Croal vs. Totilo - The Manhunt 2 Letters

N'Gai Croal (of Newsweek) and Stephen Totilo (of MTV) once again match wits in a textual format, this time over the Manhunt 2 controversy. In Round One, the two reporters discuss the process of playing the game for the first time, and wonder what the experience must have been like for the ESRB raters. Round Two sees them take things up a notch, discussing what exactly it is about the game that's so violent. Round Three ... has them questioning the nature of gaming itself. As always, these are two smart guys with some interesting insights into the medium. Well worth your time. From N'Gai's final letter: "It's difficult to 'read' or derive much meaning from a game. That's why in our three Vs. Modes, we ultimately don't spend very much time talking about or analyzing the experience of playing a game, because it's hard to do so without turning our emails into "I went here. I did this. I picked that up." Which is, after all, what games are. So if the essence of a game is located in what we do, is a walkthrough--go here, do this, pick up that--the most truthful way to write about the experience of playing a game? I hope not. But it's something we should consider. Once again, if the essence of any game is located in its action, reaction, interaction, and the rules which circumscribe those three elements, what does the narrative do?"

interesting read, makes me want to play it

[Tol Dantom]

These letters were a surprisingly broad look at the issues surrounding video games. What I thought was especially nice was some discussion of implications on the gamer who chooses to play the game, which is rare since most of the time these are just defense or attack pieces. It's funny because this sort of discussion is what actually makes me interested in the game. When the previews came out it always centered on action and mechanics which were quite frankly droll in the first game. In Manhunt the killing is just mechanical. You creep around and want to see all the animations, but after that the execution scene could just be a bop on the head rendering them unconscious and it would have the same visceral effect on the goal oriented player. But when we look at the similarities between the Director, the game designer, and our selves sitting there guiding Cash to and then passively watching the gruesome offings, that makes me genuinely interested in Manhunt 2.

The only thing I thought was missing was a better comparison between manhunt 1 and 2. They talk about some things like the tone and and narrative structure which doubtlessly had the largest impact on the ratings board, but I'm still unsure whether 2 plays the same pretty much (ignoring the Wii) with the same structure. This seems like a strange omission considering all the talk of repetition in gaming and how that makes up the core. I would like to have known how Manhunt's core compared to Manhunt 2's.