Seriously, do they not believe that a game benefits from having smooth edges? The Wii edition has the most graphical polish, which isn’t saying much given how obviously polygonal the graphics are, a sadly regular disappointment from Rockstar.
The screen then dims a bit, and instead of a full view of your prey’s death, you just see a shadowy, grainy image of someone dying, followed by the camera’s refocusing and the sight of Lamb’s bloodstained arms. However, the violence gets masked when a player whacks a guy, as the screen turns fuzzy and heavily color-saturated whenever you move Lamb in for a kill. To shake the AO rating, Manhunt 2‘s gore factor had its face bashed in with a bat, its spine yanked out with an axe and its balls ripped into with a buzzsaw…all things you can still do in the game. And hot damn, is that reduction noticeable to a fault. To keep the game alive, Rockstar had to tone down the kinkiness and overt sexuality and reduce the extremely realistic ultra-violence.
That rating threatened the game’s distribution, since no console manufacturers currently allow AO games on their machines. Rockstar Games’ latest effort puts players in the blood-spattered shoes of Daniel Lamb, a neuroscientist turned test subject for a shady research group, as he performs endless executions so violent that the initial cut earned an Adults Only (AO) rating. No sort of new standards for gore nor gruesomeness were set. Hailed for months prior to its release as the violent videogame to redefine violent videogames, Manhunt 2 was released last week just before Halloween.