"Me" in all my hand-drawn glory, with a bat and a few pints of blood used as accessories.
Um... so Manhunt 2. What is there to say about the game that hasn't already been said a ton of times before?
On one hand, you can blast the censors for the game being in its current state. Toss in a "this is a free country, man" for good measure and state that if you want to bash somebody's brains in with a manhole then, hey, by all means that's your God-given right. Besides, there are plenty of games out there that are just as violent as Rockstar's bloody gem if you play them correctly. Look at Dead Rising. Look at Postal. Look at God of War, which provides enough monster eye gougings to last you and your mother a lifetime. Besides, people argue that GameStop certainly isn't going to sell the game directly to minors, and if the kids happen to put down the crayons and pick up the game then it's just bad parenting to blame.
On the other hand, critics may right in saying that Rockstar is just trying to push the mature-rated envelope. Some people I've spoken with claim there isn't much beyond the bountiful buckets of blood you're sloshing around in, and at times the game can certainly seem that way. Sure, the story's interesting and the gameplay's decent, but I seriously doubt I'm being overly cynical when I say that Manhunt 2 isn't going to have a GOTY edition hitting store shelves anytime soon. With the protestors raising hell across North America and Europe, it's a miracle that the game saw the light of day at all. Because the unfortunate truth is that with the primaries fast approaching, violent video game awareness/curbing/prohibition appears to be an issue that spans the bipartisan chasm. All I can say to gamers is: Be aware of some future games facing the same level of criticism/censorship.
Violence aside, this game can be fun to play, and that's what matters at the end of the day. To be completely honest, I was just as disturbed by Dead or Alive Xtreme 2's odd breast physics than I was about stabbing somebody with a syringe. That other game, too, was fun to waste a few hours on, but it was obvious Team Ninja's mind was not completely devoted to ensuring that the Butt Battle's controls were tight. But even with the ridiculously inept AI, the game was oddly addictive, and at the end of the day I wanted to make sure that I collected every last one of Hitomi's swimsuits (and officially entered the Hall of Fame for losers when I accomplished it). Thankfully, I found that the gratuitous cut scenes can be ignored after their initial shock wears off. The same holds true for Manhunt 2.
I felt a little out of the loop when playing Dead or Alive Xtreme 2 since the game developers obviously had the lonely male in mind for their target audience. Despite its shallow gameplay, the boob-jiggling adventure was mindlessly entertaining.
But maybe that initial shock doesn't wear off for some individuals. I don't know where I stand on the issue of video game violence, even after penning two reports on the subject back in my Sociologylecture. Because on one hand, I'm an adult, I don't need to be babied, and I know that playing a game like Manhunt 2 won't make me feel anything but dirty after I've dispatched a dozen people in the most gruesome manners. Plenty of other people feel the same way, I'm sure. And for those people who are on the fringe, for those few individuals that, after being influenced by Danny's actions, go recreate their own slayings, the question on where to place the burden of the blame for those actions is still unclear. Do the games create a heightened sense of agitation in people, or is it environmental circumstances that affect a person? Is it ingrained in our genetic code? And while I understand that it's a combination of all three facets (and while I'm tempted to look to the environment as the primary culprit), I'm not going to bank my last dollar on the exact percentage by which each individual aspect affects us.
No, I don't think Manhunt 2 should have been banned, and in the end I don't really care. That's a job for the media and concerned parents to talk about, not necessarily gamers - after all, look at how much controversy the first Manhunt stirred up and look how well it did sales-wise. This game won't be making my top ten anytime soon, and for those people who loved playing it, more power to them. I wrote a review for the game which tries to talk about the game buried beneath the blood. Check it out.