Manhunt (video game)

This article is about the 2003 game, for the two DOS adventure games by Sierra please see Manhunter (game)

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Manhunt
Developer(s)	Rockstar North
Publisher(s)	Rockstar Games
Platform(s)	PlayStation 2, Xbox, PC
Release	November 18, 2003
Genre(s)	Action, Survival horror, Psych. Horror
Mode(s)	Single player

Manhunt is a controversial action video game released by Rockstar Games in November 2003. Generally well recieved by critics, the game created a media frenzy on release, was banned in several countries and was blamed by media as a cause in a murder investigation, despite police stating it was not connected in any way. A sequel/prequel, Manhunt 2 is in development and planned to be released in 2007.

The story revolves around a man on death row named James Earl Cash, sentenced to death by lethal injection due to a grievous crime, the nature of which is never explained. An exceedingly wealthy former Hollywood director named Starkweather, who runs a seedy community in an impoverished town named Carcer City, bribes the doctors to inject Cash with a powerful sedative instead.

The Director, as he likes to call himself, creates and distributes snuff films through a company named Valiant Video Enterprises. He sets up Cash as his latest star using the corrupt Carcer City police force, as well as his personal "Cerberus" guards, to corral Cash into butchering Carcer's local gangs on camera to make violent, visceral, underground snuff films.

Players must survive the Director's planned carnage by performing "executions" on gang members. When the player targets an enemy to initiate an execution, the cross-hairs around the gang member will be initially be white (representing a mild kill); after a waiting period of three seconds, the cross-hairs will eventually transition to yellow (a more violent kill) and finally red (the most brutal kills). Executions are shown via a cutscene from the perspective of the Director's security cameras. Each weapon has its own set of executions. The player can choose to kill an enemy anytime he is targeted, but more grotesque executions will net a better rating upon the level's completion. As a result, players must risk being sighted by enemies for getting closer and performing more violent executions.

Because of the sheer number of enemies the player is pitted against, stealth plays an important factor in the game. Executions must be carefully performed by sneaking up behind an enemy and keeping him targeted until the desired level of gore for the execution is reached. If a player is spotted, or heard, all nearby enemies will pursue Cash and attack him; because of Cash's poor skills at hand-to-hand combat and non-stealth weapon attacks, Cash can easily be killed if he is discovered by anyone. The game's HUD displays a silhouette of Cash that shows if he is hidden in shadows or not to aid the player.

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There are five gangs encountered during the course of the game, as well as the the corrupt police force and the Cerberus, the director's elite bodyguard. According to an unlockable survival bonus round, the Hoods, Skins, and Innocentz hate each other.

• The Hoods: Street thugs and off-duty police officers that usually use baseball bats and clubs as weapons. Some of them wear hoods, and they also wear jackets and sport coats. The Hoods are the first gang Cash encounters.

• The Skinz: A gang comprised of white supremacists, they are out to get Cash because they believe that he is of mixed race. They are armed with knives, nail guns, and baseball bats and are found throughout the junkyard. The Skinz either wear hockey masks, masks with the Confederate flag on them, or have the word "Skinz" tattooed on their head .

• The Wardogs: A group of military veterans. They are outfitted in camouflage,some wear C.I.A. caps, and carry tranquilizer rifles, machetes and knives. They are found throughout the zoo, and later in the game armed with shotguns and sniper rifles in the apartment building. Ramirez, their leader is one of the Director's top lieutenants.

• The Innocentz: A gang located in the shopping mall and various other parts of the city. They are the first gang encountered who use double barreled shotguns, but are also armed with knives, hatchets, and sickles. The Innocentz have two different types of gang members: the Skullyz, a group of mostly-latino style 'goths' who wear masks and hooded sweaters, and the Babyfaces, who are fat and wear doll-like masks.

• The Smilies: Truly insane psychotics. They wear yellow smiley face masks, usually with things such as "Kill" and "Please stop me" scrawled messily across them. They are covered in tattoos and sometimes wear blouses and dresses. Many of them can be heard mimicking women. The Smilies appropriately occupy the Darkwoods Penitentiary mental asylum. They are armed with meat cleavers, revolvers, sawed-off shotguns and SPAS-12 shotguns.

• Carcer City Police Department: The police in Carcer City are following the orders of the corrupt police chief Gary Schaeffer (also featured in Grand Theft Auto 3), who is working for the Director. The police are patrolling around the reporter's apartment, in the subway and at the trainyard. They are armed with nightsticks, revolvers, SPAS shotguns and sniper rifles.

• The SWAT Team: The SWAT Team is called in at the subway and the trainyard and are armed with Desert Eagles, MAC-10s and SPAS shotguns.

• The Cerberus: A group of mercenaries on the Director's payroll. The Cerberus are equipped with Desert Eagles, SPAS-12 shotguns and M16s. Over the course of the game, they ambush Cash and bring him to a new area, taking his weapons when they do so. They guard the Director's mansion and the surrounding grounds, and also make an appearance at the end of the asylum.

• James Earl Cash: A supposedly vicious criminal who was sent to death row, but instead of a lethal injection, he was only tranquilized due to the interference of Starkweather, who bribed the police and prison officials. After waking up, Cash is forced by Starkweather to participate in his "manhunt" snuff films, promising that "it will all be over before the night is out". Unbeknownst to him, this is exactly what Starkweather intends.

• Lionel Starkweather: The Director: The twisted mastermind behind the whole scenario, the director communicates to the player through an earpiece until after the asylum. According to bonus material, he was once a prominent director who fell out of favor in Hollywood due to some unknown indiscretion and went insane, turning to slash films and underground pornography to rebuild his funds and using it to turn his enemies into "extras" (several of his enemies were used, and stored in his private collection). He tells the player where to go and sometimes gives special instructions on murdering certain people. He also compliments Cash on his work frequently, saying things such as "Killer shot, that a boy." His voice was provided by the British actor Brian Cox.

• Ramirez: An enormous man with one eye and leader of the Wardogs, Ramirez is seen giving orders to various gangs throughout the game. Due to his size and physical strength, he is able to instill order amongst the various gangs and bend them to Starkweather's will. He is even able to cow the bigoted Skinz. Cash himself encounters Ramirez at the apartment building with the Wardogs. Ramirez has orders to make sure that Cash is killed, and by the end of the scene only one will be left alive. Ramirez is later killed by Cash as he attempts to call in reinforcements.

• Piggsy: Found dwelling in the director's attic, this obese, yet strong and criminally-insane man believes he's a pig and wears only the skin and skull of a large hog over his head and upper body. Multiple mentions in the instruction manual and the discovery of bodies inside Piggsy's domains indicate that Piggsy has been used by Starkweather in several of his previous snuff films. Piggsy attacks with a chainsaw. After Cash chases Piggsy out of the labyrinth he was confined in, Piggsy retreats out into the stairwell leading up to Starkweather's office; at the top, Piggsy attacks Cash twice more before falling through the iron-mesh floor and having his arms hacked-off by Cash with the chainsaw as he tries to hold on. He falls to the bottom of the stairwell, dying instantly.

• The Tramp: In one scene, Cash must lead the tramp through the city to the cemetery, protecting him from gang members along the way. He is an alcoholic homeless man and is constantly swigging liquor. Seemingly oblivious to the danger he is in, it is Cash's obligation to keep him safe and lead him to the end of the scene.

• The Reporter: a reporter who has been researching Starkweather's activities for some time; Cash must lead her back to her apartment so that she can collect evidence on the snuff ring, protecting her from the corrupt police force along the way. If she is left on her own too long she will panic and come running to find Cash, which puts them both in danger.

Weapons in Manhunt are broken down into four types, with Cash only able to carry one weapon of each type:

• Weapons that can be only used once are classed as green; plastic bag, glass shard, fiber wire and wooden stake.

• Small weapons are classed as blue; knife, blackjack, nightstick, sickle, hatchet, machete, hammer, cleaver, crowbar, revolver, nail gun, Glock 23, Desert Eagle and Uzi submachine gun.

• Large weapons are classed as red; wooden baseball bat, metal baseball bat, chainsaw, tranquilizer rifle, sawed-off shotgun, SPAS-12 shotgun, M16 and sniper rifle.

• Yellow weapons are ones that only do a small amount of damage, but are mainly used to lure enemies so that Cash can sneak up on them. These include aluminum cans, bricks, bottles and severed heads.

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Manhunt was released to generally favorable reviews, receiving an average critic score of 76%, according to Metacritic.^[1] IGN gave the game a rating of 8.4/10, calling it a "solid, deep experience for seasoned gamers pining for some hardcore, challenging games." ^[2] GameSpot scored the game 8.4/10, saying it is "Seriously intense, and anyone with a stomach for the game's concept ought to find it fiendishly entertaining." ^[3] 1UP.com gave the game a score of 5.0/10, citing the critic quickly becoming "tired of its violence ... AI quirks ... [and] repetitive level design." ^[4]

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The controversy surrounding the game stems from the extremely graphic manner in which the player kills enemies. Almost all of the game's special "stealthy" executions result in large amounts of blood. The manner in which the player kills enemies can be extremely grotesque at times (ie: decapitation, suffocation using a plastic bag, jamming a crowbar into an enemy's skull), both visually and audibly, as enemies will also groan and scream in pain.

The game was banned (possession is illegal) in New Zealand on December 11 2003. Following a meeting in Toronto on December 22 2003 between Bill Hastings, the Chief Censor of New Zealand, and officials from the Ontario Ministry of Consumer and Business Services, Manhunt became the first computer game in Ontario to be classified as a film and was restricted to adults on February 3 2004. It was refused classification (banned, but possession is not illegal) in Australia on September 28 2004 by the Classification Review Board after having earlier received a classification allowing it to be purchased by under 15 year-olds accompanied by their parents. The game has been declared illegal for players of all ages in Germany. In the UK, the game received a BBFC 18 certificate, legally prohibiting its sale to anyone under that age.

In the United Kingdom the game was linked to the murder of Stefan Pakeerah, 14, by his friend Warren LeBlanc, 17. Giselle Pakeerah, the victim's mother, claimed^[5] that LeBlanc had been 'obsessed' with the game after the former pleaded guilty in court. During the subsequent media circus, the game was removed from sale by some vendors, such as the UK and international branches of GAME and Dixons, leading to "significantly increased" demand^[6] both from retailers and on internet auction sites. The police denied any such link between the game and the murder however,^[7] citing drug-related robbery as the motive. The presiding judge also placed sole responsibility with LeBlanc in his summing up after awarding him a life sentence.^[8] GAME have since returned Manhunt to their shelves, after it transpired that the murderer did not own or play the game. It was the victim who owned a copy of Manhunt, even though he was under 18.^[9]

Apart from Ontario, it is interesting to note that Manhunt had little or no controversy elsewhere in North America. The British Columbia Film Classification Office reviewed the game after the controversy in Ontario and believed it to be appropriately rated Mature by the ESRB and comparable to an 18A film rather than an R rated one.^[10]

• Rockstar, the developers of Manhunt, have included a number of references to their previous games in Manhunt. The setting of the game, Carcer City, was mentioned in Grand Theft Auto III, as was the Maibatsu Monstrosity motorcycle, though advertised as a very fuel-inefficient SUV, not a motorcycle. The shop Ryton Aide, which appears in Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, appears as an abandoned shop in Manhunt.
• The Rockstar Vancouver game Bully has a barber shop and tattoo parlor called "The Final Cut".
• Starkweather shares his last name with a notorious spree killer, Charles Starkweather. One of his lieutenants, Ramirez, shares his surname with a notorious serial killer Richard Ramirez.
• Manhunt action figures can be found seen in Zero's RC shop in San Fierro in Grand Theft Auto San Andreas.

• Official Manhunt Site
• Valiant Video Enterprises - Manhunt tie-in website
• NTSC-uk dissects Manhunt.
• The Manhunt Fiasco — timeline of a related lawsuit
• OFLC, the New Zealand Manhunt banning decision [1]
• Manhunt at The Internet Movie Database
• Manhunt at MobyGames
• The dark side - Article considering four controversial video games including Manhunt