David’s Retro Rewind: Manhunt

Warning: The subject of this review contains references, descriptions, and depictions of highly graphic violence, gore, and other potentially disturbing topics. Extreme reader discretion is strongly advised.

Ah, how I long for the simpler times when violent video games were basically the only thing the media and certain government officials could consistently use to make mountains out of molehills. With that in mind, it isn’t lost on me that the subject of today’s Retro Rewind is a game so violent that it actually might have helped the case against such video games if said case had been presented more competently. Rockstar Games’ Manhunt is so notorious that you’ve probably at least heard about it, even if only because of all the controversy it caused when it was first released.

Manhunt was originally released on the PlayStation 2 in November 2003 in North America and Europe. It then made its way to Windows and Xbox the following April. Given both its infamy and its age, I’m honestly shocked that (at least as of the time of writing) it’s still available for purchase on Steam. That being said, the Steam version is also marred by game-breaking bugs that require the use of external, community-developed patches to fix. That’s probably one significant reason why Manhunt has had “mixed” reviews on Steam for some time now. Thankfully, those community-developed patches are easy to use in my experience.

In Manhunt, you play as a death row inmate by the name of James Earl Cash. In Manhunt’s opening cutscene, it appears that Cash has been executed by lethal injection. However, it turns out he was merely sedated, so he just had a nap for a while to make his “death” look convincing. When Cash wakes up, he’s contacted by the disembodied voice of a man who manages to conjure images of stereotypical, slimy used car salesmen, even though we can’t see him. The man identifies himself as “the Director,” and he promises Cash a chance at freedom.

In return, the Director expects Cash to kill legions of “Hunters,” members of various local gangs who have been sent to hunt Cash down. More specifically, Cash is expected to carry out that grim task while in specific areas of the fictional Carcer City, so that the Director can watch Cash work via CCTV cameras. There’s no point sugarcoating it: You’re the main character in a snuff film for the Director’s perverse amusement. That is, you’re the “slasher” in a slasher movie whose victims are being murdered for real. There are no trained actors, special effects, or packets of fake blood here.

That’s rather eagerly given away by the fact that two of Manhunt’s difficulty settings are called “Fetish” and “Hardcore.” Subtlety has never been one of Rockstar’s strengths, after all. Manhunt is a disturbingly violent stealth game. Good old Jimmy Pocketchange can find several varieties of weapons in each level (called “scenes”) that he can use to execute Hunters when he manages to sneak up behind them. These weapon types are color-coded: Green weapons make the least noise during executions, but are single-use only. Blue and red weapons make a considerable amount of noise during executions, but can be used more than once.

Red weapons are the loudest, as well as the most powerful, when you find yourself forced to actually fight. There are also items that can be used as both weapons and useful tools to bypass obstacles, such as crowbars that can break padlocks on doors. These are usually blue weapons. You can only execute a Hunter while you have at least one weapon equipped. I’m not sure if that’s because Cash can’t kill anyone with his bare hands, or because the Director wants Cash’s actions to be as consistently violent and gory as possible, or some unpleasant combination of both.

The longer you hold the appropriate button before you execute an unaware enemy, the more violent the resulting execution will be. As you might imagine, your end-of-level score is affected by how many violent executions you pulled off. Thus, you have to balance the desire to maximize your score with the probability that you’ll blow your cover by staying out of stealth for too long. To help you remain in stealth, you’ll frequently be able to hide in shadowy areas that will prevent enemies from spotting you unless they had already seen you before you hid in the shadows.

You can also hit nearby walls and other objects to make noise that will attract nearby enemies. So long as you’re already concealed in shadow by the time enemies who heard your distractions arrive, you’ll be safe even if they’re looking right at you. Causing distractions like this can help you split up groups of enemies so you can pick them off one by one without being detected. You’re unable to hide the bodies of slain enemies, but there’s no need for you to do so because enemies don’t seem to react whatsoever to finding their dead cohorts.

Manhunt canonically takes place in the same continuity as the Grand Theft Auto franchise, and that’s apparent in various ways. The HUD icons you see when you’re about to execute an unaware enemy and when you’re in an actual fight appear to have been pulled straight out of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. I can’t fault Rockstar for being resourceful; there’s no need to create new assets if you can just copy them over from one of your other IPs in a way that doesn’t feel forced. Bottles of painkillers that restore your health also reappear from Max Payne.

I want to be fair to the PC port of Manhunt since it’s nearly 22 years old at the time of writing, but I won’t let it escape the spotlight until I’ve pointed out the signs of its age. Amusingly, when I first launched Manhunt after installing it, it thought my PC’s NVIDIA RTX 3060 graphics card was a GTX 470. Even so, it somehow natively supports my main monitor’s ultrawide resolution with no issues. Admittedly, however, I don’t know if ultrawide support was added by the community-made patch I had to install to get past those bugs I mentioned.

As you might expect, Manhunt takes barely a second to save and load progress on a modern SSD, especially compared to the same process on a PlayStation 2 memory card. I always get a kick out of seeing older games running so well on modern hardware, and Manhunt is no exception. From a technical standpoint, the biggest gripe I have with Manhunt’s Steam version is that it lacks an option to lock your mouse to the game window, which has resulted in several inconvenient moments for me. In fairness, I doubt dual-monitor setups like mine were common in 2003.

I can only recommend Manhunt if you meet all of the following criteria: You have absolutely no problem with games violent enough that they should have received an “adults only” rating, you’re willing to jump through a few technical hoops to install unofficial bug fixes, and there’s no way anyone under the age of 18 could see you playing Manhunt. If you aren’t certain you can tick all of those boxes (especially the first one), you’re probably much better off spending the $10 you’d need to buy Manhunt on other games that are less likely to land you on government watch lists.