After the coverage that surrounded the infamous first, it was a surprise to some that Rockstar wanted to have another stab (no pun intended) at the series but perhaps a surprise to nobody that their first attempt at its release was refused classification and effectively banned. Taken back and roughed up a bit, the end result is Manhunt 2 in its current form.

It doesn’t follow on from the first in any way, but Manhunt 2 is just as bleak as the original. The premise for whole-sale slaughter puts the player in the role of Daniel Lamb. Not much is known about him in the beginning but since the first time you see him, he’s in the process of escaping from an asylum after throttling someone to death it gives a clear indication of where things are going for the remainder of the game. The story is that Lamb escapes the asylum and is on the run from The Project, a clandestine organisation involved in kidnap, murder and brainwashing and apparently the ones responsible for placing Lamb under lock and key. Free, and with the aid of his friend Leo Kasper, Lamb is torn between trying to survive and wanting to find answers for what’s happened to him. The player is given the impression, and arguably the justification for killing, that they are fighting for their survival with Kasper repeatedly directing Lamb to kill or be killed. Sadly it doesn’t take the sharpest of minds to quickly figure out the big reveal of the story and the initial intrigue of seeing what happens rapidly unravels into something that’s been obvious for the majority of the playing time.

Despite this, the game does maintain a phenomenally tight and incredibly gritty atmosphere, the likes of which are seldom seen in a video game. While the visuals are a generational step behind (but entirely serviceable and nowhere as bad as some would have you believe), Rockstar have again achieved a sense of heavy oppression and dread to the situation with their unsavoury environments and situations. Fetish clubs with grinding, almost satanic, techno music. Abandoned Hardcore Porn theatres. Underground torture dungeons that echo with the screams of the dying, their floors are stained with blood. The last one is no doubt intended to pay homage to Eli Roth’s Hostel and anyone familiar with that film will instantly have an idea of the sort of thing in store, though the game comes nowhere near being as visually obvious with its gruesomeness. Some parts of the soundtrack could almost have been written by John Carpenter himself with its foreboding monotone synth cords and rhythmic, cardiac thudding. While there is virtually zero interaction with other characters in the game except listening to their amusing ramblings (or simply killing them), each one portrays the feeling of being morally reprehensible and totally despicable in their short screen time through their appearance and surroundings. Combining all these things provides a distasteful air, leaving the player in the awkward position of being unable to tell who, including them, is the more reprehensible.

Manhunt 2’s most controversial content remains the killing. The Manhunt games are about stealth and stealthy kills so players are expected to spend most of their time skulking about in the shadows waiting to pick people off one at a time. Doing this effectively means watching both the environment and on screen radar for the most opportune moment. Killing an enemy is predominantly achieved by sneaking up close behind them and holding down a button. The longer the button is held, the more vicious and brutal the kill. These range on a scale of one, which is classed as a quick kill, to the brutal scale three which involves plenty of ultra violence. Each kill will also vary depending on what weapon Lamb has equipped at the time with implements ranging from plastic bags to suffocate, maces to bludgeon, glass shards to sever, shovels to decapitate etc. These are all independent to the environmental kills which are triggered when close enough to certain parts of the level, indicated on the radar by a skull. These let the player bundle people in to chippers, electrocute them, or even partly drown them in a toilet before bashing their skull in with the cistern lid.

Anyone alerted to your presence, either from making too much noise or catching you sneaking up on them will turn around and take you on. This presents the player with the decision to either go toe-to-toe or turn and flee, hopefully getting far enough away in order to find somewhere to hide and try again. In truth neither choice is ideal since despite being able to dissect someone in seconds with a circular saw, Lamb suddenly isn’t that strong and can be killed quite easily. While running away usually involves the player racing around like a headedless chicken. In a strange way both offer the incentive for the player to play stealthy and get it right.

The stealth and environment kills are undeniably brutal and made all the more shocking because of Rockstar’s keen ear for realistic sound effects. In order to pass the censors they’ve had to apply processing effects to mask the visuals, introducing a white haze to everything just prior to, and after, a kill. It gives the feeling that Lamb has lost control in a blind rage, fading out of reality just before the act and fading back in afterwards to find he’s skewered someone to a chair with scalpels and gouged out their eyes. It certainly doesn’t look out of context and is a nice way of replicating the 8mm camera viewpoint of the first game but as a hazy, nightmarish vision. Where the processing does cause problems is with the Wii controls. On-screen prompts guide the player in to what actions they should be doing with the Remote and Nunchuck during the killing sequences. While this might have had some meaning before the processing was added, it now makes them nothing but a set of random motions for something which can only just be made out, rendering any level of interactivity pointless. There is also no punishment for failing to performing the right actions since the victim is more often than not mortally wounded by the first blow, so the only real consequence if you mess it up is that it cuts the sequence short.

Problems with the Wii controls are not only confined to these grisly sequences and the developers appear to have struggled to cram in everything that they wanted. While this was also a problem with the first game where control could feel clunky, here it is coupled with the motion controls which cause additional problems. Lamb often locks himself in a sideways leaning stance because you’ve tilted your hand holding the Nunchuck, or inadvertently mashes his weapon against a wall, giving him away, just because you’ve needed to scratched your nose. Having played Manhunt 2 on both the Wii and the PSP, we can confirm that while it retains the clunk factor, it is certainly easier to play with a traditional controller setup.

With the emphasis on stealth, it is absurd that there are some areas which are too well lit to avoid being spotted and there is very little opportunity to knock out lights to create more cover. Or even to just use existing cover to blindside assailants. This problem is never more apparent than when entering new areas through doorways where the player has little option but to walk straight though rather than being able to push the door ajar and peep around. With a sequel, these are the sorts of things that should have been expanded on or ironed out and the continuing lack of any progression to a badly aged set of basic mechanics leaves you with the unavoidable impression that Manhunt 2 is little more than continued controversy for controversy’s sake.

With the furore objectively moved aside, Manhunt 2 is left a game which has tremendous atmosphere but that unfortunately counts for nothing when hampered by sloppy controls and poor implementation. Its neutering leaves the release in a very odd situation where it is neither one thing nor another, and so it ends up with very little to define it or recommend it over its predecessor. Especially given that it is little more than the original release dressed up in new clothes but with the violence toned down.