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PlayStation (Games) Entertainment Games

GTA Creators Push Limits With Manhunt 69

Posted by simoniker from the a-real-state-of-emergency dept.
Thanks to IGN PS2 for a new, screenshot-toting preview of Manhunt, the forthcoming "brutal urban videogame" produced by the developers of the Grand Theft Auto series. This previously secretive, potentially controversial title starts you, completely defenseless in Carcer City, where 'the Director' has sprung you from Death Row and "...populated [the city] with psychopathic gangs hired for the sole purpose of finding and slaughtering" the player. The piece muses that this "third-person perspective stealth game" seems to be "...much darker, more disturbing... than Grand Theft Auto, which offered seasoned comic humor and parody to counter the bloodshed and chaos."
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GTA Creators Push Limits With Manhunt More

GTA Creators Push Limits With Manhunt

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  • Survival Horror...Made From PEOPLE (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Babbster ( 107076 ) <aaronbabb&gmail,com> on Sunday August 24, 2003 @05:29AM (#6776764) Homepage
    This is a great idea for a game. While it's clear that the stealth elements are lifted from the many stealth-based games that have come out since Metal Gear Solid, the game sounds like it's shooting for more of a Resident Evil meets Escape From New York aesthetic - except that you're fighting the living instead of the undead and you probably don't have to rescue the president. Given the descriptions of how enemy detection is going to work (by hearing them), I'd imagine that there are going to be a lot of enemies standing still, sitting, etc. right around a blind corner. As long as the control isn't handled like Resident Evil (mush), this sounds like a game I could get into.

    I will note that I certainly hope that they have enough system overhead left to provide real-time DTS sound (something the Playstation has to do in software, as opposed to the Dolby Digital 5.1 in hardware on the Xbox). They mention in the article that they haven't decided between Dolby (Pro Logic, I presume) and DTS, but it seems like a no-brainer if you've got the resources available - if you're going to have a game where sound has a lot of influence, being stuck with one matrixed back channel would be sad, especially since Rockstar did a pretty good job with the DTS in GTA:VC.

    As far as controversy goes, that's just inevitable and I'm sure it will be welcomed by Rockstar/Take Two's marketing department since they can save money on advertising. While we've been killing humans in video games for years, the ever-increasing fidelity of said killing is going to continue drawing the ire of the "parents should be able to ignore their kids' hobbies" lobby, desipte the fact that every uproar ends up selling more games.

    In short, I'm looking forward to finding out if Rockstar can redeem themselves in the controversial game arena (outside of the GTA series) after the debacle that was State of Emergency.

    • Yeah, that hearing enemies thing is... I'd go so far as to say revolutionary. I remember playing Crusader: No Remorse and sort of wishing that they'd have done something along those lines... I think it'd be fantastic for games with that isometric view -- you see an enemy approaching a corner but he disappears when he gets to it because he's actually farther away than you thought! It'd certainly add a new element to being cautious in an environment such as that.
      • I dont know about revolutionary. Thats the basis behind multiplayer games currently -- In counterstrike, I hear your footsteps from the other side of a wall, so I shoot the wall and hit them before they even know where I am. Even back in the quakworld/tf days you'd hear your enemys from around corners and know what to expect (You hear a rocketlauncher, you know theres a soldier coming. Hear an assault cannon, know theres a hwguy.)

        As far as AI targeting humans based on sound, PodBot for counterstrike does t
      • hearing enemies thing is . . . I'd go so far as to say revolutionary.

        -cough-THIEF [mobygames.com]-cough
    • They most likely mean Dolby Digital, the analog to DTS (and arguably inferior standard).
      • Unfortunately, they most likely don't mean Dolby Digital when they're talking about a PS2 game. Unless something's changed in the last few months, the PS2 doesn't have a capability in software (there is definitely not one in hardware) to render real-time Dolby Digital (in any form, 2.0, 4.1, 5.1, etc.) sound. There is a package available to allow rendering DTS in real-time, which has been used in SSX Tricky, NHL 2002 and GTA:VC. They can also do Dolby Pro Logic II which is another matrixed system that al
        • Hmm, not having played any of those games on my PS2, I had no idea they used DTS instead of DD, which seems kind of backwards since I would've thought DD would take less processing power.

          I know what DPL2 is, and even have it on my Denon preamp. I've used it once, and seen it in action a few times (mostly on a GCN), but the effects are subtle at best, it seems, and I've calibrated my speaker set for optimal seperation.
    • Survival Horror...Made From PEOPLE
      Would they it Soylent Manhunt?
  • .. but I also hope that the parents would become more aware that there is lot of games on the market that arent that suitable for kids under 16 (or 14, 12, ..) for example.
    I don't mean that violent games necessary cause violence, but I wouldn't let my kids watch some "action" movie with a lot of killing either...

    ps. This is not meant as a troll, just a thought that came up when i read about the game idea.
    • Well, speaking as a guy who sells games to said parents, I think you'd be surprised how many of them just don't seem to give a crap. I've had parents buy GTA 3 (both original and Vice City) for their under ten children. I tell them "Sir/Ma'am, this game isn't suitable for a young child - it has depictions of violence and adult situations" to which I get the reply "It's a video game - how bad can it be?". The strange thing is I've yet to get a returned game on the grounds that it is too violent, which lea

  • Controversy... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Gothic_Walrus ( 692125 ) on Sunday August 24, 2003 @07:27AM (#6776886) Journal
    It's already apparent that this, much like GTA3 and Mortal Kombat before it, is going to make overprotective parents and bored Congressmen wig out and try to ban video games as a whole. Just remeber: the rating system is there for a reason. A lot of people I know could care less about the ratings, but games like this aren't meant for seven year olds. If people ignore the ratings and buy the game for their kid themselves (as most parents would have to do, considering its rating), they can only get mad at themselves for being irresponsible and not checking the game out prior to purchasing it. In any case, the bottom line should be:

    You should be monitoring what your kid does in their free time. If you're offended by the game, don't buy it for your kid. It's that simple.

    • Re:Controversy... (Score:1, Flamebait)

      by nathanh ( 1214 )
      You should be monitoring what your kid does in their free time.

      Spoken like somebody who doesn't have kids.

      • Re:Controversy... (Score:5, Insightful)

        by clambake ( 37702 ) on Sunday August 24, 2003 @09:53AM (#6777196) Homepage
        You should be monitoring what your kid does in their free time.

        Spoken like somebody who doesn't have kids.

        Likewise, spoken by someone who SHOULDN'T have kids.
      • I hope that you're just being a troll and that you don't actually have kids yourself. We have people like you to blame for Columbine.. Not to mention half the vandalizing, teen pregnancies, drug deaths, and the fact that my neighbor's 17 year old kid drives wildy down the road drunk every friday and saturday night..
        • Spoken like someone whos never been a parent to a 17 year old kid. As a 17 year old kid I can honestly say its the worlds most difficult thing...More difficult than typical slashdotter trying to find a date late on a friday night.
          • It wasn't long ago that I was 17. I never said that you had to watch your kids 24/7, but there are things which a parent should be able to notice easily. I never wanted to tell my parents what was going on in my life, but they always had ways of knowing what I was doing and such. I'm not saying you have to put a tracking device on your kid to be a responsible parents, I'm saying ask questions, pay attention to actions, and just because your kid says omg mom I'm 13 stay out of my room.. doesn't mean you h
            • When you bring drugs into this is becomes a totally different ballgame. Its not hard to act normal infront of parents when drunk or stoned. As a 17 year old who actually got a social life this year, I've come home too fucked up to walk correctly but I managed to get into my basement just fine because parents cant always tell whats happening in a teenagers life.

              I do agree about building bombs and playing with shotguns though, that is completely obvious. When your teenager is alone in a locked garage (basemen

              • Then your parents are idiots, or are drunk or stoned themselves. Either that, or they're typical bad parents.

                It takes about 3 seconds to look at someone's eyes and tell if they're drunk, and even less time to smell their breath (if you were smart enough to cover up the external scent of alcohol.)

                If you think that building bombs is somehow more obvious than drugs, you're naive. I was 17 less than a decade ago, and I was never foolish enough to believe that my parents wouldn't be able to detect drug or
                • Thanks for taking the high road and attacking my parents, just because I know how to act sober when I'm a bit messed up doesn't mean my parents are idiots. I've come up with ways to cover every possible way of getting caught. We're a new breed these days, we think ahead before we go to a party or smoke a bowl or something.

                  The kids have gotten smarter. We use Visene these days. A few drops of Visene in the eyes will clear up that whole red-eye look. The smell can be covered by doing shots, making mixed drink

                  • It's easier than many people want to think, but we know what we're doing, we're not completely stupid.
                    No, you're an absolute idiot, and you're too damn stupid to realize it. If you think your tricks to cover shit up work, you're a fool. I'm 19. I was your age 2 years ago. I got away with my fair share and then some, but it's not because of any skills when it comes to covering it up. It's either because they don't want to believe that you'd be doing what they think you're doing, or because they choose
                    • Us "damn punk kids" are smarter than we are given credit for but no one wants to hear what we are trying to say. I did not get insulted at the fact that someone pointed anything out to me, I merely resent the fact that someone believes its easier for a parent to tell that a kid is smoking a little pot or drinking a little alcohol than it is to tell if a kid if planning to blow up his fucking school. I'm sorry but there is a huge difference between a kid who goes out to a party and has a few beers before cat

        • I hope that you're just being a troll and that you don't actually have kids yourself. We have people like you to blame for Columbine.. Not to mention half the vandalizing, teen pregnancies, drug deaths, and the fact that my neighbor's 17 year old kid drives wildy down the road drunk every friday and saturday night..

          I pray to God that you're not really as stupid as you sound. People "like me" are to blame for Columbine? That kind of idiotic finger-pointing really makes my blood boil. In the wake of Co

          • Two kids go on a murderous rampage? Parents are to blame for ... well, what for? Not taking them to church often enough? Not locking them in a padded room, sanitised from reality?

            How about not noticing their kids building pipe bombs in their garage?

            Sure, my parents didn't know what I was doing all the time when I was 17, and even less so when I was 18 and they pretty much let the reigns go (and one of the two involved in Columbine was 18), but they sure as hell knew what was going on in their own house
          • I'm in between classes so I don't have long to respond, but anyway..

            I pray to God that you're not really as stupid as you sound. People "like me" are to blame for Columbine? That kind of idiotic finger-pointing really makes my blood boil. In the wake of Columbine we had various extremist groups blaming everything from television to movies to computer games to gun ownership for what happened. And of course we had the self-righteous moral brigade led by people LIKE YOU who blamed the parents.

            Yeah, I am

            • I'm in between classes so I don't have long to respond,

              And I think that says it all; he's a kid himself yet he's an expert on raising children, even to the point of blaming parents for the woes of the world.

              Pompous ass.

              • Again you show your lack of intelligence. Since when does going to college mean you're a kid? Maybe you were lucky and got to go to college right out of school, but some of us had to get jobs and be providers. Pretty sad though, that all you can come up with as a response is to say I'm a kid and an ass. You probably didn't even pay attention to my post, since it's so obvious you're unable to control your own emotions.
      • Flamebait? Are the moderators on crack... moreso than usual? And what's this nonsense about me being responsible for Columbine, drugs, sex, and World War 2? Are you Americans really that stupid that you think the way to stop disobedient behaviour is to treat everybody like potential criminals?

        Need anybody answer that rhetorical question?

    • Re:Controversy... (Score:2, Insightful)

      by gumpish ( 682245 )
      Just remeber:
      ...the rating system is there for a reason.
      Not to mention the name of the game.

      Manhunt.

      Not to be confused with "Fluffy Bunny in Magical Kingdom" or "Mario Party 8".

      Parents who buy their kid Manhunt and then complain about the content should be bitchslapped.
      • Parents who buy their kid Manhunt and then complain about the content should be bitchslapped.

        Maybe they thought it was a gay-porn game, but got mad to see it was sociopathic. :p

    • "You should be monitoring what your kid does in their free time. If you're offended by the game, don't buy it for your kid. It's that simple."

      Just out of curiosity, what do you consider then to be an appropriate age for a kid to make their own decision about what games they buy? Because not all parents buy games for their kids, many kids buy them for themselves. And you can't always control your kid, particularly in the latter half of their teens.

      • How about this.. By the time your kid is old enough to have a job and afford a $50-60 game without you loaning them the money, then HOPEFULLY you've done a good enough job in bringing them up that at that point they'll be ready for it. There are always exceptions of course, many kids can easily handle these types of games at an early age.. The parent has to decide, is my kid the kind that imitates everything they see, etc.. I mean it's like a lot of kids can't watch scary movies without nightmares, or wat
  • Stick to expanding gta and put in multiplayer. This game is a bad idea. There is a lot more to gta then then violently slaying someone, which to me wasn't even the best part by any stretch.
    • Sure, and Nintendo should stick to Mario sequels, Sega should only put out Sonic games and Konami should never release a game without "Metal Gear" in the title.

      It's always amazing to me that with all the calls for fewer sequels and more original games, there are people out there actually clamoring for developers to do the same thing over and over and over again.

  • Linearity concerns me (Score:3, Interesting)

    by robson ( 60067 ) on Sunday August 24, 2003 @12:37PM (#6777869)
    What made GTA3 & GTAVC great were their open environments wedded with non-linear game-play. Everything I've read about Manhunt suggests it's far more linear, leading me to believe that Rockstar North may not have learned from its successes. :(
    • You got all that from an game preview? Even worse, an IGN game preview? Wow. GTA3 sounded pretty damn linear too, what with you having to do missions for various mob bosses and such. But there was so much more to the game that the previews suggested, and I bet that'll be the case with Manhunt. Bottom line: game previews suck. They're never an indication of how good a game will be on release.
      • Bottom line: game previews suck. They're never an indication of how good a game will be on release.

        I, of course, agree with you. But I'm actually getting my info on the linearity from a big magazine preview where they say explicitly, "Manhunt will be much more linear than the GTA games."

        But don't get me wrong; that doesn't mean I won't even try it. I'll be ecstatic if it brings the same sort of freedom that the GTAs did.

  • Rockstar v. Miyamoto (Score:3, Interesting)

    by superultra ( 670002 ) on Sunday August 24, 2003 @01:03PM (#6778035) Homepage
    I hope that the games.slashdot crew is well versed enough that I don't have to go and link to a gazillione interviews with Miyamoto on why GTA3 and its kin aren't great for the industry. Manhunt only proves that violence without purpose in games is only escalatory. So Manhunt sells billions of copies. What subject content does Rockstar tackle next? There's not much left beyond the prison brutality espouged in Manhunt's (now defunct) promo website.

    Meanwhile, in the other corner, we have Miyamoto who's busy making the Amelie-inspired Pikmin 2 and a revamp of Pac-Man. I think this represents the beginnings of a rift in the gaming industry. Rockstar and everyone trying to copy [activision.com] them on one side, and luminaries like Miyamoto, Spector, Wright, etc on the other side; essentially, people who see purpose-less violence as self-defeating.

    Here's the paradox: if GTA3 and Manhunt are "art" as nearly every video game enthusiast espouses, then it does - as art is prone to doing - affect the way we think. If that's the case, then why not examine it? I am by no means suggesting that games like Manhunt should be legislated, but I think it's extremely naive of gamers to assume that GTA/Manhunt does not change our social consciousness. Shouldn't we then be concerned about its effect, be it good or bad?

    Every Manhunt/GTA-esque game casts a vast shadow on the game industry that obscures gems like Pikmin or Viewtiful Joe or Animal Crossing. Those are the games that should be on the forefront of the industry, not GTA or Manhunt. "Everything is permissible, but not everything is beneficial." Merely because we can makes games like Manhunt doesn't mean we should.
    • Essentially you're right. I read the IGN article about Manhunt and thought two things: first, you'd have to be a psychopath to feel like you could derive true pleasure from playing the game and two, I bet it's fscking brilliant. But let's be honest. This game is for people who have parties to watch "Faces of Death". I'm sure that it's of the highest quality though, I mean, once you buy into the whole death-with-glee thing.

      However, I'm actually cool with a game like this out in the public arena. Violen
      • Good -great- points, really. GTA did an incredible amount of good for open-ended gameplay that I think we will yet see the true fruition of. Warren Spector is a huge fan [216.239.39.104] of the open-ended gameplay in GTA3 but not of the violence.

        My question though is: why? Why does Doom get the credit for what Ultima: Underworld had already done? Why did GTA3 get the credit for something that Sid Meier's Pirates! accomplished nearly 20 years prior? I think that it's not necessarily that violence pushes technology fur
    • Good Lord. Are there still people beating this drum outside of the Nintendo offices?

      Believe it or not, people have different tastes in video games. Not one of those tastes is in any superior to another. Should I get angry because Madden tops the video game charts every year despite the fact that I think the 2k series (now ESPN) from Sega is superior? Should I "go postal" because someone else says that Deathrow is a lousy game?

      I've played Pikmin, Animal Crossing, the GTA series, Civilization and Knig

    • Nice comment however it is in fact incorrect, video gaming has evolved into a new art form, and since it is an art (and business) there will always be the Disney's and the Tarantino's there will always be some artist that will try to explore the dark and less simpathetic aspects of reality or fantasy (and profit from it) and those who will try to explore innocence and fantasy (and profit from it).
      They are not inherently wrong they are targetted to completely different audiences and explore completely diffe
      • Your post is what I'm talking about. It's as naive as "the media" to merely accept GTA and Manhunt at face value as being not wrong as it is to accept it at face value as being wrong. "The media," or more apt general society overall, refuses to look beyond the surface at video games for their true potential.

        Meanwhile though, 99% of all gamers are so ignorantly defensive of games like GTA and Manhunt, throwing around words like free speech and the like, that they refuse to examine the potential effects o
  • Knock it off with the stupid social commentary in your articles:

    "With TV pervading deeper into our lives, nothing -- however personal it may be -- is off limits. Sadly, the idea isn't very far-fetched in the grim world of the 21st century. It's not far from the truth."

    I don't give one little bit what you think of the real world around us. In fact I don't care what your opinion on anything is. Describe the game, stick to the facts and leave your opinions on everything out (unless its a review which this

  • MANHUNT PREVIEW IN GTA!!! (Score:4, Funny)

    by AlexMax2742 ( 602517 ) on Sunday August 24, 2003 @03:05PM (#6778634)
    1. Start up your PS2/PC with GTA3/GTA:VC
    2. Find the cheat codes for you resepective ssystem that enables 'Pedestrians have weapons', 'Pedestrians riot' and 'Pedestrians hate you'
    3. Enter cheat codes
    4. ???
    5. Profit

    There you go. And you didn't even have to wait for an official demo/release.

  • success of course.

    GTA is certainly comical in its violence from my POV.

    Two things about Manhunt concern me. Two things I am not shure about yet.

    First is the gameplay. Level Design, gameplay mechanics and carefully crafted challenge curves are so hard to get right.
    Sneaking around is neat and all,but what else can our character do. In Thief2 I cherished being able to shoot an arrow in to a wooden beam or ceiling and climb up in to a shadow to hide from my enemies.
    I don't want to discover all the gameplay
  • These guys are making an incredibly violent, sociopathic game and they're not apologizing for it. Also, it's nice to see that Rockstar can do more than just milk their GTA/Midnight Club cash cows for awhile (it gets quite sickening if they put out the same two games per year).
  • The disturbing feeling that I get when looking at the screenshots is not because I am uncomfortable with the basic premise of Manhunt. No, it's because the screenshots look quite dated. IMO PS2 should be killed as soon as possible, because graphics innovation is no less important than style and gameplay. I don't really look forward to playing another GTA game with the same blocky characters and generally crappy and undetailed environment. GTA3 was cool, Vice City is tolerable, but San-Angeles is going to be

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