Get out your baseball bats and your plastic bags it is time to go on a Manhunt.....
In Manhunt you play the role of James Earl Cash a criminal on death row who has supposedly been executed by lethal injection. Not only where you not killed you where only knocked out....When you wake up you have a man who calls himself "the Director", who promises Cash his freedom before the night is over, but only if Cash follows the Director's instructions.
Now with the game being called Manhunt you can tell right from the start that this Director has nothing but evil plans for you in the span of this game.....Over the course of the game, the player uses a wide variety of weapons, ranging from plastic bags, baseball bats, crowbars and all sorts of bladed items to firearms later on in the game. If the player is running out of health, painkillers can be found which replenish health. The player can strike walls or throw items such as bottles, tin cans, bricks and severed human heads to make noise to distract Hunters.
Also a cool feature of this game was the use of the Playstation 2's optional USB Microphone and the Xbox Live microphone feature on the Xbox version of the game. When such a device is connected, the player can use the sound of his or her own voice to distract in-game enemies. This in turn adds a new twist to the stealth elements, as the player has to refrain from noises such as talking or coughing, at the risk of creating in-game noise. Something which i think should and could be used more in stealth type games.
Manhunt came out on November 18, 2003 (PS2) April 20, 2004 (Xbox & PC).
There was much controversy around this game due to its 'levels' of executions. Level 1 executions are quick and the least bloody of the three, while Level 2 executions are considerably more gory, and Level 3 kills are over-the-top fatalities. An example of a Level 1 execution would be suffocating an enemy to death with a plastic bag. A Level 2 execution might feature severing an enemy's testicles by pulling a sickle between his legs. A Level 3 execution can involve stabbing an enemy in the back with a crowbar, following it up by jamming it into the enemy's head, and wiggling it in the skull. So you can see why some people would not want this game to see the light of day.
At the end of the day Manhunt is indeed a game...yes there is blood and gore but is that any differant to the horror films which also have tons of blood and gore. Weather you agree or disagree about this game just remember that it is one.