November 3, 2007
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The game gained notoriety when word got out that Rockstar Games, maker of the controversial Grand Theft Auto series, was designing a sequel to 2003's Manhunt that was going to push the limits of video game violence.
Many are saying the game is just too violent and too real and the game has been banned from the United Kingdom.
ConsumerAffairs.com picked up a copy to see just how violent is too violent. Short answer: quite.
The game starts in an asylum where you take control of Danny Lamb, an inmate who, through an electrical malfunction, gets out of his cell. All the psychos in the place have escaped with you and are tearing each other and all the nurses and doctors to pieces. You do your share of tearing as another inmate, Leo helps guide you out of the Asylum.
The horrific scenes and acts in the first level are pretty tame compared to the violence that is to come.
Dark aura
The game has, appropriately, a dark aura. Almost no scenes take place during the day, and you guide your character in and out of the shadows waiting for your next victim. The video is somewhat fuzzy, as though you were watching on a worn VHS. Throughout the game, your eyes and ears are a psychotic killing machine.
You can use almost anything as a weapon: a shard of glass, a plastic bottle, pliers, a shovel, a shotgun, a surgeon's saw, an ax, even a plastic bag. Sometimes you use your surroundings, such as drowning your victim in a toilet or trapping him in a torture device.
As you lurk in the shadows, you wait for your victims to walk by and attack them while they're not looking. Should you get into a brawl, your victim's face will be smashed by your fists, hammer, or whatever weapon you're holding at that time. At the end of any encounter, Danny is covered in blood -- his own or, in most cases, someone else's.
Bad neighborhood
As you help Danny piece together his violent past, you wander into some of the filthiest and most disturbing locales conceivable. Many of the buildings appear as though they could hurt you just by looking.
One of those buildings was a fetish club part of a level called Sexual Deviants. The men in the place are all wearing leather masks and mutter things such as, I shouldn't have eaten that gall bladder. While some of the comments are silly, most are profane. No word or phrase is sacred in Manhunt 2.
While the deviants enjoying the sights and sounds upstairs at the fetish club were surprising, the torture chamber downstairs came as a real shock.
It had a similar essence to the modern Saw or Hostel films as the sounds of bones being snapped and men screaming filled the silence that persists through much of the game.
At one point, you even have a shootout in an X-rated movie theater while porn is playing on the screen behind you. Not something most of us experience everyday.
While video gamers have launched attacks in strip clubs and porno movie theaters in past games, including the classic Duke Nukem 3D, the creepy visuals and realistic sounds in Manhunt 2 make it much more vivid.
No question, Manhunt 2 is intense. After playing for a few minutes every small sound will make you jump.
Minimal dilution
It is clear in some cases that Rockstar Games diluted the violence, most notably during the attacks on unsuspecting prey.
While your character is performing horrendous acts, such as beheading an individual with a crowbar, you actually see very little of that. The game becomes very dark and blurry during these violent fits and all the shots appear calculated to just miss the bloody action.
For the Nintendo Wii version, you do actually act out the actions with your hands, but they only vaguely correlate to what actually takes place on the screen.
Roockstar Games did not censor any of its sounds, however. The slicing sounds that accompany an individual being delimbed with garden shears or the crunching noises of a bad guy being stabbed through the skull with a syringe are frighteningly realistic.
Toward the end of the game, many of your victims succumb to bullet wounds. Although they often end in someone's head exploding, the gunshots are not as graphic as the combat with random objects.
Body count
Manhunt 2 is easily the most graphic game I've played. While the actual body count is lower than the many war games or the popular Half-Life series, the way in which I was sneaking and attacking, made each casualty much more realistic.
It's difficult to compare digital blood to film blood, but based on the language and sex, parents who don't allow their children to watch R-rated films should keep them away from this game.
Like second-hand smoke, children shouldn't be in the same room as Manhunt 2.
Not much research
Dr. Don Shifrin, a committee member of the American Academy of Pediatrics' Media Violence Board, said there's little research so far on the effects of violent video games on children. But he said that he believes it can lead to short-term desensitization to the value of human life and that for children seven and under, may make them perceive the world as a violent and mean place.
He said there are some positives to video games: they may teach children logic, persistence and patience.
Shifrin was aware of Manhunt 2 but had not yet seen it in action.
He said if parents are considering buying a game for their children, they should not trust the Entertainment Software Review Board's rating system because many games rated Teen should be rated Mature and that the game descriptions that come with the ratings give no real indication of what is going on in the game.
Manhunt 2's Mature rating says: Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Strong Language, Strong Sexual Content, Use of Drugs.
Concerned parents should check out www.gamespot.com where video game makers post trailers of their games that give a more accurate view of what is taking place than what can be read on the back of the box at the store, Shifrin said.
