Each time you have to watch it through all its brutal glory, and the CCTV presentation of each kill makes it feel even more like you are a voyeur to something horrible. And just because you’ve done the kill before doesn’t mean you get the opportunity to skip the animation. As you go up in level of execution, things escalate from quickly stabbing someone in the neck with a shard of glass to slashing them in the back and brutally stabbing them straight in the face twice. This is where the true magic of the game lies. It’s disquieting to watch, but the player is required to perform more violent kills, each weapon has three increasingly brutal executions, in order to get a higher score in the level. The presentation of the kills is also purposefully grimy, shot through a CCTV-like filter, making it look like something out of Faces of Death. You start out armed with simple items like plastic bags and glass shards that often kill people in messy, visceral ways, and unlike GTA, killing is basically your sole objective in each level. When playing Manhunt, your options are always more realistic in nature. In GTA, things can escalate to over the top rather quickly, starting with a simple car chase and ending with you shooting Army tanks with a rocket launcher, and it all stays rather playful. The starkest difference comes from its presentation of violence. Manhunt‘s Carcer City is perpetually night, broken down, and covered in a layer of filth. The tone of the settings is also wildly different. Even though both games cast you as criminals, Cash seems far less sympathetic than either GTA protagonist. The contrast between the two games is immediately apparent. For those unfamiliar with the setup, you play as James Earl Cash, a death row prisoner who is mysteriously spared from execution by the perverted “Director.” From there, you are dropped off in an abandoned section of the city, surrounded by bloodthirsty gangs and commanded to kill them as part of The Director’s large scale snuff film that you are forced star in. Right off the bat, the premise of Manhunt is unpleasant. The same was true for their follow up Vice City, but with 2003’s release of Manhunt, it took a different approach to their presentation of violence. Everything in that game was so cartoonishly over the top in a way that made the violence fun, no matter how extreme it got. Grand Theft Auto III was a lightning rod for debate when it was released in 2001, being criticized for the freedom it gave the player to commit gleeful acts of violence. Even before the release of Manhunt, Rockstar Games was no stranger to controversy.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |