Game 30: Manhunter 2 - How the West Was Won

Manhunter Journal Entry 6: “Now I’m really getting somewhere! I finally managed to figure out what the temple vision had been about. It was basically a cryptic solution to the problem offered up by the meditating man next door. Unfortunately this success only led to yet another vision that means nothing to me, but for once I think I found more answers today than new questions. Stealing a scroll from those crazed Dragon ninjas gave me another useful clue that led me to believe that Zac West was going to play an important role in future events, but visiting his decrepit room within the wax museum gave me no further leads. Oh crap...I gotta go! The Orbs are contacting me!”

These slaves sure are keen to get to Hell!

I stopped my last post just as I’d followed the last of Day 2’s suspects through to the end of the available recordings (with the last one being killed and stuffed in a cabin car with the above letter in his belt). There was still one marker that I’d not tracked at this point though, which was Phil Cook’s. I loaded up the recording and selected his marker as soon as he entered the cable car barn in pursuit of the dragon member, and then watched to see where he went after he’d killed him. The answer shouldn’t have surprised me! He went straight to the doctor’s house where he killed the slave and the doctor, whose bodies I’d already discovered earlier. What did surprise me though, was that as soon as he entered the house, I realised Phil wasn’t alone. I’d noticed earlier that his marker had a strange patchy marking next to it, but since I’d not been able to select it, had figured it was just using a slightly different graphic to differentiate the antagonist. However, as soon as Phil entered the house he went after the slave while the marker separated from him to go after the doctor!

Notice there are four markers in the house. The slave, the doctor, Phil, and ???

I had no idea who (or what) was going around assisting Phil. I was now having doubts that it was Phil at all, despite the P’s being carved in the victim’s foreheads. Anyway, since I’d already investigated the doctor’s house, I was more interested in where the murderer went next. The answer is a private club (although the other marker left him on the way), where he walked up to the entrance and was let in. The tracker recording ended here, so all that was left for me to do was bring up my map and follow the lead to the club. On arrival I could find nothing to do apart from knocking on the eye slot on the door, above which stated “StAy Owt!!” Shortly afterwards I wished I taken the warning seriously, as two rather freaky looking eyes stared at me through the slot and then my entire body was pulled through it. Obviously, given the size of my body and the significantly smaller proportions of the slot, that didn’t turn out very well for me. As usual, the Murry’s took the opportunity to mock me, saying “He must not have liked your looks.”

That's me being pulled through the tiny slot in the door. Well it's the only way I could find to get inside!

That message gave me the impression that I was somehow going to have to change my looks if I wanted to enter the club, but I had nothing in my possessions that would assist in that matter. I tried various other unlikely things on the screen, none of which were successful. This unfortunately meant that I’d followed all the leads that the tracker recording offered up, and since the Orb’s hadn’t contacted me to ask me for suspect names, I’d clearly missed something along the way. In my possession I had the following items: Dragon Note, Newspaper, Fang, Driver’s License, Cloth, Full Flask, Letter 1, Letter 2, ID Card, Laundry Receipt, Mallet, MAD, Camera, Matchbook and Empty Gun. There were a few obvious locations where I thought I still might be able to achieve something (the shop, the pier, the laundry and the temple in particular), but I’d spent a fair amount of time at each of them already. It was time to go over my tracks and see if I could uncover anything more!

A full inventory of stuff and yet no obvious leads

The first place I went was the shop. I witnessed the exact same scene on entering that I’d seen previously, being the shopkeeper checking out the severed mutant finger. While this seemed to suggest that I was going to need one of my own to deal with the guy (or something similar), the sign behind him talked about playing a game to win items, even if you “don’t have enough to get what you want”! Once again I wasn’t able to find any way of playing this game with the shopkeeper, nor could I find anything else that I could do there at all. I moved onto the temple, and more specifically, the meditating man next door with the pipe. I’d really hoped that I would come across more banners throughout the game that would give me an idea as to what each of the jars meant that were sitting in front of him (I only knew the symbols for Heaven and Vision). Since that hadn’t happened, I thought I’d give solving this puzzle another go. The first thing I really needed to know was how many pinches I needed to put into the pipe before lighting it. Without knowing that, even guessing the right symbols to use was difficult to say the least. While considering this problem, something clicked in my brain!

This clicked!

The odd message I’d received from the statue titled HEAVEN on the temple staircase was what I thought of. When I’d originally tried to decipher it, I’d come up with the nonsensical “Four Pruler”, but it was the potential of the “Four” that drew my attention now. Could it be that I needed four pinches? Hang on a second! Four P(inches)! The ruler was meant to represent inches, not merely a ruler!!! Eureka! The only question remaining was what I needed to pinch four of, but since the statue had been titled HEAVEN, that seemed the most likely answer. I placed four pinches of heaven into the pipe and lit it, watching with great anticipation as four puffs of smoke came out of it. Then whoosh! Smoke began to pour out of the pipe, much to the surprise of the normally calm and meditative man. I then witnessed a vision of a black haired woman whose face rapidly transformed into a squarish green alien form, before fading away. What the hell was that supposed to represent!?

What the hell is that!!!???

The man was clearly shaken by what he’d just witnessed. He gave me a statue of what looked like a rabbit looking upwards, with some kind of ring around its neck. It had the words “To Daddy from Ming” on it, and the man was crying as he gave it to me. I couldn’t know for sure what the reason for his tears were, but I guessed it had something to do with Ming. Could Ming be his son or daughter? Perhaps they died at some point in time? Was the woman in the vision Ming? Checking out the name at the Behind the Name website informed me that the name Ming could be feminine or masculine, so it’s possible the man saw his daughter in the vision. Maybe I was reading into the whole thing too much, and he was simply crying after witnessing such a strange vision. I couldn’t know for sure, but at least I was very pleased to have solved two puzzles at once, being the heaven statue puzzle and the pipe puzzle.

Just what I've always wanted!! A statue of a rabbit with an inscription made out to someone else!

As overjoyed as I was, it suddenly dawned on me that the only thing I’d gained from all of this success was a statue of a rabbit with the words “To Daddy from Ming” on it. I couldn’t think of a single use for it. Was I supposed to think that one of the characters in the game was Ming and not the offspring of the meditating man? I won’t bore you with all the stupid things I tried with the statue over a half an hour period. Some brief examples of desperation are: I tried using it on the crate at the pier, on the rat in the pipe, on the shopkeeper in the shop, on the slot on the door at the private club, and on the window at the laundry. Basically I revisited every place on the map in the hope of making use of my latest item to no avail. What all this experimentation did however was convince me that whatever I was supposed to do next was likely going to happen in the temple. I’d avoided making my way back to the branding scene because it would involve getting through the horrible acid-surrounded bridge arcade mine-game, but it was time to face up to it.

It was time to face my fear!

I saved my game once I reached the branding scene and prepared to give it my all. I tried using the statue on the brand and I also tried giving it to the man in the purple robe, but neither worked. I then tried picking up a scroll from the box without getting branded first, and then tried doing all sorts of things once I had it in my possession to avoid getting sliced up by ninjas (none of them worked). It was then however that I discovered something in the room completely by accident. When I’d moved my cursor over the window behind the robed man, an arrow appeared! Of course! I didn’t have to get the dragon symbol branded on me at all! I simply needed to steal one and then jump out the window. I can’t tell you how incredibly happy I was when this newfound theory worked! My manhunter bounced off various parts of the building on the way down, but stood up with no apparent damage on the footpath outside the temple, scroll in hand!

There's nothing more exciting than surprising ninjas!

So what did this amazing feat of adventure gaming bring in the way of reward? I quickly opened the scroll to find out. “West is our only chance.” What? What does that mean? I opened up my map and looked at all the “westest” locations on it, but I couldn’t see how this message would help. There were no added locations now that I’d read it either. I took a deep breath and read it again, trying to think of what I was missing. Was “West” a name rather than a direction? Perhaps a surname? What first names did I know that I hadn’t been able to put a surname to?! Well, Zac had appeared on the table in the warehouse. And there was Ming of course, but West hardly seemed a likely surname for Ming. I opened up my MAD and typed the name “zac west”, not at all convinced that it would actually bring up a profile. IT DID!!!! I literally stood up and shouted “YES!!!” at the top of my voice at this point, not caring whether the neighbours were disturbed by my mid afternoon celebration. Manhunter: San Francisco continues to confuse and confound me immensely, but it’s for this reason above all else that it also brings me utter joy and exaltation when I manage to solve things!

So every member of the Dragon gang receives this scroll!? Cryptic much!

According to the profile, Mr West lived at 145 Jefferson St., so that’s exactly where I went next. Strangely, the location on the map wasn’t listed as Zac West’s Apartment or anything remotely like that. It was labelled “Wax Museum”! Once I was inside, I could find nothing to interact with apart from an odd looking wax figure of a fisherman. There was nothing on or around it that I could do anything with, so I began trying out various inventory items. It didn’t take long for me to have success, as when I tried using the mallet, the view changed to show my character swinging the mallet down onto the fisherman’s head. I guess it makes sense that this item would be part of the solution since it was collected from the warehouse office that had the message scrawled on what I now assume was Zac’s desk. Regardless, as soon as the mallet struck the fisherman, a previously locked door at the back of the room opened and my manhunter walked through it.

When all else fails, hit it with a mallet!

Inside I witnessed a show on a screen. The story was told in both words and images, with the words saying “January 2002: Two planets unite to help the people of earth use the riches of their planet for the good of all. The End.” The visuals simply displayed two craft leaving two planets and then arriving at Earth. Clearly this wax museum show was either a biased opinion or a piece of propaganda, but either way it didn’t tell me anything useful. Pixel hunting revealed that I could move to a screen off to the left, so that’s what I did. The second part of the “show” was even less subtle, having giant robots and two Orbs triumphantly “standing” over a pile of human corpses. “Conquest July 2002: Earth welcomes its friends with open arms. With few exceptions, its people gladly accept Orb rule.” I guess I’m happy to be one those “exceptions”! Once again I found that the show would continue off to the left of screen, so I moved on once pixel hunting bore no fruit.

The Murry's included both the old and new forms of Orb in the show.

The next part of the show was titled “A Typical American Family”, and displayed a family living in a shambles, cowering in front of a fireplace with clothes hanging off them. “Life on Earth is improving each day. The benefits of Orb rule will be apparent to the people of Earth very soon.” I wasn’t so sure of that, and began pixel hunting the room for clues. It turned out that I could click on the fireplace, and doing so took me up to a garbage-filled room. The words “Zac’s howse” were written on the wall, so clearly I’d found the place I needed to be. Yet frustratingly, despite minutes of pixel hunting and trying every item I had, there appeared to be absolutely nothing that I could do there! Why was West so important? Surely I must gain something by solving the West puzzle and finding my way to the Wax Museum?! I re-explored each of the rooms in the show, but eventually had exhausted every possible angle. I was very relieved indeed when on departing the museum, the Orb’s contacted me. It looks like I’ve done everything I needed to do on Day 2! Time to find out what Day 3 will bring. Hopefully it connects all these dots I have floating around in my brain!

Requested Image: This one's for you Canageek

Bones and blood are all the rage in interior decorating since the invasion

Session Time: 2 hours 00 minutes

Total Time: 8 hours 00 minutes

Note Regarding Spoilers and Companion Assist Points: I've written a set of rules regarding spoilers and companion assist points. Please read it here before making any comments that could be considered a spoiler in any way. The short of it is that no points will be given for hints or spoilers given in advance of me requiring one. Please...try not to spoil any part of the game for me...unless I really obviously need the help...or I specifically request assistance. In this instance, I've not made any requests for assistance. Thanks!