Manhunt (series)/YMMV

• Complete Monster: Lionel Starkweather is the mastermind behind the events of the game, deciding to make a death row inmate (Cash) star in a snuff film. While he started off as a relatively normal movie director, once he fell from fame he decide to start directing snuff movies, and continued to do so even after he got his revenge on the people who were responsible for his career dying in the first place. Prior to the events of the game, he made a man named Piggsy star in his snuff films, which drove him completely insane. To ensure that he can create his snuff films without police interference, he bribed the police chief, resulting in Carcer City becoming crime-ridden. Falsely promising Cash freedom if he stars in his snuff film, he eventually has his family murdered, before deciding to have the Smileys kill him. Even for the standards of the series, Lionel Starkweather proved himself to be the worst of the worst.
• Darkness-Induced Audience Apathy: The protagonist was on death row prior to the events of the game for crimes that he did commit and the antagonists are a bunch of unrepentant criminals. Do the math.
  • However, one can argue that it stops following this trope about halfway through the game. Lionel Starkweather decides to threaten Cash's family, and then has them murdered on the basis that the movie director is all the family that he ever needs. As such, the game establishes that while Cash is by no means a saint, Lionel is worse. And then he goes back on his deal with him. He does reconsider and give him the opportunity to make a sequel, but Cash actually decides not to do that.
  • Of course, there's also the heroic journalist, but she's not our protagonist. Though it would be interesting if she were.
• Disappointing Last Level: The last few levels of the first game mostly abandon the stealth elements and executions in favor of gunplay. Though you still use stealth executions during the boss fight with Piggsy. Unlike a lot of the foes Cash faces, he actually has to do it three different times.
• Fridge Brilliance: A game in which a sick guy sitting in front of a computer screen in a darkened room encourages the player character to violently murder people for his own pleasure - an incredibly brilliant postmodern satire on violent video games?
• Hell Is That Noise: For both the player and the antagonists. The sounds of roving groups of hunters taunting you in the distance can get incredibly nerve-wracking, but it's imaginably far worse for them to see their buddy investigate that weird noise from inside that abandoned building over there and simply never come back out. Also the OST, which was released on CD, is both creepy and well-composed horror synth in the vein of slasher soundtracks from the 80's.
• Overshadowed by Controversy: Both games had gathered mixed reviews, damning the gore but praising the atmosphere. Yet politicians bring this up as an example of a "murder simulator", and one murder incident led to a public outcry in Britain, which normally never censors a game, and shops there were hesitant to sell the game until it was proven the game wasn't to blame and the perpetrator never played it^[1].
• Paranoia Fuel: If you wore a headset while you played, noise that you made into the headset caused noise in the game. This literally allowed you to call over badguys to kill them, but the inverse was also true: if you were hiding in the game, the player had to physically be quiet.
• Rated "M" for Money: "Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Strong Language, Strong Sexual Content, Use of Drugs." These are the content descriptors for the second game. The first game only had the first three.
  • Fridge Logic regarding the supposed lack of "Strong Sexual Content" in the first game: it did feature a mook watching porn at one stage, along with Starkweather's Squick-tastic A Date with Rosie Palms comments. Oh, yeah, and its entire premise revolved around making snuff pornography.
• Spiritual Licensee: Given it wasn't completely trashed by critics, there may be reason to call Manhunt 2 the only potentially worthy game adaptation of Fight Club.
• Squick: Big time.
• They Censored It Now It sucks: The heavy filtering added to the executions in the second game, mainly on the Wii. Is there an equivalent of Executive Meddling for censorship?
  • According to this youtube user, Manhunt 2 had blurred out executions in the game. And gamers were not impressed with this(but hey, they got it uncut for the PC). But they wont get an uncut version for the Wii, PSP, and PS2 anytime soon.
    • Although, it turned out that the "cut" content is actuall in the game, just modified. This caused much controversy on whether or not the game should get its AO title back, but was ultimately denied, as it was reasoned that the creators can't be responsible for people's going beyond the boundries of their game. There are now YouTube videos featuring the uncensored executions.

1. ↑ the victim in fact owns a copy