At the time that we initially saw Rockstar's Manhunt 2 in a quiet setting a few weeks ago in San Francisco, there was no peep of the controversy that has plagued the title over the past week. No talk of AO ratings, no discussion of risking a ban in Britain. Instead, the focus was on both the PSP, PS2 and Wii versions of the game. The big difference between the three games, we discovered, was the dev houses. Rockstar Toronto, the team behind The Warriors, is working on the Wii version. Rockstar Leeds, the studio that has discovered how to squeeze the best capabilities out of the PSP, is working on the handheld title. Meanwhile, the PS2 version of the franchise has come out of Rockstar North's hands and into those of the newly formed Rockstar London, a conglomerate of dev teams from other studios within the company.

This time, things are dramatically different in regard to plot and presentation. There's no Starkweather, and no Piggsy. There's no surveillance camera surrounding your every move. The core ideas, however, are still the same. You'll be playing as Dr. Daniel Lamb. Once upon a time, Daniel worked for the mysterious Project under Dr. Pickman. None of the employees who worked under The Project knew what was going on, but eventually, funding was pulled and The Project went underground. As far as we can tell, it seemed to be hinged upon creating killing machines out of men. Pickman asked Daniel to be a human guinea pig for some experiments, and it cost Daniel both sanity and family.


Six years have passed. Daniel has been committed within the Dicksmore Asylum for six years. Suddenly, after over a half decade within the confines of this mental institution, he begins to reawaken to his life before the fateful experiments after he kills a woman. He and his friend Leo Casper both escape from Dicksmore to put together pieces of the puzzle behind Daniel's insanity. Throughout the game, Daniel has flashbacks (which are levels in and of themselves) that start to color in the events prior to the game's start.

Now, onto the gritty parts that some of you might be wondering about. Manhunt 2 is chock full of gruesome executions, some of which seem to make hamburger from mens' heads, others that are grisly in the makeshift nature of the kill. You'll have the same targeting system from the first game; those who haven't played Manhunt might also recognize it from GTA: San Andreas. Executions are based on the length of time that you hold down the square button (or in the case of the Wii version, wait for the opportunity to attack), and as it changes colors, you'll know the degree of severity on your kill.

Not only will you have the assortment of DIY weaponry found in the first game, you'll also have environmental executions. In one case, we hid in an industrial area near a turbine. With a careful tiptoe behind a would-be assassin, we dispatched him into the grinding gears of the machine. Guns are back, and fortunately, you get them much earlier than in the first game, which makes things a little more manageable. Many complained that not only was the subject matter a bit difficult to stomach in Manhunt, but that the length of time until Cash got a gun made the game unnecessarily difficult, so it's good to see that addressed. Also new to the fracas are gun executions. Blood-spattered as they are, they're pretty reminiscent of the many firearm takedowns in Dead to Rights, but with grimmer settings and more gore.