..."Because without smoke, people would have nothing to breathe."
..."Because without metal, people would have nothing to walk on. They would sink and drown."
..."Because without plastic, the world would have no boundaries. People would walk and walk without ever stopping.
..."Because without meat, people would have nothing to eat. They would die of starvation, one after another."
"It's a secret element...the fifth element...the most important element...Because without sugar, people could no longer bear reality, and they would go mad."

At first, revenge was the only thing that mattered. The smart, strong, and unusually-lucky Courier had an 18-karat run of bad luck and a bullet lodged in her skull to show for it. She had barely survived the ordeal... and she wasn't about to let it slide. Revenge kept her legs moving through the treacherous, arid sands, the ruined and scorched results of mankind's folly. The normally dangerous and unpredictable trek through the Mojave was little more than a brisk jog for the experienced Courier...

At least, that's what she told herself at first. There were quite a few pit stops on her way to the doorstep of her would-be killer, pit stops that proved to be more eye-opening than she expected. A shootout between the Goodsprings townies that'd saved her from an early grave... and an aimless coterie of dynamite-wielding punks that'd been wronged and abused by the system of the NCR. The daring rescue of the mild-mannered Deputy of Primm... and the realization that an outlaw convict wound up being the best choice for Primm's new sheriff, the only logical choice compared to brutal martial law and a tour-guide robot. The shock and horror of the burnt-down Nipton and the chilly encounter with the red-armored killers responsible for its pillage. Resolving a hostage crisis between some incompetent NCR troops and a pack of drug-dealing tribals that just wanted to go home. The quiet tragedy of Boone and the tongue-in-cheek sageness of Veronica, two followers that tagged along for the ride. The struggling refugees of the Aerotech Park. The decrepit yet weirdly homely nature of Freeside, a somewhat seedy ghetto barely clinging to life in spite of its stone's throw proximity to the gated-off New Vegas Strip, a luxurious and sleazy oasis... but only for those that could afford entry past its walls.

The trek from Goodsprings to Vegas was a relatively short one, courtesy of the Courier's weathered boots and good old-fashioned adrenaline coursing through her veins... but at the same time, it was anything but a simple journey. The things she'd seen, the conflicts she'd stumbled into, and the issues she'd wound up resolving one way or another, for good or ill... had started to change her. It was a breadcrumb trail that had done more than guide her feet. It had opened her eyes. Somehow, someway, that bullet that blasted through her skull had opened up a third eye in her brain, and she'd finally started to see the Mojave Wasteland for what it really was: a broken mess on the verge of collapse, a lived-in but fragile land being fought over and drained by a number of shadowy and undeserving forces, corrupt and contemptible factions that would lie, cheat, and murder in the name of violently claiming land that was never theirs to own. When she finally confronted the man that had popped a cap in her cranium, when she finally learned that he wasn't just some pompous, flannel-suited jackass that talked funny and tried to Kennedy her ass for a quick buck, but an ambitious go-getter that had shot her as part and parcel of a bold, anarchist plot to free the Mojave from the chains that had unfairly bound it for a long, long time...

...Well. It didn't stop her from delivering some karmic justice and blowing Benny's brains out. But it did give her the push she needed to be something more than just a mailman. The moment Benny's corpse hit the floor and she'd pocketed his glitzy 9mm pistol (and his swanky suit) as a personal souvenir... she decided she'd iron out the kinks of his plan and carry out the dream of a liberated Mojave, starting with the choice to turn Vegas into her personal fortress and playground. And it all started with the delivery of a Platinum Chip to an enterprising and self-made billionaire.

From that moment onward, the Courier found herself spiraling into the murky and political underside of the Mojave Wasteland, becoming intimately familiar with each and every one of the ostentatious groups that inhabited it. The bureaucratic and imperialist NCR, a corrupt yet complex beast of a bear, more concerned with lining their pockets and fighting for the interests of the disinterested elites. The arrogant and autocratic Robert House, the constantly-raised and apathetic brow of his monitor's glib avatar belying the man's true nature beneath his grand intelligence and surprising intuition. The violent and flamboyant LARPers of Caesar's Legion, powerful and terrifying yet silly and childish men that create peace through fear and cause silence with atrocity. All of these terrible, self-serving people, nothing more than paper-pushers and wealthy hermits and insecure psychopaths that barely understood the world they were fighting to rule... they were utterly outmatched and outclassed by the Courier's machinations.

The Courier played the game. The long game. She donned an endless array of masks and hats, pretending to serve the Bear, Bull, and House all while bleeding them dry beneath their noses. In one breath, she furthered the cause of the Mighty Caesar by blowing up the monorail of Camp McCarran... and in the next breath, she was rescuing captured Rangers and shooting down mercenaries at the NCR's behest. She played both sides, with House assuming she was playing on his team the entire time, his haughty arrogance clouding his judgment and blinding him to the crossed fingers behind her back. None of them had any idea that they were little more than a pawn in the Courier's anarchist plans, that she'd been slowly killing them with a tactical death by a thousand cuts. All the while, the Courier kept meeting new friends and allies - Arcade, Raul, Lily, Cassidy, the robot dog Rex and the Eyebot ED-E - and did everything in her power to help support and bolster the factions she truly wanted to keep around: the well-meaning and selfless Followers of the Apocalypse, the cool and collected greasers of The Kings, the rough-and-tumble tribals of the Great Khans that had been brutally oppressed for generations, and both the Brotherhood of Steel and the Enclave Remnants, respectively an isolated battalion and a small, tight-knit group of elderly survivors that, at the end of the day, wanted nothing more than to make amends, make a change, and embrace the future with open arms, legacy be damned.

By the time Mr. House figured out the Courier's treachery, the man was already dead at the hands of the Courier's golf club, a mercy kill for a man that was barely clinging to life in the first place. By the time the NCR and the Legion realized they'd been had, it was far too late. They'd played right into the Courier's hands, and with House's army of war-primed Securitrons and the support of a dozen factions on her side, their downfall was not only imminent, but inevitable. Caesar and his fabled Praetorians were little more than red and black marks on the floor after the Courier made mincemeat of the Legionaries at the Fort. And before the NCR had time to celebrate the fall of Caesar, they found themselves staring at the blasted-open head of their President Kimball, mere days after the demise of their greatest enemy. In a matter of weeks, the three men that held the Mojave a vicegrip were dead. The foundation had been laid, and the Courier's imminent attack on Hoover Dam was not a question of 'if'... but 'when'.

General Oliver and Legate Lanius foolishly thought they could prepare for the arrival of one woman and a bunch of clunky robots. But they were mistaken. The Courier wasn't alone. She had the backing of an entire nation at her flank. All the friends and followers she'd made over the course of her journey. The bombing runs of the Boomers, the sharpshooter gunslinging of the Ghost-Vaquero, the Rose of Sharon, and the Mysterious Stranger, and the explosive and shocking entrance of an invincible squad of Enclave soldiers carving a plasma-drenched path to the Legate's war camp... somehow, none of these shocked the Legate as much as the Courier's silver tongue, a silver tongue that momentarily shook his blind faith in the Legion's warmongering cause... before ultimately striking him down and taking his helmet as the prize for a hard-won battle of liberation. And when General Oliver saw the Courier toss the helmet of the fallen Legate down at his feet... he felt a twinge of fear when he realized that he wasn't just fighting a singular woman and her supervillain-robot army. It was him and the NCR against the entirety of the Mojave Wasteland... and the NCR had lost, beyond a shadow of a doubt.

And when Oliver was forcibly thrown into the depths of Hoover Dam, screaming and thrashing all the way down... at that moment, the Courier felt a smile twitch at the corner of her lips. Although it may have taken a path of blood to get there... finally, if only for a moment, there was peace and quiet. The Mojave had a long way to go before it could ever be truly stable, and it would certainly never be a 'peaceful' place. But it was free. Her homeland was finally free. She found herself thanking Benny at the end of it all. That bullet did more than make her life flash before her very eyes. It changed her life. It woke her up.

The game may have been rigged from the start... but the Courier still had a hand to play.

and then the game fuckin crashes cuz of old mormon fort or gets softlocked because rex is standing in the doorframe or some shit like that idk, this game's fucking broken and it's a masterpiece 5/5

There won’t be anything like Manhunt ever again. It’s a game that is so brutal, so nihilistic and shows such a total disregard for human life that anything that treads similar boards in 2022 is going to be by an independent studio and likely assumed to be the product of some alt-right arseholes, regardless of whether that is actually the case or not, by most of the mainstream gaming press. It certainly won’t be the big budget new release from the people who just put out Grand Theft Auto: Vice City. Christ, can you imagine Rockstar put out a new Manhunt after a decade of GTA V and Red Dead Redemption 2? It’s just not going to happen.

It was Naughty Dog’s The Last Of Us: Part II that has come closest to treading similar boards in regards to the violence on show, with the blunt reality of murder and/or survival being presented very effectively but, unsurprisingly for what is one of the most ‘AAA’ games ever made, they spend the whole game smoothing things over with saccharine character moments, zombie movie clichés and a predictable ‘violence begets violence’ narrative.

Now, despite my distaste for Naughty Dog’s game, this extra trimming is a hugely important part in allowing for that level of violence to be shown. In 2009, a Japanese horror film called ‘Grotesque’ was banned by the BBFC. Their reasoning - among a few other reasons - included this statement.

“Grotesque is also markedly different to the Saw and Hostel ‘torture porn’ series, in that those films contain a more developed narrative and there is therefore more contextual justification for the strongest scenes.”

Manhunt has very little in the way of narrative or character development and that is entirely by design. The main character, James Earl Cash, is a horrible human being, a murderer who begins the game receiving a lethal injection, only to wake up and find himself part of some macabre game. In his earpiece is the ‘director’, Lionel Starkweather, who runs a snuff movie ring and requires you to kill your way through gangs of horrible bastards - nazis. sadists and psychopathic killers - to give him footage for his films.

And, for the first 2/3rds of the game, that is it. That’s all the exposition you get. It’s a game about killing killers for an evil entity. There’s nothing to get you rooting for Cash and, well, you’re not supposed to. The whole game has a particularly grim tone, with the infamous executions ranging from the almost hilariously OTT to the disturbingly realistic and matter of fact. It makes you feel a bit icky and a bit like you shouldn’t be seeing these things, never mind instigating them.

Everything about Manhunt is about this nasty vibe. It’s supposed to evoke the imagery of 80s video nasties, of early internet gore sites and that one time you tried to download some big titty MILF porn off of Limewire only to be confronted with a 240p video file of a real life execution. Manhunt feels naughty, forbidden, sometimes even evil. This is why it is so memorable - there’s very little like it and - perhaps - with good reason.

The world has changed and such a harsh presentation of brutality requires some kind of narrative sweetener to get it past the censors. Despite The Last Of Us 2 being significantly more graphic, due to the much better visuals, there’s enough about it that ensures that it isn’t just a game about killing, despite that being your main means of interacting with it. There’s a moral message and character development, as well as the implication that you’re doing this for your character’s survival - not for the pleasure of a deviant filmmaker.

The droning synth soundtrack is reminiscent of John Carpenter’s music for Assault On Precinct 13 or Escape From New York, which fits perfectly for the desolate night time backstreets of Carcer City, the abandoned buildings and warehouses that provide the backdrop for your night of killing. The only other thing that you hear is Cash’s heartbeat, constantly drumming up the tension levels as you wait for the perfect moment to strike and batter your victim to death with a hammer.

As a stealth game, Manhunt is very primitive but I feel that works in its favour. You hide in shadows and, when you’re classed as hidden it is a totally binary situation - an enemy can come right up to you and look you in the eye and as long as you’re deemed as ‘hidden’ by the game’s logic, they won’t see you. The A.I. isn’t particularly smart and therefore, can be easily exploited. It’s designed to get you performing those brutal kills and flip the tables, making you the hunter, not the hunted. It’s balanced by the fact that anything more than 1v1 direct combat will usually result in you being killed but if you keep your nerve and plan your kills - hell, premeditate your murders - you’ll be alright. It almost feels more like a puzzle game than an organic stealth experience, where you’re figuring out the optimal safest way to off your opposition and proceed to the next area.

In the final third, there’s a notable increase in having to use guns (the weakest aspect of the game) and the sudden inclusion of a plot device - a reporter who saves Cash from a trap and tells him about her plan to take down Starweather’s snuff ring. There’s a few gimmick levels, like an escort quest and a level where you have to perform specific kill types, to flesh things out, but Manhunt regains momentum for its final act - a showdown on Starkweather’s estate with his private militia and one of gaming’s most horrific bosses - Piggsy.

I mean, what else is there to say about old Piggsy? He’s a gigantic naked man (cock and balls out, the lot) wearing a pig’s head who is apparently the now completely insane ex-star of Starkweather’s movies. He runs around the dark attic of Starkweather’s mansion waving a chainsaw around in a section that is just straight up gore horror and a wonderful upping of the ante for the final section. Oh, and he’s a cannibal.

Despite a few clear issues with the mechanics and the fact that it spreads itself a little thin towards the end, Manhunt is a perfect game. A perfect game doesn’t need to be the best game ever or an incredible example of a particular genre or anything like that. Manhunt sets out to create a specific atmosphere, to evoke emotions of fear, dread, disgust and macabre curiosity. It wants to remind you that there’s a darkness out there that you might not want to admit exists. Not the sort of thing that sits below the surface of society, where a bit of scratching can unearth some horrible stuff but properly beneath it all, right down in the proverbial sewers. It’s a game for anyone who has that morbid fascination with the worst in humanity, for anyone who ever visited Ogrish.com, has watched awful YouTube documentaries on ‘Red Rooms’ or the deep web. It’s a game that embraces the fact that it isn’t for everyone and maybe shouldn’t be for anyone and it manages to do it without coming across like an edgy teenager trying to shock.

Manhunt 2, its somewhat more controversial sequel, due to being outright banned for a while, doesn’t get that final part right. Despite being a much more mechanically refined game, it is far more plot-driven and far more OTT with the extreme violence, to the point where it is almost funny in the absurd. It doesn’t quite get the gritty, nasty atmosphere right and if Manhunt is a video nasty directed by Carpenter, Manhunt 2 is the remake helmed by Eli Roth. It’s bleeding, punctured heart is in the right place but it completely misses the mark.

We won’t get another one like this. Hell, they couldn’t even do another themselves.