Manhunt 2 - hands-on with the game you might never play

Features
By published

We get up to our elbows in gore-soaked torture-horror insanity

We were also able to play around with guns on this level. Using them for close-up executions is a lot more brutal than just shooting guys; after we crept up on a guard, Leo grabbed him, kneed him, forced the gun into his mouth and pulled the trigger, making a huge mess. Of course, the noise alerted the other guards to our presence, and a tense, duck-and-cover gunbattle ensued. Like Gears of War, Manhunt 2 will enable you to flatten yourself against cover, sidle around, jump between cover points and pop out when the time is right, which in this case was every time one of the guards had fired six bullets in our direction.

Gunfights are a little more chaotic when you don't have a lot of cover, which happened to us when we got yanked out of the shadows in the "Honeypot" level, a seedy-looking brothel used as a recruiting ground for Pickman Project test subjects. There's a brief moment of surprise on the part of the hunters when they yank you out of hiding, and we used this to bash our aggressor in the face and steal his shotgun.

While it's about the most depraved thing we've ever played, Manhunt 2 isn't just about spilling buckets of gore; it's also a remarkably competent stealth-action title that does a great job of creating a creepy, tense and faintly revolting atmosphere. It's slicker than the first Manhunt, with more interesting gameplay elements (as well as more cool bells and whistles), and its convoluted, insanity-driven plot is a little more compelling than the first game's simple snuff-film setup. Above all, the levels we played were a lot of fun, and they've got us hungry for a stab at the full game. Whether they'll still be the same when we finally get it is anyone's guess, however; we'll just have to wait and see.

Mikel Reparaz
Mikel Reparaz
After graduating from college in 2000 with a BA in journalism, I worked for five years as a copy editor, page designer and videogame-review columnist at a couple of mid-sized newspapers you've never heard of. My column eventually got me a freelancing gig with GMR magazine, which folded a few months later. I was hired on full-time by GamesRadar in late 2005, and have since been paid actual money to write silly articles about lovable blobs.