Game 30: Manhunter 2 - Final Rating

As much as I’ve really enjoyed my time with Manhunter: San Francisco, I have little doubt that the PISSED rating system is not going to be all that kind to it. In fact, I imagine the result will be quite similar to that of Manhunter: New York, since the majority of pros and cons of the first game returned for the second. Let’s see if the improved story and more logical puzzle solutions can push it up past 50!

Puzzles and Solvability
I gave Manhunter: New York a 6 for this category. The sequel uses the exact same puzzle formula as the first one, so it’s tempting to give it the same. However, I just feel that they worked a lot better this time around! I can’t be certain whether it has more to do with me knowing what to look for after my previous experience, but I found the puzzle solutions to be much more logical this time. The ambiguity of the plot meant that I really had to use my brain, and sometimes puzzles took days to solve, but in the end it was logical deduction that got me there. I felt a huge sense of achievement with these successes, much greater than I've had when solving standard inventory or branching dialogue based puzzles. My biggest complaint for New York was how difficult it was to figure out the suspect’s names, but they were less obtuse in San Francisco. I’m therefore upping the rating to a 7
Rating: 7

Nothing should be ignored in this game, as it might very well be important much later on.

Interface and Inventory
Well, nothing has changed between the two Manhunter games. There is still no real mouse support, and moving the cursor around with the keys is slow and frustrating, particularly given how much pixel hunting is required. I still feel exactly the same about the MAD interface too. I really love the concept and thoroughly enjoyed watching the tracker recordings and then visiting the locations in person, but having to watch the full recording to its completion before being able to restart, and having no way to jump to a certain part of it, is irritating. It was even worse in the sequel because each recording was much more complicated and longer. The arcade game sections are hardly worth mentioning as the controls are so simplistic (the drilling vehicle one was infuriating though), and the inventory is pretty stock standard too. I only came across one bug, which occurred during the lava flow map section towards the end (one of the slaves and one of the robots kept appearing off the map, yet I could still move them). I’m sticking with the same 3 I gave the first game.
Rating: 3

Pixel hunting a room like this one took over a minute, as I slowly moved my cursor up and down the screen with the arrow keys.

Story and Setting
I’m really torn on this one. On the one hand, I was totally captivated by the story in Manhunter: San Francisco. I really liked how it drip fed me information, with new revelations were consistently thrown into the mix. Answers to long held questions were revealed at regular intervals, pushing things along while making the player work for it. However, when I step away and have an actual look at it, I realise that the above feelings have a lot more to do with the game design than the story itself. The fact is I can’t really confidently piece together what even occurred throughout the game, and the majority of the character’s motivations are very unclear. I have so many important questions that remain unanswered, and the failure of the Murry’s to wrap up the story in a third game means I’ll never know the answers. Still, I have to give points somewhere for the amount of enjoyment I got from this game, so I’m going to give it a generous 6.
Rating: 6

I still don't know what "life" the Orbs were after. What was their actual goal?

Sound and Graphics
Once again, there is very little change between the two Manhunters for this category. There is still an impressive amount of effort and detail put into the game’s visual design, but its effect is dramatically decreased by the very average implementation. The bright colours clash with the game’s overall tone and the animated sequences are fairly laughable. The sound is even worse, and I got to a point where I simply couldn’t listen to the PC speaker quality sound effects and music. I gave the first game a generous 4, but given that much of the sequel’s graphics and sound were lifted from the first one, and the extra year that has passed between them makes it more noticeably horrible than before, I have to punish Manhunter: San Francisco further by giving it a 3.
Rating: 3

There was lots of little details in every screen, but boy is it ugly!

Environment and Atmosphere
The Murry’s trips to the actual San Francisco landmarks paid off, and I actually looked up the real locations on Wikipedia a few times while playing, just to see how well they virtually imitated them. Moving from location to location on the overhead map also really helped to make me feel like I was exploring a large area, filled with hidden horrors and dark secrets. The city has the same suppressed yet rebellious feel to it that pervaded New York, and there was a surprising amount of gore in the game that added to the atmosphere. As mentioned before though, the low quality and overly bright graphics don’t help on this front, nor does the silly nature of some of the occurrences and messages. Overall, I think it was the puzzles, the story, and the atmosphere that kept me coming back to Manhunter 2, so I have no issue with using fairly high numbers for those categories.
Rating: 6

The game pulls no punches...well...that is unless it pulls them off completely!

Dialogue and Acting
No-one speaks in the Manhunter series. I’m not even sure whether there was any explanation for that during the first game, but I guess it’s all part of the repressed society scenario. It does make this category challenging to rate, and the only aspects I can consider are the various letters and documents I collected and the Murry’s messages that popped up from time to time (mostly when I died). These were mostly of the cryptic variety and in that way I guess they were quite clever, but they were also conveyed in the same toddler poetry style, with an attempted humour that was only half successful. It was 4 before, so it’s 4 again!
Rating: 4

Every time my character died, a little part of my brain died with him!

Let's see now...7 + 3 + 6 + 3 + 6 + 4 = 29 divided by 60 = 48.33333 which is rounded down to 48! Just as with the first game, that feels a bit low, but this time I'm going to use my discretionary point to take it up to a 49. So, despite all the good things I had to say about the game, it still couldn't crack 50! I guess I just can't ignore all the very obvious technical flaws.

So did anyone predict 49? Time to go take a look. Yes, Fenrus got it bang on the money! Congratulations Fenrus, you win a copy of Tex Murphy 1 & 2. Send me an email to theadventuregamer@gmail.com and I'll reply with the GOG codes. I hope you'll join me for the fun. Once again I'd like to thank Lars-Erik for his generous contribution to the blog.

50 CAPs for Canageek

• Genre Support Award – 5 CAPs – For commenting about an adventure game sale on GOG
• Genre Support Award – 5 CAPs – For commenting about a new adventure game sale on GOG
• Genre Support Award – 20 CAPs – For commenting about a BIG new adventure game sale on Steam
• Gay Disco Award – 10 CAPs – Seriously guys! I really was very curious!
• April Fools Award – 10 CAPs – For fighting giant robots on top of a zeppelin

50 CAPs for Dave_the_Turnip

• Resident Artist Award – 50 CAPs – For completing the artwork for the new PISSED rating characters

45 CAPs for Lars-Erik

• Sponsor Award - 20 CAPs - For sponsoring the blog with free games
• Batman Award – 5 CAPs – Adam West
• LucasArts Closure Award – 10 CAPs – For giving us all the bad news...or is it good news?
• KickstartVenture Award – 10 CAPs – For telling us all about Infamy’s latest venture

25 CAPs for Andy_Panthro

• Ransom Stark Award – 20 CAPs – For solving my CyberNET riddle
• Screenshot Screw-Up Award – 5 CAPs – For spotting my screenshot anomaly

20 CAPs to Pacpix

• What’s Your Story Award – 20 CAPs – For answering the What’s Your Story questionnaire

20 CAPs for twaitsfan

• What’s Your Story Award – 20 CAPs – For answering the What’s Your Story questionnaire

15 CAPs for Draconius

• Minor Assistance Award – 5 CAPs – For letting me know that the path through the warehouse is actually in the recording
• Abominable Snowman Award – 10 CAPs – For picking up my reference to both of our childhoods

10 CAPs for Ilmari

• Knowledge Award – 10 CAPs – Because he knows that I don’t know, but I really wanted to know what he knows

10 CAPs for Laukku

• Screenshot Assistance Award – 10 CAPs – For letting me know about the “handy” bug in DOSBox 0.74

5 CAPs for Jarikith

• Genre Support Award – 5 CAPs – For commenting about an adventure game sale on GOG

5 CAPs for Cush1978

• Minor Assistance Award – 5 CAPs – For “reminding” me that I could target other suspects, but I figured it out myself eventually

0 CAPs for TBD

Failed Bet Award - -10 CAPs – For betting I wouldn’t be able to figure out Tad Timov’s name, but I did
Companion Award – 10 CAPs – For playing along with me

0 CAPs for Fenrus

• Failed Bet Award - -10 CAPs – For betting I’d need assistance with the pipe puzzle (which I nearly did)
• Clairvoyant Award - 10 CAPs - For predicting the score I would give the game

Game 30: Manhunter 2 - Won!

Manhunter Journal Entry 9: “It’s….really….quite difficult…to write…while hanging off the back…of a spaceship! I’ve…freed…the mutants. Stopped…the Orb’s…plan…and destroyed the…tower that was…causing…the mutation. All that’s left…is to take Phil…down. Am…hanging onto…his ship…and will attempt…to destroy him...(he’s a…robot!)…when we reach…our destination…”

"Oh boy oh boy oh boy my very own bunny rabbit. I will love him and pet him and take care of him and call him George"

My last session saw me travelling by boat to Alcatraz, where I discovered a plethora of imprisoned green mutants. While I was able to make friends with one of them (Ming) by offering her the statue her father had previously given to me, I soon realised that I wasn’t going to be able to free them without the card that was mentioned in Noah Goring’s letter to the doctor. I did however have a pretty good idea where it might be, so this session began with me restoring back to the mainland and heading straight for the Wax Museum. I’d noticed the white thread sewn into Noah’s tie when I first discovered his corpse, but at the time I’d thought it was probably there with the purpose of helping me identify the body. Now I figured the card I needed could very well be hidden inside, but how would I get it out? I looked at my inventory, and the one thing that stood out as a possibility was the fang. I tried...it worked!!!

This was actually a very good puzzle!

So now I had the card to free the mutants from Alcatraz! The question was, should I head straight back there, or is there something else I needed to do prior? I looked through my list of locations and items, to see if there was somewhere I didn’t feel I’d completed or something I hadn’t yet made use of. There were only three locations that I felt were incomplete, being the Ferry Building, Hyde Street Pier and Ghirardelli Square. The only items that I’d not found a use for were the camera, the matchbook, and the empty gun. I suddenly realised that I’d now used the flask of urine to get the hatchet off the rat mutants, and every time I’d entered the tower at Ghirardelli Square that item would smash and dead end me. Did I now have something else that might allow me to defeat Phil? No, I didn’t think so! Still, I decided to go back to the tower to see if the game would throw some other dead end message at me now that the flask was gone. What did I have to lose?

The Orb language seems way too simple for such an advanced race

I climbed into the tower and just as before, tumbled all the way down the stairs to the gate below. I opened the gate using the ring I’d got from the man electrocuted on the sign, watched the odd cut-scene with Phil using the viewer, then fell through the collapsing floor in the passageway onto Phil. There was no message about dead-ending myself on the way, so I quickly saved my game and put on my thinking cap. As before, I picked up the Orb on a Stick that had broken off the chair, and then tried using it (and the other remaining items in my inventory) to no effect. Despite failing to stop Phil from spinning me around with his one remaining robotic arm and throwing me to the rats, trying all these items did give me an idea! Whenever I’d used the camera in the game so far, it had used up the one and only available flash. I’d noticed that if I ever used it in the most likely scenarios (i.e. when confronted by a mutant at the square, in Zac’s Howse, or in the pipe at Hyde Street Pier), that it would allow me to escape the situation. I’d had to restore on each of those occasions anyway since I didn’t want to use up the one and only flash, but I now wondered whether this was the time to use it.

Orb on a Stick!

As Phil threw me down into the pit filled with mutants, I used the camera flash, hoping that it would allow me to escape. As much as it had made sense that it would, I was still utterly surprised that I was suddenly shown a screen filled with all the mutants covering their eyes! Control of my manhunter was temporarily taken away from me as he ran from the room, pushed another mutant in the back that was guarding an exit, and then jumped through a pipe to safety. Not just any pipe mind you, I came out of the pipe at the Hyde Street Pier, meaning I could now cross that location off the list as well. I felt like I was nearing the end of the game now and getting pretty damn excited! Could I really make it without assistance?! Before I travelled back to Alcatraz, I spent some time at the Ferry Building, since this was the only location on the map now where I’d achieved nothing of note. Since I still couldn’t find anything to interact with or do at the site, I decided it was time to go free some mutants!

Say cheese!!!!

I used the hatchet to get into the container at the Hyde Street Pier, watched as the containers were loaded onto the boat and then as the boat travelled out to the island. Once my container was stored in the warehouse, I hacked my way out (losing the hatchet on the way), gave the rabbit statue to Ming, and positioned myself in front of the card reader. I chose the “Orb Card” from my inventory, and watched as it was inserted into the card reader. Shortly afterwards, the camera attached to the wall above kicked into action. I was given a view of what the camera could see, which was of course...me! The camera started scanning me, and I quickly realised that this probably wasn’t going to end well. Just as the solution came to me, an ACCESS DENIED...ELIMINATE message popped up on the screen, after which I was disintegrated by some sort of laser.

I'm an Orb! No really...I am!

I was confident that I knew what to do though, as I’d suddenly recalled one of the lines in Noah’s letter. “My creations can help but must be freed by an Orb.” I inserted the card again, and this time as the camera focussed on me I used the Orb on a Stick. This replaced my image with that of the Orb on the scanner and access was approved. The doors to the prison all opened at once, and the mutants began running all over the place! As expected, Ming quickly scooped me up and protected me from the mass exodus. She took me outside the prison and I watched as half the mutants ran into the water, presumably to swim across to the mainland, and the others went the other direction back towards the centre of the island. Ming took me to a hot air balloon and placed me gently inside, then waved to me before running back into the throng. After a while I realised the cut scene was over, and I was supposed to do something!

Every high level prison needs to have an unguarded vehicle for escapees!

Moving my cursor around the balloon, I discovered I could take a closer look at the inner workings. There was a handle I could turn, and doing so caused gas to blow out of a valve. I used my matchbook to light it, causing the hot air balloon to fill up and begin its ascent. Was this the end? Surely not! Phil Cook was still out there causing trouble and the Orbs still hadn’t been defeated. The balloon drifted away from the island, going higher and higher into the San Francisco skyline. Suddenly I found myself controlling the balloon lift in yet another arcade mini-game. It was easy enough to press the ENTER key as many times as required to keep the balloon from crashing into the city below, but there was no explanation as to where I was actually supposed to land. My first attempt ended with my balloon crashing into the power station at the very end of the second screen. It seemed that I was supposed to land the balloon somewhere between the island and the power station, but where? The castle?

The latest bra design had a neat new feature!

The hint I’d received from the statues on the stairway in the temple had said: “The Castle is the Gateway to Hell”, and I’d even seen a location called Julius Castle through the window of Noah Goring’s apartment, so when I saw the castle-looking building beneath me, I let the balloon descend. The balloon landed directly on top of the fort, causing the “basket” to tilt and throw me out. I crashed through skylight (doesn't every castle have one of those?) and into a tunnel that led deep beneath the city surface. Once again I very coincidentally landed on top of my foe, and this time it was an Orb that was levitating in front of a monitor and control panel. He literally exploded like an egg, leaving me covered in yellowy goo. Before I could consider looking at what was displayed on the monitor, another cut-scene appeared. It showed the mutants I’d freed exiting the water beneath the Hyde Street Pier, with one of them climbing onto the pier and ripping a couple of Orbs to pieces. I then witnessed the same thing happening all through the city, with the mutants running rampant and killing Orbs everywhere!

How did we let our planet be invaded by aliens as vulnerable as this?!

The mutants literally ripped the Orbs apart throughout the city

So much so that eventually I stopped cheering and started to feel sorry for them!

As soon as I regained control, I took a closer look at the monitor. At first I wasn’t sure what I was looking at, but I soon realised it was a map of numerous locations and gates beneath the city. There were three separate views that I could use, with the first one showing all the rooms that currently have lava (yellow) in them. The second one showed all the rooms that currently contain slaves (blue), while the third view showed where the robots were (red). Through experimentation I figured out that I could move slaves and robots into other rooms on the map, although I’m not entirely sure how that was actually occurring. I assume I was able to command them and they would very rapidly go where I told them to. I also figured out that I could open and close the gates, which would allow the robots to move between the rooms and could also allow the flow of lava that was pushing up from the large pool in the bottom right hand corner of the screen.

The red boxes mark where the robots are. The little crosses are closed gates. I have to click on Lava or Slaves to view which rooms they're in.

I won’t lie. I “died” many, many times at this section of the game! It took me a long time to figure out what the hell I was supposed to be doing, and even once I thought I had, I’d continually run into disaster. If I opened a gate to allow lava to flow through, yet didn’t move all the slaves out of rooms that it could flow to (i.e. that weren’t behind closed gates), then it was time to restore. If I moved a slave (or a robot for that matter) into the same section that I was in, then it was time to restore. I set about moving all of the slaves into rooms in the right side of the map and all the robots into the left side, then starting closing off the gates so that neither the lava nor the robots could get to me or the slaves, but kept failing. However, whenever lava was allowed to flow up into the landmarks on the surface, I would witness cut-scenes of it pouring out of the buildings. Once the lava poured out of the Coit Tower, a cut-scene appeared that showed all of the mutants around the city turning back into humans!

Apparently this rather phallic looking tower was being used to create the mutation. Why wasn't everyone affected by it?

At least low quality graphics make nudity acceptable...

...except when it's a character the player knows apparently (Ming transformed into human form fully clothed)

It seemed that whatever had caused the mutants to change in the first place was somehow controlled by the tower, and the lava destroying it had reversed the effect. As great as witnessing this scene was, it was also the cause of much frustration. Every time I tried letting the lava in with slightly different setups of gates, slaves and robots, I had to go all the way through the lengthy cut-scene before finally being shown slaves dying or the robots coming to get me. However, after a while I noticed something important! The three larger rooms were called Slavery, Hell and Freedom! The note given to the dragon member by the slaves before he died had said “Bring us to Hell and we will show you Freedom.” I was in the room called Hell, so I guessed that the idea was to bring all the slaves to Hell, and that they would then show me how to get to Freedom. I then tried numerous other arrangements in an attempt to kill all the robots without harming the slaves, but continued to be unsuccessful.

The robots kept blowing my brains out, over and over again

Just when I was beginning to wonder whether I was going to get stuck at the very last hurdle, I tried something I hadn’t before. I moved lots of the slaves into the same room! I have no idea why I hadn’t tried this before, but can only say that I’d assumed the mechanics of the puzzle were stricter than they really were. No wonder I hadn’t been able to move every slave into a separate protected room and have every robot into a separate unprotected room! It just wasn’t possible, nor was it required! As soon as I figured this out, I was easily able to set things up so that the only survivors were the slaves, who I then moved into Hell where I was located. They picked me up on their shoulders and carried me through the passages to Freedom, where I discovered some sort of drilling vehicle. I think this was what Phil was looking at through the viewer, since there had been a green object at the bottom that had been bouncing up and down.

Only when I saw the word FREEDOM written on the wall here did I look back and see HELL written in the control room

The slaves placed me gently in the cockpit of the device, and I then found myself staring at the controls. I immediately noticed the symbols I’d seen on the slave’s hand (as part of the severed arm the mutant rats were gambling over) and knew exactly how to proceed. I pressed the buttons in the correct order (UNNC), and then pressed the brown button above them (it was the only button I was able to interact with). This caused the monitor to light up, so I clicked on it to take a closer look. It was no surprise that I was going to have to complete yet another arcade game, but I have to say that this one was probably the most painful of them all! Steering the ship between all the rocks to reach the surface was easy in theory, but the collision detection, the drift, and the over-acceleration of the craft made it close to impossible. I found myself saving and restoring regularly, and probably did so over twenty times before I finally reached Alcatraz.

I can't tell you how happy I was to reach the surface. This arcade game stalled my push towards the ending!

As soon as I did, an image of a very angry Phil appeared, and I watched him run and hop into his Orb spaceship, preparing to take off. My manhunter ran and jumped, just in time to grab one of the landing feet, and I hung on while the ship flew high above San Francisco. I was shown an image of me hanging on desperately to the craft while it sped along, and suddenly the words “THE END?” were on the screen. Huh!? That’s it!? I guess that’s exactly how the first game ended, with Phil and I leaving New York for San Francisco in that scenario, and I realise the Murry’s had plans for a third game in the series set in London, but I still had lots of questions that remained unanswered. After weeks of solid adventuring, I had mixed feelings at the game’s completion. On the one hand, I couldn’t help feeling a little let down at the lack of closure, but on the other hand, I felt on top of the world for conquering this tough game unassisted. I’ll expand on all of this and more in the Final Rating post. Thanks for sticking with me on this one. It was epic!

I'm really not sure why Phil would be at Alcatraz, but there he is (he's the little brown blob in the distance)!

If I press ENTER, will I find out what happens next???

Session Time: 3hours 30 minutes

Total Time: 13 hours 30 minutes

Game 30: Manhunter 2 - Taking the Piss

Manhunter Journal Entry 9: “I have discovered the body of Noah Goring, stashed in the Wax Museum by Zac West. I believe this man was doing everything he could to reverse the damage his mutant creation experiments have caused, but it will now be up to me to complete his final work. I’m one step closer too, having finally gained entrance to the private club by disguising myself as a mutant human rat. I was able to do this after winning a rat mask off the shopkeeper! Not sure why it took them so long to figure out I wasn’t one of them, but by the time they had, I’d stolen their hatchet. I imagine this item will come in handy soon enough!”

The tracker recording at the end of last session ended here, at the Wax Museum

I began this session by heading straight to the Wax Museum. It was here that the tracker recording showed that one of the Day 3 suspects was taken by who I could only assume was Zac West. On arrival I found the body of the suspect, stuffed in amongst the other corpses in the part of “show” that depicted the Orb’s conquest of Earth. I looked closer, and discovered white thread in part of the dead man’s tie. This was clearly suggesting that this man was the scientist Noah Goring, as I’d seen a needle with white thread on a table in his house. So the mutants had destroyed their creator! They must have known that he was now set on stopping the Orb’s from succeeding in their current project beneath the Earth’s surface. I couldn’t find anything else of interest on the screen, so I moved on to whether Zac was now in da howse.

Quite dead...white thread

He was, and unfortunately for me I’d interrupted his meal. He temporarily put down the human leg he was chewing on, and killed me. I restored a few times, but there appeared no way to avoid being masticated by the half human, half rodent. I’d expected to get something out of this trip to the Wax Museum, so was feeling a bit disappointed not to. I went back to the tracker recording and followed all the suspects and mutants to their final destinations, but gained nothing I didn’t already know. One suspect died at the top of the sign, the other (Noah Goring) in front of the entrance to the Square. One mutant went back into the tower, another (Zac West) took the body of Noah back to the Wax Museum, and the final mutant is still in the square, rueing the fact he only has one hand now. I’d found no way to defeat or get past either of the mutants and entering the tower had caused a dead end.

I see you already have a leg there! Let's not be greedy hey!?

I decided to follow the dead end for the time being, to see what would happen in the tower if I continued on. My reasoning was that knowing what happened next, and what items I might need to use during it, would likely help me solve whatever I needed to do prior. So it was that I re-entered the tower and fell my way down to the gate at the bottom. I’d not even tried to open it last time after the Murry’s informed me that I should restore, since my flask of urine broke on the way down the stairs. The same thing happened again, but this time I took a closer look at the gate. The keyhole was in the exact shape of the extension on the ring I’d collected from the first suspect’s suspended body! I used the ring and opened a passage up that required me to crawl through it. It was here that I witnessed another cut scene!

So the suspect now dead at the top of the sign was heading for the passageway with the ring when he was confronted and chased!

It began with Phil, seated on his throne in the underground, surrounded by mutants. At first I thought part of his body was transparent, but after studying screenshots since I’ve realised that he was holding the viewer in front of himself, projecting an image of something. I was then given a close up of the “viewing”, but couldn’t make heads or tails of any of it. It looked to me like some mechanical contraption, but triggered no memories of anything I’d already seen. The view then switched back to me, crawling through the passageway, and then suddenly the ground collapsed beneath me, causing me to fall into the cavern below. By total coincidence I landed directly on top of Phil, severing his arm in the process. To my shock, it was revealed that Phil was (and I assume still is) a robot! I'll have to contemplate what this really means later! My fall also knocked one of the Orb statues off his chair, which I was able to pick up. Regardless of what I tried to do next, Phil picked me up and flung me into the pit of waiting mutants, who unsurprisingly tore me apart.

Aaagghhh!!!! You're transparent! Well you can't blame me for thinking that!

Phil's a...robot!!??

Unfortunately Phil only needed one arm to literally spin me around and throw me to the rats.

This seemed like the beginning of the game’s climax to me, but one I was unprepared for. I played through it a couple of times, but no matter what I did, Phil would throw me to the mutants. Now that I knew what to expect when the time came that I was better prepared, it was time to take stock of my current situation. What puzzles were still open? What objects did I have in my inventory that I hadn’t yet made use of? I felt like I’d done everything there was to do at Noah’s house, the warehouse, Tad’s apartment, the laundry, the temple, the Bank of Canton, the Transamerica Pyramid, Pier 5, Embarcadero Fountain and the doctor’s house. That left Ghirardelli Square (the tower), Hyde Street Pier (the pipe and the pier itself), the Wax Museum (surely I would need to do something there), the private club (I hadn’t even gained entrance yet), the Ferry Building (it couldn’t be there for no reason) and the shop (I still needed to choose an item). As for my inventory, I’d used all the items in some way or another apart from the fang, statue, camera, matchbook andthe empty gun,....

...and even if none of those inventory items would work, there was always the shop!

I focussed on figuring out whether any of the items I could win from the shopkeeper might be useful for any of the locations I’d not completed yet. Yes, there was one seemingly obvious puzzle solution! When I previously won three straight games of cards against the shopkeeper twice, he’d offered me either of two rat masks. When I’d tried to enter the private club, I’d been rejected and killed because “he must not have liked your looks”. Perhaps if I disguised myself as a rat, they would let me through!? I made my way back to the shop and easily won the games necessary to be offered the rat masks. The only difference between the two masks was that one of them had the eyes cut out of it. I chose that one and then went straight to the private club to test my theory. Just before I knocked on the eye slot, I used the mask, and was ecstatic when my manhunter put it on. Clearly this was going to work!

Michael Myers had finally met his match!

The mutant inside must have been fooled by my disguise, as he let me into the club. Inside were three mutant rats playing a game, and I sat down to join in. One of the mutants displayed a prize for winning the game, which was the severed arm of the slave in the doctor’s house. I noticed something odd about the arm, being a sort of code marked on the hand (it looked like UNNC). I’d seen a code very similar in the first Manhunter game, which if I remember correctly, was used to fly the craft at the game’s climax. I tucked that piece of information away for later, and focussed on understanding the mechanics of the game at hand. The mutant with the prize rolled a die (it could have been a two sided item rather than six but it was hard to tell), with the result being what I took to be a smiling rat. He then tossed the die to one of the other mutants, who also rolled it. This time the upward face showed a skull, which clearly wasn’t good. The losing mutant picked up the hatchet that was on the floor next to him, cut off his own finger, and threw it to the winning mutant!

I'd hate to know how much it costs to buy back in!

So the stakes were pretty high in this little game, and now the leading mutant was pointing my way! I nodded my head, picked up the die, and rolled it. A skull!!!! However, before I could even do consider doing anything to my anatomy, the leader suddenly realised I might not be a mutant after all. He crawled towards me and pulled my mask off, revealing my true identity. Unsurprisingly, the three mutants then ate me! I was confused as to what I was supposed to have done differently during the course of the little game, but the Murry’s death message pretty much gave me the answer on a platter. “Instead of being the main course, offer them an appetizer...” I looked through my inventory for something these rat mutants might want to eat, and decided to give them the flask of urine. It didn’t dawn on me straight away why this might work, but once the three of them starting fighting each other for it, I realised it was because it said “REMEDY” on the bottle! These guys thought it would change them back into their original human form!

Who would have thought a flask of urine could cause such bickering

Once one of them drank the flask’s contents, he spat it out and killed me anyway, but I soon realised the whole reason for being in the club was to pick up the hatchet while the mutants were fighting over the flask and then walk out. This worked, and as soon as I was out, I knew exactly where to go with the hatchet! I raced over to the Hyde Street Pier, climbed up the pillar, and used the hatchet on the container that was visible through the wooden boards. As expected, my manhunter started hacking away at the wood until he was able to climb into the container. I had little clue as to what I was going to do once I was in there, but the answer came quickly as a cut scene took over. It appeared as though I’d got myself into the container just prior to them being loaded onto the waiting ship by a robot. Once all the containers were onboard, the ship left the pier and slowly travelled across the water to Alcatraz.

Surely cutting through the wire fence would have been easier.

The container I was in was then taken across the island by the robot and dumped in some sort of warehouse. I once again used the hatchet, this time to cut my way out of the container, but in my haste to leave the room my manhunter tripped and fell flat on his face, causing the hatchet to fly up in the air and get stuck in the wall. Clearly I wasn’t going to be using the hatchet again! Once I scraped myself off the floor and exited the room, I found myself looking at row upon row of green alien-looking mutants, all locked up behind bars. I could get a close-up of no less than twelve of them, and boy were they ugly! All bright green, but with heads that varied from lizard-like to multi-eyed monsters! There was one of them that got my attention though, as he had a squarish shaped face that I’d seen before. Of course! This was Ming, who I’d seen in the vision after lighting four pinches of heaven in the pipe near the temple!

Hi there! I know this is going to sound a bit strange, but I have the statue that you gave your father! Impressed?

I gave Ming the rabbit statue that his or her father had given to me after I’d caused the vision to show. As grateful as Ming appeared, nothing happened! I tried using all of my other items and pixel hunted thoroughly, but came up with nothing. So what was the purpose of that? There was only one other room that I could visit on the island, which was just to the left of the prison. It had what looked like a video camera, and something called a “Cell Door Access Machine”. Once again, I tried everything I had on the machine, but nothing worked, leaving me to believe that I was dead ended. Clearly I was going to need a card to put into the machine, which presumably would open the prison doors. Perhaps the reason for giving Ming the trophy was so that none of the mutants would hurt me. I thought about where I might get the card from and remembered there was something about a card in Noah’s letter to the doctor.

What do you mean you don't accept empty guns as authorisation!?

“My life is in danger, they suspect I have the card. I will deliver it to you as soon as possible. It is up to you and your friends to save mankind. My creations can help but must be freed by an Orb.” So these mutants are all the creation of Noah, and he had the card to free them! I didn’t think I’d missed anything at the doctor’s house, so where was the...EUREKA! The card must still be on Noah’s body, which I’d just witnessed in the Wax Museum! Maybe the white thread on his tie wasn’t there just to mark the body as Noah’s. Maybe he sewed the card I needed into the tie! Time to restore! You’ll have to wait for my next post to see whether I was right. I promise you all that I’m not trying to string this out, but it’s clear that Manhunter 2 is going to require more posts than any other so far to complete. I’m already up to 9 (with at least one more to come and a final rating post), and the current leaders (Zak McKracken and Codename: ICEMAN) both took a total of 10. I think I’m probably going to have to take up most of a post trying to piece the whole story together too, so I really hope you’re all not getting Manhunter burnout.

So why are these guys all green anyway?! I take it these were the rejects?!

Session Time: 1 hours 00 minutes

Total Time: 10 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!



Game 30: Manhunter 2 - Another Day in Paradise

Manhunter Journal Entry 7: “A new day and a new set of mysteries! I’m now investigating happenings in Ghirardelli Square, where at least one more suspect has died, electrocuted while trying to evade a mutant. The mutants didn’t get off without injury though, as I’ve discovered a severed mutant hand that will surely make an impression on the shopkeeper I visited yesterday. I’ve also collected an odd ring from the man on the sign and am now heading back to the Wax Museum, where I expect to find not only another suspect, but perhaps Zac himself. I feel as though I’m close to breaking this whole situation wide open. I just need to keep following the leads, be patient, and watch out for vicious rat mutants!”

 

Where we ended up last post

My last post finished with me having just discovered “Zac’s Howse” in the Wax Museum, but not finding anything in there that I could interact with. Thankfully, just finding his house was the final thing I needed to do for the Orbs to get in contact with me, which they did as soon as I left the building. As usual, they told me that I’d had enough time to investigate the recording and the locations, and requested I enter the names of the two suspects in question. Unlike Day 1, I had little idea what the suspect’s names were on Day 2! The only two names I’d come up with were Zac West and Noah Goring, but I couldn’t be certain whether either of them were suspects I followed in the recordings. I typed them in anyway and was told to “Return home immediately” and to “Wait there for further orders.”

 

Meanwhile, back at Peter Brown's apartment...

Day 3 began just as Day 2, with an Orb entering my apartment (well, it’s mine now!) and demanding I investigate an incident. “Attention Manhunter. Human on the sign at Ghirardelli Square. Investigate.” I eagerly opened up my MAD to watch the first part of the new tracker recording. It displayed two suspects approaching the Square before one of them stopped at the entrance, presumably to stand guard. The second suspect made their way onto the rooftop and headed towards a tower in the left top corner before being confronted by another marker. A chase ensued, and I watched as the suspect led the pursuer on a complicated path up, down, left and right on the huge Ghirardelli Square sign on the roof. The chase concluded at the top of the G, where the suspect I was following remained and the pursuer descended back to the rooftop, eventually re-entering the tower.

 

This was quite a complicated tracker recording, and will take a while to follow all the markers

While all this was going on, two more markers came out of the square and approached the suspect that was standing guard. A scuffle resulted, and one of the attackers entered the square while the other left the screen with the suspect. There was a lot to take in, and the only way I was really going to understand what occurred was to visit Ghirardelli Square. I arrived to find a rather gruesome scene! A severed hand was lying on the ground at the bottom of a rope. There was an entrance to the square behind it, but I assumed the first suspect had climbed the rope to the rooftop. I picked up the hand, which turned out to be a mutant rat’s paw! The shopkeeper immediately came to mind, with his obsession with collecting severed mutant body parts. I decided to follow that lead before continuing on at the Square, determined to solve existing puzzles before opening up new ones.

 

Rigor mortis immortalized the mutant's final defiant demonstration

The shopkeeper was indeed thrilled with my disgusting new offering, and requested I join him in a game of “three aces”. I accepted, and quickly figured out that the game was basically a “three cups and a ball” style game. The shopkeeper would reveal the three cards, one of which was an ace, then turn them over and begin to shuffle them around. I watched the card that I knew was the ace as he passed it over and under the other cards for a while. Once he stopped moving them, I had to select which one was the ace. I was extremely confident that I’d watched the card like a hawk, so selected without hesitation. I was shocked to find that I was wrong! Long story short, I eventually figured out that every now and then when the shopkeeper would move the ace over or under the other cards, there would be a slight jump, as though a couple of frames were skipped. This represented when the shopkeeper was tricking me into thinking he’d moved the ace when it had in fact remained in its original position. Once I knew what to look for, it was easy to win the game three times in a row as required.

 

Card and dice games were all the rage in eighties adventure games

However, the reward for winning the game was more than a little bit surprising. The shopkeeper offered me one of two items, being a torch or a lantern. What made it even more interesting was that I could decline either of them and instead continue playing for something else. I saved my game and chose to continue playing three aces. After three more wins I was offered either of two similar looking rat masks, and then after yet another three wins I was offered either a key or a medallion. At this point I was not given the option to continue playing, so would have to make a decision as to which item I wanted to take with me. I had no idea which item to take out of the six! Would I be able to take more than one item over time or would accepting the wrong item dead end me? In the end I decided to restore back to the Square and only go to the shopkeeper when I had an idea which item I might need.

 

You don't want to offer me two items that don't serve the same purpose do you?

Before I entered the square, there was another itch that I wanted to scratch. I still had the laundry receipt in my inventory, and I was keen to know whether the Laundry might be open for business today. When I got there, the large “OPEN” sign told me I was in luck, so I entered. Inside was a woman standing beside a counter, and since there was nothing else I could interact with, I clicked on her to take a closer look. She seemed to have a large scar across her face, and sat waiting patiently for me to do something (no-one speaks in Manhunter games). I gave her the laundry receipt, which she took through a doorway into a back room. My perspective was changed to a side-on view, and things didn’t look overly promising for me. A slave was sweeping the floor with a broom, but more concerning was the man with what appeared to be a large pipe or bar in his hand. The woman showed him the receipt and then came back to stand in the doorway. She now looked seductively at me and beckoned me to follow her.

 

Well...it has been a while! You know...with the invasion....and me being a manhunter and all...why not!?

I immediately smelt a rat, but figured not following her would have meant the laundry receipt had achieved nothing. As soon as I walked into the back room, I was shown a close-up of the slave I rescued from the Transamerica Pyramid a couple of sessions back. He looked perturbed about something, and that something became obvious when the other man in the room knocked me out with the metal bar, dragging me into yet another back room. When I awoke, I was locked in the room in the dark, but a shadowy figure entered the laundry and unlocked the door. It was pretty obvious that it was the slave repaying my earlier heroics, well before his face was finally visible. He left as soon as I was free, leaving me to explore the laundry. The only item I could find there was a walking stick, which I picked up and then left.

 

Mum? Is that you?

With the laundry done and dusted, I decided to go back and begin my exploration of Ghirardelli Square. I chose to take the entrance to the square rather than climb the rope, but was immediately confronted by an angry mutant. This particular mutant had a right to be angry though, as the paw I’d picked up earlier had once belonged to him. Despite having a very bloody left stump of an arm, he very quickly killed me. I restored and confronted him a few more times, but nothing I tried using seemed to make any difference. With that path seemingly a no go, I took the rope to the rooftop instead. Once again I found myself with two separate paths to choose from. I could cross a plank of wood to the rooftop sign that the suspect had climbed, or I could enter the tower that his pursuant originated from (and eventually returned to). I chose to check out the sign, eager to find out why the guy was still up there.

 

Ouch! That's gotta hurt!

That decision resulted in yet another third person viewed arcade mini-game, although this one could also count as a maze. My task was to climb all over the sign, just as the suspect had done in the recording, making my way up to the man hanging from the G while avoiding the numerous sparks that flew all over the place. I have to admit that I saved my progress quite a bit during this section, as the sparks seemed to be attracted to me, knocking me off the sign and forcing me to start again. It wasn’t difficult to figure out the correct path to take, so within a few restores I found myself within reaching distance of the suspect. I was given a close up of him hanging from the sign, and it soon became apparent that he’d been electrocuted. How did I know this for sure? Because when I tried to pick up the ring that was hanging around his neck on a chain, I too was fried to a crisp and forced to restore. This did however give me an idea!

 

Who knew finding the G spot was so treacherous!

Could the walking stick I’d just found in the laundry be the answer? It sure was, and I was able to collect the ring from the dead suspect without getting electrocuted myself. A closer view of the ring revealed that it had an odd little extension coming out of it. I figured it would slot into something down the track as I’d not seen anything that matched the shape to this point. I made my way back off the highly dangerous sign and went to check out the tower. As soon as I entered, the most comical thing happened! I watched as a very blurry little version of my manhunter climbed through a window into the tower, then literally fell and bounced down several staircases. While I was apparently unharmed in this display of incompetent dexterity, my flask of piss broke during the fall. The Murry’s also seemed amused by my clumsiness and proclaimed: “Your flask it broke and that’s no joke. To restore would be wise, we tell you no lies. You’ll be dead if you go ahead.”

 

If you're wondering, the rectangular thing is the window I climbed in, the blue circle is the falling flask, and the...um...brownish blob further down is me. 

Hmmmm...at the bottom of the staircase was a gate, but I figured there was no real point trying to open it and move beyond as I was clearly dead-ended. At least the Murry’s had the courtesy to tell me about it! Since I still had more of the tracker recording to investigate, I decided to restore to before I entered the tower and go see if I could find something that would allow me to fall down the stairs without breaking the flask (or better yet, not fall down the stairs at all). I went back to the tracker recording. The first suspect had climbed the sign and then died, but where did the second suspect go? After the scuffle between the second suspect and the two pursuers was over, it appeared that he or she was escorted or carried off somewhere else. I selected their marker and followed them to their next destination...the wax museum! The suspect was left in one of the rooms in the museum, and then the other marker went into a different room then disappeared.

 

Hopefully this is the House of Wax in which Paris Hilton gets killed

Hmmm...was this marker Zac West? Was he now in his “howse”? Who is the second suspect and are they still alive? What’s down the bottom of the tower through the gate and how will I get there without breaking the flask? What do I even need a flask of urine for anyway? Which of the items from the shop do I actually need? Do I really need any of them or are they simply there to assist adventurers struggling to find the optimal solutions? If I choose the wrong item, would I be dead-ended? If I’d chosen not to follow the woman into the laundry, would I have been dead-ended? How else could I have got the ring from the man on the sign without the walking stick? What’s the ring for anyway? So many questions! Who knows whether I’ll ever know the answer to all of them? I’m off to try and figure it all out and will report back very soon. I plan to finish this game this weekend!

 

It's time to go smash that poor unsuspecting fisherman again!

Session Time: 1 hours 00 minutes 

Total Time: 9 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!