14 DAY TRIAL // 
We all wanted, at one point or another, to just leave our covert ops days behind and become world-class mercenaries, free from the whims of a single government and its shady dealings (and presumably low pay), and offer our services to the highest bidder.
Manhunter attempts to deliver precisely that experience, by throwing you into the shoes of an ex-SAS operative that's gone the route of gun for hire, taking on high-profile assassination missions that pay no more and no less than one million dollars each.
As a grizzled veteran, it is solely up to you and your hacker friend to put a stop to some devious plots and so on and so forth; the story is pretty generic, and you get to play Rambo, that's pretty much all that matters.
Developed by Polish video games studio Silden, Manhunter is a first-person shooter that harkens back to the days of Soldier of Fortune and Delta Force, when shooters were just starting to realize there was more to gameplay than endlessly chained rocket jumps.
Unfortunately, that pretty much means that the game feels really old, in both visuals and its systems, due in part to the fact that it was created by only a handful of people. On the one hand, you simply go around the map killing everything in sight like the madman you are, not worrying too much about objectives and all the other fancy stuff that modern military shooters rely on; on the other, it's not too satisfying an experience.
It's got a ton of problems that keep it from being enjoyable, starting from awkward movement and aiming, and going through hilariously bad enemy AI, overused tropes and low-quality visuals.
The weapons feel weird for the most part, and at times it seems as if their accuracy is all over the place. The sniper rifle is accurate, and the devs even attempted to factor some bullet drop and wind into the bullet trajectory model, but unfortunately the rest of the arsenal is severely clunky.
The silenced pistol is pretty nice, but it functions too well when compared to the AK-47, being able to take out people in 1-3 bullets from a distance, while the same cannot be said for the iconic assault rifle. The way guns function, in short, makes them feel really clunky, and the controls are also on par with that shoddiness, as you have to depress your mouse button and click again in order to resume aiming after reloading your weapon and so on.
In addition to this, although the playing field is pretty open and of a good enough size to not make you feel like you are going through a maze, the game doesn't allow you to stray from the designated path, lest you want to meet Mister Game Over Screen. And the funniest bit is that sometimes when you run outside the invisible boundaries of the game, you won't have enough time to return, having to restart from the latest checkpoint.
That will most likely be the main cause for restarting a mission, as actually fighting the photocopied nameless henchmen is not very difficult, in spite of their godly aim.
That's because you are almost invincible, and can take a dozen bullets without breaking into even a light sweat. Some enemies remain inactive when you shoot five of their peers using your silenced pistol, even though they opened fire on you, just because they're facing away and didn't actually see the deed being done.
Being invincible is okay, however, considering how many bullets your enemies can also soak, and considering that they'll spot you immediately no matter where you pop out from and manage to hit you quite often, in spite of their weapons being the same as yours, and as such sparking confusion regarding to how they actually hit the mark.
In addition to this, there is also a horrible turret section where you are immobilized and have to aim through an opaque windshield and have to guess where your enemies are judging by their muzzle flare, a section in which you take more bullets to the face than were fired in the entire RoboCop series but seem to have no trouble shaking them off and getting back to business once you're back on your own two feet.
Unconvincing, drab voice acting is pretty much a norm in shooters, so I'll just list it as default poorly acted voiceover work with uninspired writing.
There are, however, some unexpected details in the game, such as having a big airplane flying overhead, far in the distance, while you're busy killing other 20 faceless henchmen, or a few buildings across the street, on the opposite bank of a river, that you can only see through the glass wall of a building you're currently in, but that someone went through the trouble of modeling.
The airplane, however, you'll see pretty often, it's not the one-of-a kind type of thing that shows the polish that was put into the game, but is rather indicative of the amount of manpower behind the game, and thus the need for recycling.
You can shoot barrels and various pieces of wood such as crates and pallets, and your bullets go through them and hit whoever is behind. There are also a few other such opportunities that I did not expect to find, such as shooting people through the visual gaps in the 3D model of a truck, but they only shine when compared to how shoddy the rest of the game is.
The AI is horrible, enemies simply spawn at scripted locations and run to their designated destinations, ignoring the hail of bullets you're sending their way, they never use cover, and simply patiently wait for you to pick them off one by one, and only seldom decide to run and hide, only after you have already put a couple of bullets through them.
There will be times, during the first mission, when your teammate will already be at a checkpoint ahead, with enemies still scattered about on the way to there. And you know that because of the annoying music, of course. In addition to this, he also has the nasty habit of getting into your line of fire, and you'll often lose the game because he decided to walk into your crosshairs when you were busily cutting down a nearby group of enemies.
There are some hilarious moments to be experienced, when your hacker buddy as well as your mission objectives tell you to avoid the guards, but they're sitting right in your very linear path, so you can't really circumvent them in any way, and you have to just rely on shooting them in the face to get by.
The Good
- Shooting people in the face is fun
- Almost open environments
The Bad
- Shoddy controls
- Unsatisfying weapon mechanics
- Bad enemy AI
- Annoying repetitive music
- Dated visuals
- No multiplayer
Conclusion
All things considered, this looks like a retro shooter made by too few people in too little time, without any of its systems being particularly well designed, and struggling to achieve the level of "generic" without managing to even get that far, most of the time.
Taking its price tag into account, it's hard to criticize it too harshly, but it's definitely not an enjoyable experience. It's old and buggy just like games used to be a long time ago, and it doesn't bring anything new or different enough to the table to warrant a pardon for its low level of overall polish and for its unsatisfying content.
If the game worked better from a purely mechanical standpoint, it would have fared much better overall. As would have including multiplayer.
