Manhunt

Thing Number One to get out of the way - I know all I seem to post about are video games. I didn't intend for this to be a video game blog, but whatever, it is what it is. Talking about movies is okay, but takes some research... most movies are, at most, 2 hours. A single video game can take up anywhere from 5 to 40 hours. Experiencing something for 2 hours or less, unless it is both really fresh in my mind AND provoked a STRONG response, such as Rob Zombie's Halloween when I posted about it, I just don't feel like I have much to say about it. For example, I had been wanting to see Stuart Gordon's From Beyond for, like, almost 10 years. Literally. It was only in the last few years that I realized it was out of print. Okay, that's fine, from there I had two choices - buy a Tawainese bootleg off of ebay, spend WAAAAY too much on an old VHS cassette from an Amazon reseller, or wait until it *eventually* got reissued on DVD. I decided to wait, and the wait was worth it - in that when it was finally released on DVD this past September 11th (NEVAR FOGHAT!), it was an unrated directors cut previously not available. So I got it, watched it with the future-mrs., enjoyed it decently enough (the future-mrs. and I gave it a C-)... Not only is Re-Animator obviously waaaay better, but I think I actually enjoyed Castle Freak more... So yeah, pretty anti-climatic, but that's life. I'm glad I watched it, I don't regret buying it, but overall my review is, "meh - it's pretty okay." But to write a full article about a single movie that I've only sat through once just feels kind of weak... I don't know how professional film critics do it, but then most of them are chuckle fucks any ways, so... But it's kind of this crossroads between, I don't feel like I'm doing a movie justice to see it once and then write a response, but I'm also not so much into watching a movie multiple times in a short span of time just for the sake of having something to say on my blog.

As for music... I'm just, not in my skin about that, right now. 6 years of music school, I'm kind of sick of writing about it, and I've decided I'm not going to be a weenie and give academic treatment to the "pop" music that I love. When academics start writing glowing articles about your genre of pop music, it is a death sentence, and the industrial music scene is already on life support as is, so... not going to go there. I also don't feel comfortable writing "reviews" of industrial CDs and what not. When I buy a CD, I already know I will like it, either because I heard it on internet radio, myspace, the band's website or amazon's preview links, or because it is a band I already know and love well enough that I don't *need* to hear a preview (Skinny Puppy). So I could write glowing reviews about bands I already love, or I can talk shit about bands that, for whatever reason, I don't like. Not going there. I'm old, I'm crusty, I'm mature, if I don't like a band, I just don't care anymore. In high school, it's fun to absolutely *hate* on bands and genres, but there's a point where you grow up and work a mundane job and realize, "so-and-so might suck, but they're making their living doing *that*, and I'm making my living doing this bullshit..."

As for politics, I've had an idea to do a brief write up of all the major presidential candidates for the two major parties, but, meh... what does it really matter? I'll probably do it, just because it's 75% written in my head, whereas this post is so far 100% improv...

Which brings me to the subject of this post... Manhunt.
(Warning, longwindedness is a symptom of 6 years of academia. Consult your doctor.)

So in my last post about Psychonauts, I briefly brought up Manhunt... oh, and by the way, I finally did finish Psychonauts... great game, check it out if you haven't already.

Manhunt... gameplay... first off, the only "stealth games" I've played are Hitman 2, Hitman Contracts, Hitman Blood Money and Manhunt. Of course, I've dealt with the pain and frustration of "stealth levels" in many FPS's and platformers, generally where they DO NOT BELONG. I'm not interested in "traditional" stealth games, but I DO like the idea of sneaking up on people and murdering them in horrible ways. Go figure. Of the Hitman games, I've so far only ever finished Hitman 2 for PC. I have Contracts for PS2 and Blood Money for PC. I will definitely finish Blood Money on the PC someday, Contracts on PS2, I don't know. The PS2 interface is vastly inferior for the Hitman games, in my experience.

In mentioning Manhunt in my last post, I decided to "look it up." Read old reviews, glance at some of the "tips and tricks" on gamefaqs.com... My mind is a perverted and vile Rorschach test. I think of something, anything, and I start looking it up online... and I learned something. I never did "get" how to properly play Manhunt. The shadows in Manhunt render you completely invisible. I did not realize this the first time around. I would hide in the shadows, an enemy would turn in my direction, come close to me, be 2 feet away, and I would, for some reason, instinctively run the fuck away. I guess I was holding the game to a higher standard of realism, or something. I only got to the fourth level this way and never finished a level with more than 2 out of 5 stars. I guess I need things EXPLICITLY spelled out for me, because I am a moron. In talking to Herr Rotwang about this, I described it this way; "It's like playing Super Mario Bros., and every time you see a mushroom, you decide to run the fuck away from it because you think it's poisonous." Yeah, I'm that stupid.

So, I decided to give Manhunt another go... I think it's on my mind because I'm kind of wet and creamy about Manhunt 2 using the motion controller on the Wii... I've never played a Wii before, so I may hate the new control scheme, but I must admit that I am intrigued...

I last played this game in September of 2005. Go me! I decided it would be prudent to start all over again from the beginning, and instantly I get 3 stars on the first level. Shadows, it's all about the fucking shadows. I see the light now, and I am a fucking murder machine. I'm now on the 7th level after only a couple sessions, a huge improvement over my first crack at it, and I've got 3 stars on all 6 previous levels. I suck at doing this shit in a timely manner, so I lose my 4th star there, and I'm playing "fetish" difficulty rather than "hardcore," which disqualifies me from getting 5 stars on any level.

So Manhunt isn't as bad as I initially thought... though the gameplay of Manhunt and the Hitman games are in no way "addictive." They're very much games where you play in short bursts, which is good for me... a half hour to an hour of Manhunt, then I get frustrated and do something else. That's much better for me than something like Psychonauts, where I'm glued to the game for 2 or 3 hours at a time. Manhunt is also far more forgiving than Hitman, so it's a good balance overall and I'm enjoying it for now. I hear the later levels are a bitch and a half, so we'll see how I feel about it then. Just as long as there's no escort missions, I should be fine.