink" all the time. Except that this guy has a chainsaw and manages to escape to destroy everyone in a house that is disgusting to say the least...We have the smileys too. A bunch of mentally ill people in yellow masks who are just waiting to shoot you and bleed you with machetes. The war dogs, guys dressed in plant camouflage who will also use a hypodermic gun to shock you a little, before jumping on you to kill you (they are also the ones who will be responsible for killing your family if you don't you are not discreet..). The innocents, ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ with doll or skeleton masks, quite dangerous and with a South American accent. Skinz, simple boneheads. The cops of Carcer City, the abandoned town where the events take place. And the lads, with their socks on their heads, thanks to which you will take great pleasure in seeing them suffocate under a plastic bag you have brought to their faces. But the most dangerous: the Cerberus. Starkweather's henchmen, equipped with M16, Pump, and all with a torch to spot you in the shadows. Not nice, then. On the AI ​​side, there is some very very good, and some a little less good. Sometimes you'll be able to walk up behind a guard without them even seeing you once even though you're as loud as a symphony orchestra. But other times, there's no point in hiding, you'll be killed if you have the bad idea of ​​setting foot outside.
Kill discreetly, cause pain, make people bleed, here is the golden rule of Manhunt, which I have never tired of since I was young, and which I still consider to be one of my favorites today. Even if some will see linearity, it's a straightness that I really like, and an atmosphere that I adore, that you can't find anywhere else. Immerse yourself in it, it's an experience to live at least once.