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I come from a background as a police reporter, so I'm very jaded and it's hard for me to believe in coincidences. Take for instance the coincidence that the day Take-Two revealed the Adults Only rating Rockstar's Manhunt 2 was likely to get, happened to be a day that the developer was doing press impressions for the game in their New York offices.
Or the fact that now, during the slowest period of the summer and just after the AO rating appeared, GameSpot has posted their impressions of the game, writing , among other things, that Manhunt 2 would lose a lot of its dark story if it was reworked to be less brutal.
Coincidence?
Hit the jump for a run down of the non-political things GameSpot said about the game.
From GameSpot's impressions it sounds like the game is very much a sequel to the original Manhunt, in that it is meant to be something just shy of an interactive snuff film. The developers, it sounds like, were hoping to capture the same look and feel as movies like Hostel and Saw.
GameSpot wrap up their preview by pointing out that plenty of movies have tread the same ground without the same repercussions, lending more credence to what the head of the ESRB told me about the impact interaction has on a game's rating. When I had a chance to see the game in action it was more about the interface and look than the plot, so it's nice to see that the game has an involved story as well as the other aspects of a horror/thriller movie.
The full impressions are definitely worth a read, if for no other reason than to be better informed on this particular debate about the ratings system. Brian Crecente
Manhunt 2 Hands-On Preview [GameSpot]
[IMG]http://feeds.gawker.com/~a/kotaku/full?i=Y09m11[/IMG]
More...
I come from a background as a police reporter, so I'm very jaded and it's hard for me to believe in coincidences. Take for instance the coincidence that the day Take-Two revealed the Adults Only rating Rockstar's Manhunt 2 was likely to get, happened to be a day that the developer was doing press impressions for the game in their New York offices.
Or the fact that now, during the slowest period of the summer and just after the AO rating appeared, GameSpot has posted their impressions of the game, writing , among other things, that Manhunt 2 would lose a lot of its dark story if it was reworked to be less brutal.
Coincidence?
Hit the jump for a run down of the non-political things GameSpot said about the game.
From GameSpot's impressions it sounds like the game is very much a sequel to the original Manhunt, in that it is meant to be something just shy of an interactive snuff film. The developers, it sounds like, were hoping to capture the same look and feel as movies like Hostel and Saw.
...downstairs things become even more extreme, with the human experimentation and torture looking like something out of the movie Hostel. However, there are environmental kills aplenty, with wire cutters and electricity offering some particularly gruesome opportunities to take out the torturers.
Personally, I think the most likely candidate for the cutting-room floor are the sex club and brothel levels. Sex and violence are often what trigger a censors Pavlovian response. But what about those Wii motions controls, how do they work?The basic system was laid out on the controller pretty much how you'd expect. Melee combat is performed by waving the remote left and right. The big hook to the action is the way the controller is used during the various kills. You'll now have to actively follow onscreen motions that approximate your actions. Throwing a chair? Hold the Wii Remote and analog stick as if you've got the chair in your hands and move it accordingly. Stabbing someone? Jab that Wii Remote. The kills we saw typically involved three steps that varied according to the level of the kill. In addition, the minigame for hiding in the shadows requires you to follow onscreen prompts in order to stay unseen. The system is a cool use of the controller and gives the game a good, unsettling feel that works well with its story.
Sounds like a pretty neat idea, though I wish they would have touched on how responsive the controls were and if they made the game feel more gimmicky than the PS2 version.GameSpot wrap up their preview by pointing out that plenty of movies have tread the same ground without the same repercussions, lending more credence to what the head of the ESRB told me about the impact interaction has on a game's rating. When I had a chance to see the game in action it was more about the interface and look than the plot, so it's nice to see that the game has an involved story as well as the other aspects of a horror/thriller movie.
The full impressions are definitely worth a read, if for no other reason than to be better informed on this particular debate about the ratings system. Brian Crecente
Manhunt 2 Hands-On Preview [GameSpot]
[IMG]http://feeds.gawker.com/~a/kotaku/full?i=Y09m11[/IMG]
More...