It’s hard not to view Manhunt 2 in light of all of the prerelease hullabaloo that took place concerning its AO rating, its banning in Britain and the subsequent neutering of content needed to get it out onto store shelves. It would be easy to write off any disappointment in the resulting game as a case where no game could match up to the insane levels of hype generated for this one, however even if Manhunt 2 had made it to store shelves completely intact, there would still be plenty of problems to warrant it’s label as a mediocre stealth action game with psychological thriller aspirations.

You play as Dr. Danny Lamb, a tortured soul who finds himself in the unfortunate situation of being stuck inside a mental institution when, as luck would have it, some freak electrical occurrence takes place and all the inmates are sprung from their cages. Working with his fellow inmate Leo, Danny manages to escape and had it not been for his staggering memory loss, probably would have hoofed it to Paraguay and lived out the rest of his life in relative comfort. Unfortunately, Dr. Lamb needs answers, answers only a shadowy group called The Project has, so it’s off to find answers we go, killing people in the most violent and gruesome ways possible.

At least you’re supposed to think it’s violent and gruesome as the aforementioned neutering of content needed for the game to make it out, M rating intact, consists of a very dark and annoying screen that appears whenever Danny executes someone, obscuring most of his movements with a jerky camera and a dark red filter. It’s certainly easy enough to fold this experience into the narrative of the game as Danny isn’t clearly of sound mind, and strangling someone with a plastic bag might cause him to blackout somewhat in a red tinged haze, however in reality it’s just kind of annoying. It doesn’t help that the much touted interactive controls on the Wii add more to the distraction as you have to watch the upper left corner of the screen to see which motions you’re supposed to do while controlling Danny. To get a feel for playing Manhunt 2, simply close your eyes and flail about wildly while a friend hits a watermelon with a hammer. The experience is remarkably similar.

While Danny isn’t shoving people’s heads into toilets or giving them emergency tracheotomies with writing implements, he’s hiding in dark corners, sneaking up behind people and generally trying to not call attention to himself. Danny can crouch or walk silently behind folks, as well as hide in the shadows and smack walls to call opponents over to him. Unfortunately, the camera control isn’t as forgiving as in other stealth games, notably the Splinter Cell series, so depending on where you have Danny positioned, by the time you get him off of whatever wall he’s crouched up against, and out to follow the target of his murderous rage, said target will be ready to turn around and express his distaste for Danny with his fists, or a nightstick or a crowbar. Danny can handle one on one fights without losing too much health, but getting in a fight with one person usually calls others over and once that happens, it’s back to the checkpoint with you. As a result, much of the game becomes an exercise in trial and error where you’ll position Danny, someone will walk past, you’ll realize you’re position isn’t the right one resulting in you having to reposition Danny and lure the target all over again.

Danny has a wide variety of weapons at his disposal ranging from single use items such as pens and glass shards to multiple use items such as crowbars, sledgehammers and sickles. Eventually Danny will get his hands on firearms which unfortunately makes things take a turn for the worse. The enemy AI in this game is fairly bad and once they get into a shootout with Danny will simply stand there, locked in position as Danny pops our from cover, takes some shots and pops back in. One entire firefight in a theater consisted of Danny hiding behind a row of seats as the enemies walked in, got taken out with a shotgun, and were then replaced with the next bad guy. The use of firearms also makes the need for stealth much less, an odd choice given that this is supposed to be a stealth action game.

The wide variety of weapons and execution zones, areas where you can kill someone with the environment, is impressive, however given that you can’t see what’s going on when you attack someone, there’s really no reason to switch up weapons. Also, the game provides you with three levels of violence for your executions based on how long you hold down the A button as you stalk your prey, but there’s no rewards for taking the time, and the risk, to complete these gruesome executions, save one boss battle at the end, and you can’t see them anyway, so every kill becomes a hasty killing, done just to get you to move on to the next guy.

Checkpoints are sprinkled throughout levels and in a strange design choice, don’t automatically save for you, they simply give you the opportunity to save. It’s an odd choice for sure, however the message stating that you’ve hit a checkpoint is large enough that forgetting isn’t really a problem, it’s just strange that with a game that tries so hard to set up a moody and immersive atmosphere, the player has to be pulled out of it to save their progress.