The Office of Film and Literature's - Guidelines for the Classification of Films and Computer Games, explain that the first part of assessing a computer games material for classification is an "Impact Test”. This test assesses the impact of the games content in regards to: themes, violence, sex, language, drug use and nudity. The guidelines state:

Impact may be higher where a scene:

contains greater detail, including the use of close-ups and slow motion;

uses accentuation techniques, such as lighting, perspective and resolution;

uses special effects, such as lighting and sound, resolution, colour, size of image, characterisation and tone;

is prolonged;

is repeated frequently;

is realistic, rather than stylised; and

encourages interactivity.

What does all this have to do with Manhunt, the latest game from the creators of the Grand Theft Auto series? Well riddle me this Batman: When a game is released that portrays graphic violence in almost all of the above ways, how does it ever get an uncensored release? Who knows? Who cares? All I know is that I'm damn glad that Manhunt did... (And has subsequently been Refused Classification and withdraw from sale, unfortunately. Ed)

Manhunt takes place in Carcer City, the setting of one of the greatest "Snuff” film series of all time. A "Snuff” film is a film where a real murder gets captured on camera for the enjoyment of others and you as James Earl Cash have unwittingly become the genres latest hot star. Manhunt immediately hits you in the face with the subtlety of a severed limb, leaving no doubt in your mind that it's a dark, disturbed and fiendishly twisted game. The opening mechanical, synthesised tones of the musical score perfectly compliment the shocking scenes of violence and insanity awaiting the gamer. The levels are very well designed and look suitably dark and menacing. Dilapidated slums, a disused zoo and a graveyard are but to name a few of the locations you will find yourself hiding in the shadows of. Hiding in shadows is the main game mechanic of Manhunt and the mastery of this technique will translate into ultimate victory. When standing in shadow, your character becomes invisible to the enemy AI. This will seem highly unrealistic at times as the enemy can be mere metres away and not be able to see you, but it is a necessary device in order for the game to work.

Manhunt is a single player game viewed from a third-person perspective and is for the most part a stealth-based game. The movement of your character is controlled by the Left Thumbstick, the more you push it the faster you move and the more sound you make. When moving the Right Thumbstick will slew the view to the left or right but when standing still it switches to a free look first-person view. This view and the way it is initiated can be a real pain if you are used to moving a third-person viewpoint around with the Right Thumbstick as in most other third-person viewed games. The B Button cycles through available weapons and switches with weapons on the ground when held. The X and A Buttons trigger strong and weak attacks respectively and when held together perform a grapple hit combo. Although not as nimble as Sam Fisher, James Earl Cash has a few moves of his own. The Y Button controls a context sensitive action that allows you character to back up flat against a wall to peer around corners or take cover from gun fire. There is no ability to crouch (but if you press Y at a low wall or object you will crouch behind it) and you can not jump or climb. You can run for short periods, which makes extra noise but is essential to get away from perusing psychopaths. After seeing what can be done in Splinter Cell I was a little disappointed with your characters inability to get off the ground. It would have been great to hide above enemies and attack as they pass underneath.

For a lot of the game you are restricted to close-quarter hand-to-hand weapons and in order to survive, you must kill with surprise or be overwhelmed by superior numbers of enemies. Manhunt has an extraordinary selection of weapons arranged into four categories. Your character is restricted to one weapon in each category at any one time. These consist of one-off kill items such as plastic bags and garrotting wire that disappear from your inventory once used. Light weapons such as clubs, knives and handguns. Heavy weapons such as baseball bats, shotguns and sniper rifles and finally objects you can throw such as bricks, bottles and severed heads! This last category of weapons can be use to distract and stun opponents. Some weapons such as crowbars can also be used to break chains to gain access to other areas of a level. To use a weapon you must first lock-on to a target by pressing the Left Trigger. It you are using a firearm you will be presented with a cross-hair that can be controlled with the Left Thumbstick. When using a melee weapon, you need to get in close behind and enemy for a surprise attack. When close enough the lock-on symbols will turn grey. Tapping the A Button at this point will perform a violent surprise attack.

Holding the A Button down for a few seconds causes the lock-on symbols to change to yellow and then to red. Yellow and red attacks are more violent and gruesome than the standard attack and have the trade off of taking longer to perform. Each melee weapon has three different surprise attacks and each is presented in a short cut-scene complete with security camera video effects and some nasty blood splatters on the screen.

After about half way through the game, Manhunt undergoes a fantastic gradual change of pace, style and gameplay. The reason for this change is the introduction of firearms. No longer do you have to lure unsuspecting saps out of the light and into the shadows for a grizzly death, but you can blaze through a level behind the barrel of a gun. Even though the game reverts into a seemingly traditional third person shooter, it still manages to maintain the tension built up by the earlier hours spent shadow hopping. I don't know what it is about Manhunt but the weapons fire with much more conviction than your average shooter. You really feel like they will do some damage and I felt just as tense pinned down in the middle of a gun battle as I did sneaking up behind a foe with a raised machete. One thing that will turn many gamers off is the check-point save feature. You can only save your progress in Manhunt at set check-points and because of this, will find yourself frequently repeating sections especially early on in the game. The option to save anywhere is arguably detrimental to gameplay, but should ultimately be the choice of the player.

The enemies you will face in Manhunt are some of the best-realised characters of any game to date. During the game you will come up against various gangs of thugs and psychos, each with a penchant for gratuitous violence, freaky masks and swearing. The voice acting in Manhunt is spot-on and brings each of these twisted individuals to life. In particular, the voice acting for the Lionel Starkweather character is truly excellent. Very rarely will you hear the same bizarre conversation or taunt twice and quite often you will laugh out loud at what the crazy bad man says as he hunts you down and kills you. And kill you they will...Over and over again. The enemy AI is not incredible, but it's not bad either.

The enemy has various states of alertness and each of these govern the way they act within the game. If they are in a low state of awareness they will either stand still facing in one direction or follow a set patrol route. If they are in a high state of awareness they will move faster search areas where they saw or heard something and often turn around and look behind them. If they see you, then it's on like Donkey-Kong as the enemy will chase you for as long as they can see or hear you. You can usually outrun them (if there is somewhere to run to) but if they see you dart into the shadows they will follow.

One of the best features of Manhunt is the novel use of the Xbox Communicator Head-Set. Right at the beginning of the game your character finds an earpiece from the twisted Film Director Starkweather. Starkweather uses this device to communicate with Cash and likewise communicate with you as his comments are separated from the rest of the effects track and transmitted through the Communicators headphone. This really draws the player into the game and makes you feel Starkweather is actually talking to you not your character on screen. Not only that but the built-in microphone on the Communicator is also utilised as the characters in the game can hear any sound that you make into it. Therefore it is possible to whistle and taunt hunters by actually making these sounds yourself.

Be warned though, it is also possible to inadvertently alert enemies by clearing your throat, talking to friends or by your mobile phone ringing! These little touches while not essential to playing the game, really open up the possibilities of how this piece of hardware can be used in games to further immerse players in Manhunt's world.