number two, indeed

[chronovore]

Manhunt 2 is as irrelevant and boring to an inverse degree that the rest of the world was upset about it. Talk about a flubbed sequel; nothing is advanced from the original; it feels less harrowing and suspenseful, and the story is like a comic book, compared to the cult-film/exploitation style of the original.

I think I'm about to finish it, so I may update this with a changed opinion dependent on the ending. But right now it's a struggle to work up the energy to play it through; it's turned into a stupid run-and-gun with very little difficulty. GAH. Lame.

Comments

SPOILER ALERT ZOMG!

[sdemory.livejournal.com]

Here's how one version of the game (the one in which you minimize your hardcore kills) ends:

Doctor White puts you through a psychodrama thing in which you have to fight through catacombs in which Watchdogs are hunting you to get to a cemetery and recover your wife's dead body and rebury her. The first part of the process, getting to the body, is a Piggsy homage, although it's much easier as the surroundings are much more open: you're still sneaking around, Leo's trying to kill you, you have to find syringes and take him out temporarily.

The second part, on the other hand, gets sort of old fast. It's sort of sad, as the image (dragging your wife's body back to her grave) is pretty powerful. The game-play, though, is pretty easy... you've got an M-16 at that point and you just carry your wife, drop her on occasion to kill a Leo, pick her up and keep walking. Once you bury her, Leo's vanquished and you find yourself on the side of the road with a new identity. The game ends with Danny walking down the road as the lonely piano of the Incredible Hulk plays in the distance.

Maybe not. Close, though.

Definitely would've preferred a no-conspiracy thing.

I really enjoyed the bounty hunter/TV set stuff, just because it got to the crazy horror that I wanted to see in the game. Alas, it didn't stick.

Re: SPOILER ALERT ZOMG!

[chronovore.livejournal.com]

I read a FAQ to figure out why I couldn't operate that trap door, and while I was there, I skipped to the end and read what I'd be facing. This is a technique I've used for really "iffy" books: if I can read the last two or three pages and entirely fail to care about how it gets there, I'll just put the book down permanently. The last one I did this with was Lumley's "Necroscope." Good god, what tripe.

The Manhunt 2 Guide's last pages said something like "Once you've defeated Danny, who is unreal" and I thought "Huh. I was almost positive that Leo was going to turn out to be the figment of Danny's imagination." But I knew, just knew it was going to be some bullshit Tyler Durden moment waiting at the end.

The only surprising things about what you wrote are:
(1) Gamespot's FAQ named the wrong figment; as suspected, it was Leo who is unreal, right?
(2) The game is actually keeping track of maximized (red cursor) kills versus minimum (yellow, grey) kills. Really? Is there a note of that at the end?

There is NOTHING in the summary at the end of each level that indicates this; what's crazy (pardon the pun) is that the code was already in place for this for Manhunt 1, and they're using the same engine. How hard is it to re-use this crap?! Do they expect you to re-play the game for maxed out kills to get the better ending? What crap.

But most upsetting is how handily you came up with a more unsettling ending than what the creators did. There was NOTHING, not a damned thing that was genuinely disturbing. Rather than being actually squirm-inducing, the game plays like the developer was just trying to make something that would piss off their moms.

In Manhunt 1, didn't you actually kill your own mom?

...
Actually, I've just read a little more of the guide, and now it turns out you have to kill both Danny and Leo. Huh? Who is your character actually? I still don't care enough to sit through more of the game, so would you mind summarizing?

Re: SPOILER ALERT ZOMG!

[sdemory.livejournal.com]

Actually, you killed your entire family in Manhunt 1. Mom, dad, kid sis, little brother. Boom, boom, boom. More to the point, you kill your family if you do everything right.

If you did lots of red kills, you have to hunt down Danny. If you didn't, you're hunting Leo.

The mechanism's in place to count the kills; it wasn't advertised in an effort to reduce controversy, apparently.

Eh.

Re: SPOILER ALERT ZOMG!

[chronovore.livejournal.com]

It feels like I should "hunt down" a copy of Manhunt 1 for Xbox and play it on my 360.

I gave the guy back his Manhunt 2 yesterday, and am headed back to Liberty City where life is simple and fun.

Re: SPOILER ALERT ZOMG!

[chronovore.livejournal.com]

Wait. So you're a split personality, and fighting to see which personality gets to stay dominant? That doesn't entirely suck.