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 About MANHUNT In the early 2000s, Scottish developers Rockstar North dominated the gaming scene with the first 3D installments of their Grand Theft Auto series. The GTA games were famed for pushing the boundaries of good taste from the very beginning, but when their exclusivity to the Playstation 2 pushed that console to the top of the gaming market, good taste in gaming went out the window and a new era of immoral, consequence-free violence against human targets was born. Rockstar, either trying to ensure their place as the leaders of the trend they started or simply proving themselves to be natural born killers, followed up their second smash hit GTA game with Manhunt, their first game without "Grand Theft Auto" in the title in four years. Manhunt was a huge departure from the formula they made their fortune on. The colorful, humorous GTA setting was replaced with dark alleys and a darker story, and the freedom and overwhelming power players had grown to love was completely inverted, instead forcing linear progression and slow-paced stealth with the constant threat of a swift death hanging over the player's head. It was generally well-liked by critics and gamers, a feat considering they were working so far outside of their comfort zone, but the positive reviews were quickly overshadowed by controversy. The game's gimmick of rewarding the player for producing the most grisly, sadistic gore ever seen in an interactive medium was considered reprehensible by many, and the term "murder simulators" was coined for or at least popularized by its association with Manhunt. Naturally, the brutality and notoriety made for an experience that sticks in your head like an ice pick and is something any gamer should at least be familiar with, provided they can handle it. It's also fun, tense, and well-presented, for what that's worth. A sequel, Manhunt 2, was developed by a completely different team and released in 2007. It tops its predecessor in almost every way imaginable except quality, and makes no attempt to relate to the story or intent of the original. As such, familiarity with Manhunt 2 will have no direct effect on your experience with Manhunt, and I would go so far as to recommend watching Nickmeister's very thorough and hilarious LP of Manhunt 2 to satisfy any curiosity about the game without playing it yourself (although you might want to hold off on the final video in which Nickmeister spoils the end of Manhunt). About the LET'S PLAY To preserve the game's intended pace and tone, I'll be taking a thorough and methodical approach to each scene while keeping things interesting by varying my tactics and executions (we will be seeing every execution over the course of the LP), and I'll be playing on the lower of the game's difficulties. As such, my ranking at the end of each scene will be ruinous and will yield little to no reward, but I will be getting the best possible rating for each scene off camera so I can discuss any interesting challenge doing so poses and ultimately show off the unlockables earned. Before we get started, take heed of the following:  TRIGGER WARNINGIf you know nothing else going into this, know that Manhunt depicts extreme violence and gore pervasively. If you are morally opposed to or physically repulsed by such things being gleefully reveled in, you are unlikely to find anything enjoyable within these videos and should proceed with caution or look elsewhere for entertainment. If simulated bloodshed by the gallon is your thing like it is mine, though, I invite you to join me and discover or rediscover this classic gaming milestone. SCENE SELECTION (Play All)  Born Again/Doorway Into Hell  Road To Ruin  White Trash  Fuelled By Hate  Grounds For Assault  Strapped For Cash  View Of Innocence  Drunk Driving  Graveyard Shift  Mouth Of Madness  Doing Time  Kill The Rabbit  Divided They Fall  Press Coverage  Wrong Side Of The Tracks  Trained To Kill  Border Patrol  Key Personnel  Deliverance SPECIAL FEATURES   
Fiendly fucked around with this message at 04:26 on Jun 17, 2015 |
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Oct 25, 2014 10:31
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| # ¿ May 23, 2024 01:33 |
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FAN ART Grimwit puts a smile on Cash's face (this smile, in fact)  CATALOG (Full catalog available here and here. Warning: Contains spoilers)  OTHER VALIANT VIDEO TITLES If you've enjoyed the career of rising star JAMES EARL CASH, you might be interested to see how his many co-stars earned the honor of coming face-to-face with the master. Check out this back catalogue of classics, currently at a discount, with more titles being added all the time! (Note: Website services are currently unavailable)  OFFICIAL HUNTER WEAPONS VALIANT VIDEO ENTERPRISES is now offering the originals and reproductions of the weapons used by the hunters in STARKWEATHER's productions. Note that the weapons are being offered to our members only and will be delivered by a Valiant Video Enterprises Courier via specified drop location. FOR ALL ORDERS CALL MESSAGE BOX 606   BLACKJACK: A short, blunt instrument, better for incapacitation than elimination. Ideal for the collector or would-be hunter on a budget, or one that wants a target to suffer as many blows as possible before succumbing. - CURRENTLY UNAVAILABLE  CROWBAR: Some people want a little more out of their weapon, and this is the perfect tool for them. With a little creativity, there's no situation you can't pry, bash, or stab your way through with a crowbar! - CURRENTLY UNAVAILABLE                     CONCEPT ART                    
Fiendly fucked around with this message at 05:48 on May 1, 2015 |
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Oct 25, 2014 10:31
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Choco1980 posted:I was always curious about this game, but I'm daunted by any sort of survival type game. Fun Fact: The movie that Rob Zombie is trying to get off the ground, 3I, sounds suspiciously similar to this too. I thought the same thing when I heard about the premise of that movie. Zombie's just lucky the clown gang got cut from Manhunt or he'd have a lawsuit on his hands. David D. Davidson posted:One fun thing that I doubt you're going to show off is that if you plugged in the ps2 headset that came with SOCOM Navy Seals you could turn on a feature where eneimes could "hear" your breathing. This added an additional challenge that was made up where you played on the hardest difficulty, crank the mic sensitivity as high as it goes and see how far you could get. Yeah, I won't be able to show that off because I never got that mic, but I've always thought it was a really cool feature that I've wanted to try out. Roman Reigns posted:Didn't know about The Warriors connection, I always figured it just influenced the design a little. Y'know, it was the talk around town back when Manhunt was new that it was originally supposed to be a Warriors adaptation, and I took the actual Warriors game years later to be confirmation of that rumor since it seemed unlikely to be a coincidence, but I can't find anything on that now and my "evidence" is unsound at best. Either I know something no one else does or I'm perpetuating a long-dead myth, which I'm kinda okay with. At least the gangs and "Fury's" jackets on the Hoods are clear Warriors references. Zain posted:The executions are totally the focus of this game, but it doesn't really seem that fun. Maybe it's just from the non-player's point of view. Maybe it is better actually playing it? Oh yeah, the game's definitely fun and, as Kaboom Dragoon noted, tense as gently caress. We're still in the tutorial stages, the real game gets to feel a bit like an open-ended puzzle where you have to figure out how to single out targets for long enough to execute them in more complicated areas crawling with Hunters. I almost expected this LP to be a waste of people's time since the game's so infamous I assumed everything had been spoiled for everyone already, so it brings an evil grin to my heart (yes, I want you to envision that) knowing there's some blind viewers, as well folks who missed ol' Manhunt (I didn't realize how much I missed it myself until I picked it back up for the LP).
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Oct 26, 2014 08:09
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I said evil grin! Evil! Were you even trying? Discendo Vox posted:I'm really looking forward to this. I know it's a lot to ask, but is there any chance you could record and show off 5 star hardcore runs once you're done with the main game? It'd be interesting to see you break the game over your knee, and give you (and us) more to discuss in terms of gameplay and challenge. There's an idea. I can't resist a request to be even more of a completionist, so I'll have to figure out some way to work 5-star worthy gameplay into the LP somewhere. shaszoor posted:I also really dug the games manual and how it pulled you into the games world. Most of what is in it is probably spoilers but I really liked its presentation. Oh yeah, it's great. I'll definitely be mentioning interesting parts of it in the videos and posting snippets in the thread as they cease to be spoilers. dscruffy1 posted:Also I'm not at all surprised that this game is right up your alley 
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Oct 27, 2014 02:38
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I guess I've got fan art in the OP before I even have what I actually reserved it for in there. Much appreciated, cracked me up.
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Oct 28, 2014 16:39
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UPDATE Road To Ruin
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Oct 29, 2014 10:34
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Choco1980 posted:Regarding snuff, I'd say that Charlie Sheen is an idiot. I've seen A Flower of Flesh and Blood, and it's practically a cartoon it's so ridiculous. The plot (what little there is) has a woman get abducted off the street, then a dude in a samurai get up cuts her to pieces, then the camera pans around a room filled with jars of body parts. That's the whole thing. Charlie Sheen is definitely an idiot, but in his defense, he apparently only watched part of the movie before deciding it was possibly a real snuff film and reporting it. Since it was intentionally made to appear as much like a snuff film as possible, there's probably at least a chunk of it that could convincingly pass as one if the viewer immediately turned it off in disgust upon seeing it. The dumber part is that the FBI was already investigating it as a possible snuff film and had presumably at least watched it in its entirety, and if I recall correctly, there's a part where a severed hand continues to flex its fingers, just like in the lovely and obviously fake exploitation film called Snuff. That alone shoulda been indicative of its authenticity... Choco1980 posted:What's weird is how adamant some people are in trying to disprove snuff's existence. Everytime the possibility of it being real comes up, someone has to get pedantic and start siting draconian definitions for why something doesn't count. Like after the videos of executions of military prisoners in (IIRC) the Czech Republic become hot black market commodities to the point where the executions were taking place with the primary intent being to sell the videos, but people say that doesn't count because it's not some sexy porn business. There's also the Dnepropetrovsk maniacs from the Ukraine who filmed all their murders, reportedly for the purpose of selling them as snuff. If that part is true, it's only their failure to actually do so that makes the recordings technically not snuff films. I'd say that any of these examples count as snuff films, but it's an entirely semantic argument and therefore pointless, so I'm fine with letting them stay the stuff of legends. Makes for a better story anyway. Seyser Koze posted:Though you do have to wonder how Starkweather persuaded the first ("KILL THIS SICK gently caress") guy to stand still facing in one direction. It's hilarious if you alert him and then lose him because he will walk back to his spot, right past the sign demanding his murder, and continue to obliviously stare at nothing until you strangle him. Fiendly fucked around with this message at 01:55 on Oct 30, 2014 |
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Oct 30, 2014 01:50
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Crane Fist posted:The manual for this game was cool as hell. I'll have to see if I can find my copy and scan it, someone put some serious effort into it. I've actually found several scans of it already and I've just posted some spoiler-free snippets to the OP. More will be added as we continue to encounter new things.
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Oct 31, 2014 12:05
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Seyser Koze posted:EDIT: Also, can you execute people with your bare hands? It's been about ten years since I played the game and I don't remember. Nay, one of the first tooltips of the game notes that you need a weapon to perform executions and any attempts to disprove that will end very poorly as you loudly strike the air a foot behind a previously unaware hunter's head.
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Nov 1, 2014 09:33
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UPDATE White Trash Iron Chitlin posted:Having just caught up with the second video I feel the need to address the startling number of people that you let live. Please carve/choke/bludgeon them better in the future! Don't I get enough of this from the Director?
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Nov 2, 2014 09:33
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Choco1980 posted:I love that one of the guys has a shirt that says "First to go". Shame he wasn't the first one you encounter in the level. The irony and idiocy the Skinz all demonstrate gives a subtle hilarity to almost every kill, and it's also a fulfilling challenge to single them out and kill them one at a time like you're supposed to, but when you get two or three of them on your case, which happens every loving time you make a noise or change positions the first time you play this scene, it can take a full minute or more to disperse all of them, which is frustrating to say the least. Iron Chitlin posted:On another note, I've never heard the director's "tolerant society" line before in all the many times I've played this game. Brian Cox has an absurd amount of dialog. I'd never heard it before this recording myself, so I made sure to crank the audio on it a little so no one missed it.
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Nov 2, 2014 18:25
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Derek Barona posted:They're probably told from the start that the "star" is this or that or whatever, and they're big enough morons to believe it without a second thought. Probably the thing I like the most about Manhunt's storytelling is that it introduces a lot of vague and unexplained yet highly evocative ideas and imagery and you can't help but try and figure out what it means. Sometimes the best story is the one you tell yourself.
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Nov 3, 2014 04:16
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UPDATE Fuelled By Hate A rapid-fire update with hopefully enough meat on it to tide the thread over because, due to starting a second job, preparing for a move, and let's be honest, The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth, my free time is going to be severely limited for the rest of the year and updates will be pretty scarce. Hopefully it won't be nearly as bad as Splatterhouse was this time last year, but I can make no promises right now. I'll just be working on the LP when I can and we'll see how that goes. If you haven't already, this is the perfect time to check out Let's Play Manhunt 2 by Nickmeister, which I remind you hasn't even the faintest hint of a reference to the original Manhunt's story and is only called a sequel because it utilizes (and somehow fucks up) the execution system. Also, Scruffy's LP of The Warriors is excellent (one of my favorite LPs ever) and the game has way more stuff in common with Manhunt than Manhunt 2 does, not the least of which being that it's actually good. Both of these guys have lots of other stealthy goodness on their channels as well, so you should not go wanting while waiting for more updates from me. Cya when I see ya!
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Nov 4, 2014 20:27
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UPDATE Grounds For Assault
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Dec 1, 2014 10:04
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UPDATE Strapped For Cash
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Dec 11, 2014 18:57
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Dinictus posted:How forgiving is the timing on that spotting and them running back to execute Cash' family, anyway? It varies wildly, but most of the time they'll see Cash, shoot at him once or twice, then run away to kill a hostage. Unless you've lured them a good distance from their target, you're probably too late once they turn their attention away from you.
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Dec 12, 2014 02:33
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UPDATE View Of Innocence
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Dec 29, 2014 12:51
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UPDATE Drunk Driving
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Jan 4, 2015 11:49
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Veyrall posted:I've always kinda wondered what the cut content for this game looked like. This peek makes me even more curious. Will we be seeing more cut content? Yes, I'll be going through the concept art and discussing what was cut and other curiosities at regular intervals for the rest of the LP.
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Jan 5, 2015 09:25
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It's actually hard to find censored footage of Manhunt 2 now since who would bother uploading that garbage, but the primary method of censorship was to put a big opaque blood splotch over all the action of every single execution. Can't recall if there were any other filters or blurs on top of that, I was always too distracted by a third of the screen being completely red to notice. EDIT: Okay, found some (terrible, low-res, mostly irrelevant) footage that contains the censored executions and there are indeed all kinds of crazy filters, probably meant to invoke the main character's break with reality but vaguely reminiscent of a ruined old VHS effect. See for yourself here (relevant footage begins at around 55 seconds). Fiendly fucked around with this message at 09:11 on Jan 8, 2015 |
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Jan 8, 2015 09:01
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UPDATE Graveyard Shift
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Jan 13, 2015 16:57
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UPDATE Mouth Of Madness
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Jan 18, 2015 05:40
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Glazius posted:Huh. Are we going to end this all out in the prison where it began? That's actually a good question. The Manhunt wiki says Darkwoods is where Cash was administered his fake death sentence, but I'm not so sure. The intro cutscene explicitly says executions are performed by electric chair, and we passed what looked like a gas chamber, but there's no mention of lethal injection. Also, the place looks like it's been gang-infested and dilapidated for some time, not at all the kind of place that would have been up and running earlier that night. It's clearly a Starkweather base, so he could have set it up just for the execution show, but at that point where you're doing it has no purpose whatsoever. So I dunno, I don't think it's anywhere Cash has been before myself, but you never know...
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Jan 19, 2015 04:23
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Although we'll never know all of Cash's history, I have information that will elucidate the nature of this issue somewhat. For a future video, of course.
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Jan 19, 2015 05:34
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UPDATE Doing Time
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Jan 28, 2015 04:45
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dscruffy1 posted:One minor nitpick on the Warriors stuff at the end: I didn't know about the Gacy reference but Chatterbox (the Hi-Hats warchief) gets his art gallery ruined, then he dies in an amusement park when he tries to invade Coney Island for revenge. I could argue I meant something besides "kill" when I said "defeat," but actually I did forget that he survives the art gallery incident. I only know of that scene from your LP, and it's a good thing I do because I don't think it's widely known that it seems to have originated from scrapped Manhunt ideas. Kaboom Dragoon posted:I'll admit it: it took me a second to realise that when Starkweather said 'funky rear end', he meant as in 'bad smelling'. Pity, I was hoping for some executions involving a disco ball. I thought Starkweather was making a weird pass at Cash with that line, then I heard it at least a dozen more times (it's the first thing you hear after you return to that checkpoint, and like I said, the upstairs part is really hard) and figured out he's just creepily ushering Cash into the showers. Iron Chitlin posted:Was there a reason you didn't take the new shotgun? Not especially, just foreknowledge that there's gonna be plenty of them in the upcoming scene.
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Jan 28, 2015 16:26
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UPDATE Kill The Rabbit At this point, I can also dump all the concept art we've unlocked so far (each piece is earned by getting three or more stars on a scene). Enjoy!
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Feb 4, 2015 06:16
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Lotish posted:I could have sworn I went back through the level to find and shotgun that guy behind the bulletproof glass once. Or I tried to, at least. It's been so long since I played this game I can't actually swear I didn't imagine it. The door to the room Cash is supposed to die in locks behind him when the Smileys start filing in, so you can't go back far enough to get that guy, I tried as well but there doesn't seem to be any way to make it an even 50 kills for the scene. King Vidiot posted:Yeah, I mean he killed more Smileys going into that room than he had to face down in the room itself. It just seemed a little limp as far as executions go, if Starkweather really wanted him dead he probably should've sent in a huge squad of those private soldier guys with nightvision goggles and cut the power. You gotta keep in mind, Starkweather's making a movie, and Cash is the only one who can hear the his directions, so the viewers of the finished movie have no idea what's actually going on. While the better trained and armored soldiers would have certainly ended things then and there, they aren't characters in the film, they've just been stage hands placing the star where he needs to be between scenes. Part of the facade of the Manhunt is that the gangs are in control, and so the gangs have to get their man in the end. Really, five shotgunners should have done the job (and it is more shotguns at once than in any previous room), it's only through divide-and-conquer tactics that Cash survives. I do wish they'd been a little more clever with it, have some trick in the room that'd kill most of the enemies without which it'd be impossible to get through, but you can see why they'd expect to kill him there.
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Feb 4, 2015 18:28
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DivineCoffeeBinge posted:Cash fights back. And Starkweather doesn't entirely know what to do with that. Besides sic his wardog on him. UPDATE Divided They Fall
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Feb 10, 2015 08:07
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UPDATE Press Coverage
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Feb 14, 2015 09:28
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UPDATE Wrong Side Of The Tracks
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Feb 20, 2015 01:43
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DivineCoffeeBinge posted:That said, my first time through I got killed by that last dude behind the hot dog cart and holy poo poo was I pissed. I couldn't get past him on one of my five star attempts (I saved at the last checkpoint and kept retrying from there) until I remembered that I still had the sniper rifle I had foolishly carried into the scene and took him out that way. Turned out I had missed some kills in the preceding area and didn't get five stars anyway. I had to play this scene a lot and it never played out the same way twice, which is to its credit I'd say. Keeps the sense of danger and fear going like nothing else we've seen, and considering what that comparison entails, it's quite a feat. I come out in favor of how it was designed, but it's so unforgiving and out of place in Manhunt that I can understand why there's strong feelings against it as well. It's more controversial than the cop murder it prominently features.
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Feb 20, 2015 06:10
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King Vidiot posted:I know you're going for high bodycounts/level ratings but if I recall from my own playthrough(s) you can pretty easily just evade those SWAT guys in the subway tunnel. That's the big sticking point, and it's no big deal to just grab the save VHS and then keep at it until you slip past into the next area. My goal for the recording was to not die at all. It's a much easier scene if you rush to each checkpoint, die, and retry from that point a few times (still not easy, but easier). To get through without doing so, it's crazy risky to let even one person live since any one of them can kill you instantly if they see you before you see them, so my best bet was to go all First Blood on that part. Lotish posted:For me, getting through the tunnels gauntlet is always the hardest part. Once I could get into the control room safely, it was usually smooth sailing to the end of the level. If you rush straight to the door in the tunnels with the lock that can be shot off, without ever slowing down or shooting anyone, you can get through that door and into the control room without ever getting shot at yourself, but it's a trap because the SWAT guys will take the opportunity to seal every exit and close in until you're cornered. I have some hilarious deaths on recording from trying that route.
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Feb 20, 2015 19:23
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UPDATE Trained To Kill
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Mar 6, 2015 05:12
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UPDATE Border Patrol More concept art:
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Mar 17, 2015 04:23
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rotinaj posted:I'm super excited about seeing the end of this game thanks to you, Fiendly! I hope you're able to motor through the end of the game as easily as you did Little Inferno! Any idea what you're gonna LP next? The Warriors, or another underappreciated Rockstar gem? Bully's a really good one... I got sick the day after finishing Little Inferno, but I'm almost to where I can record commentary again, then we can call this thing done pretty quickly. Coming up on the docket, I haven't considered The Warriors since dscruffy1 did such a great job of it already and Bully I've unfortunately never played, but what I am planning is certain to be of interest to anyone who enjoyed Manhunt, and for precisely the same reasons they enjoyed Manhunt.
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Apr 2, 2015 02:46
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UPDATE Key Personnel
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Apr 9, 2015 23:31
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UPDATE Deliverance CONCEPT ART Bonus videos coming soon.
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Apr 15, 2015 15:26
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uncleKitchener posted:What are your least and most favorite levels in the game? I was actually thinking about that and I decided Graveyard Shift is definitely my least favorite. As for most favorite, it's hard to say because the various parts of the game each have their own flavor as guns become more and more prevalent, so I'm gonna say Drunk Driving is my favorite non-gun-based scene and Kill The Rabbit is my favorite gun-based scene. Pretty much all the scenes have their own sort of charm, though, so it's purely nominal to call any of them a favorite.
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Apr 15, 2015 17:01
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| # ¿ May 23, 2024 01:33 |
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Samovar posted:So... Starkweather is modelled after Orson Welles, according to the art book? I can see that, with a bit of Hitchcock in there as well. Really any famously dickish brilliant filmmaker would be an appropriate choice for Starkweather. Garrand posted:Man, Starkweather's got a lot of lines for a 'fight' that would only normally last like 15 seconds. Yeah, he had to make up for all those scenes where he maintained radio silence. Each line is a great little character moment for a guy who is finally about to be taken down from his ivory tower. While we're on the subject of character voices, I can now post the YouTube channel that contains ALL the audio from Manhunt. That's every voice clip in the game and the full soundtrack. I particularly recommend Mark Margolis' Tramp, our other escort The Journalist (who is indeed voiced by Debbie from Sealab), and James Urbaniak's Innocentz #5. And while we're here, I can post another major world-building highlight of Manhunt, the full game manual/snuff film catalog. PAL PS2 version NTSC PC version (higher resolution scans)
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Apr 16, 2015 15:19
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