Game 20: Manhunter 1 - Final Rating

Well this should be interesting. I genuinely don't have much idea where the PISSED rating for Manhunter will end up. It's very easy to pick the game apart on many levels, and yet at the end of the day, I enjoyed it! I'll just do what I normally do and see what happens...

Puzzles and Solvability
I’ve given a lot of thought to whether or not Manhunter: New York should be punished for some of its more unusual features, or whether it should receive praise. I think the puzzle department is one where the outcome is overall pretty positive. It was not always clear exactly what it was that I was supposed to be doing, but this made figuring it out and solving things that much more satisfying. In fact, apart from a couple of ridiculous solutions (such as the dinosaur in the museum), the puzzles in Manhunter can all be solved by applying logic. You may have noticed that I personally solved quite a few by trial and error methods, but in pretty much every case there were hints that would have assisted me if I hadn’t simply overlooked them (the underground maze, the badge selection process in the pawn shop, maybe even the alien code in the spacecraft?). I’d say the only puzzles that actually deserve criticism involve having to figure out full names of suspects and the murderer. These involved a bit too much luck and guesswork for my liking.
Rating: 6

I got great satisfaction out of successfully piecing together the many clues found in the game

Interface and Inventory
When discussing the interface of Manhunter, I need to take into account the many mini-games that pop up throughout the game. The main movement was handled through pressing enter when the cursor if facing the direction I wanted to go. Generally there were only one or two directions I could go at any time, so this was adequate. What made it a bit frustrating was that I was forced to use the keys when a mouse controlled interface would have been much more suitable, and this was majorly exacerbated during the times I was forced to pixel hunt. Another complaint I have is regarding the MAD device. Overall the MAD was really very cool and I found tracking suspect's movements and following in their footsteps to be great fun, but the inability to speed up the tracker recordings meant I was in some cases forced to sit through the same events time and time again as I made gradual progress. The mini-games’ movement systems were so simple that you wouldn’t expect the interface to cause too much trouble. Nearly all of them involved nothing more than the arrow keys, but I should point out that it required a little bit of dexterity to hit the enter key at the exact right time during the knife dodging scenes, and manoeuvring the spaceship through the maze of tunnels was close to impossible. There’s not much to say about the inventory. It works the same way it did in the rest of the AGI based Sierra games, albeit with no images or descriptions at all.
Rating: 3

Pixel hunting in rooms like this would be hard enough with the mouse, let alone with the keyboard

Story and Setting
The first thing to say about the story is that it’s really very unique and bizarre. While my mission at the beginning of each day was always obvious, the underlying plot of the game as a whole certainly wasn’t. In a way, Manhunter is the antithesis of Police Quest. Police Quest held the hand of the player, telling them exactly what was going on at all times and even giving them the exact procedures to follow for every possible scenario that could arise. Manhunter on the other hand gives the player only the most basic of information that they need, and then drops them into a world that contains vague hints and characters with unknown motivations. I was forced to piece together the plot one little piece at a time, which is actually a fairly accurate representation of life as a detective. I’m not suggesting that the game shouldn’t be punished for confusing the player at all, as there were times where this lack of clarity in the plot affected my ability to solve some of the puzzles (particularly when it came to figuring out names), but I strangely enjoyed the challenge this ambiguity offered and therefore won’t be too harsh.
Rating: 5

The lack of dialogue meant every action had to be accompanied by something visual

Sound and Graphics
I don’t think it will come as a surprise when I say the all round quality of the graphics in Manhunter is not high. It all looks a bit strange to be honest, with bizarre colour choices and some average illustrations. What might not be apparent from all the screenshots is just how much effort the developers actually put into forming a thriving futuristic city. As mentioned in my first post, great lengths were taken to make sure each location was represented with multiple points of view, and various small animations were used to make it all feel alive. There wasn’t as much pixel hunting required in the game as I thought there might be, but since I didn’t know that, I had to try constantly anyway. That wasn’t made easy by the interface or the graphics. As for sound, well I have to be careful not to compare it to the quality found in King’s Quest IV and to a lesser extent Larry 2, since those games were developed and released after Manhunter, but sound is all but absent in Manhunter, with only the occasional PC speaker bleep and blop to speak of. Even the theme song is irritatingly dodgy, so unfortunately the sound quality detracts from the surprisingly enjoyable graphics.
Rating: 4

I'm not sure whether the horrible colour design makes this scene more frightening or completely ruins it

Environment and Atmosphere
While I may not have been able to reward the game in the graphics department for the extra effort the creators put into building a thriving, futuristic city, I certainly can in this category. Not only did I get a really strong sense of the environment that everything took place in within the game, I could also feel the nightmarish affects that the alien invasion had enforced on the population. I’ve never been to New York, so I can’t really say how valuable the Murry’s trip to the city prior to making the game were, but from what I can tell they were well worth the effort. The use of the monk outfits was an inspired choice, as was removing all dialogue from any of the human characters, with both aspects giving the scenes an almost surreal atmosphere. However, as with every category so far, there’s unfortunately a negative to discuss. The tone of the game varies wildly throughout, with a horror / sci-fi underbelly constantly fighting against cartoonish / comedic injections that don’t always fit the surroundings. It definitely adds an element of unpredictability to proceedings, but I kind of wish the designers had been confident enough to pick a tone and stick with it.
Rating: 6

The game regularly switches between Blade Runner and Tom & Jerry

Dialogue and Acting
How on Earth can I rate a game based on dialogue when it has next to none? The very idea itself should be praised for its uniqueness, regardless of whether it was done for technological restriction reasons or story based ones. At the same time, it would hardly be fair to give the game a high dialogue rating when it includes so little. The only dialogue of note comes from the Murry family themselves, who pop up onscreen fairly regularly (usually each time you die) to either mock you or give you witty hints. While this was at first a bit off-putting, I actually came to enjoy it and eventually to study it for clues that might otherwise have avoided me. The few attempts at poetry and limericks that pop up during the game are best forgotten though! In the end, it just feels right to give the game a 4 for this category, as anything either side just doesn’t sit well with me.
Rating: 4

I think making games was a decent career choice for the Murrys!?

Hmmm...I'm a bit sorry to see Manhunter get a sub 50 score, but I can't find any flaws in my reasoning or category scores. It's probably the first case where a game managed to remain entertaining throughout despite significant flaws. What's really interesting is that the one game that Manhunter most resembles on the list so far, in both style and substance, is Tass Times in Tonetown, which got exactly the same score. That feels right given that two years separated their releases. Another interesting thing that this score proves is that Canageek will soon be using his mathematical prowess to rule the CAP system.

"I'm going for 47, as your median score is 50, with some low ranked games dropping it to 47. Given that people seem to find it a below-average game, but not terrible, 47 seems a good bet."

A good bet indeed! 10 more points to Canageek. Given he's also the focus of this week's What's Your Story post, he's becoming quite the celebrity.

Companion Assist Points for Manhunter: New York

It’s time to dish out (and perhaps deduct) some points for those that predicted things and assisted me along the way.

10 points to Canageek for correctly predicting the score

10 points to TBD for explaining the underground maze solution

10 points to Lars-Erik for responding to a Request for Assistance in the correct format

10 points to Ilmari for expanding on Lars-Erik's Request for Assistance, which turned out to be needed by both myself and Charles

5 points to TBD for answering a question about the game's length

10 points to koreagolfer for answering a question regarding the picture puzzles

10 points to Canageek for a new adventure game on Kickstarter

10 points to ailurodragon for picking up on the codes in the spacecraft (an extra 5 included as a welcome to the comment community)

20 points to Charles for being a true companion and playing the game through with me

So, unless I’m mistaken, the following points will now be handed out:

20 Points - Canageek and Charles

15 Points - TBD

10 Points - ailurodragon, Ilmari, koreagolfer and Lars-Erik

Game 20: Manhunter 1 - Won!

Manhunter Journal Entry 4: “I have very mixed feelings about today’s events. On the one hand, I have played a major role in thwarting the Orbs control of New York City by destroying their major landmark hubs. On the other hand, Phil remains a significant threat, and even annihilated all the citizens that celebrated my victory. Rather ironically, none of my achievements would have been possible if it were not for Phil’s computer in his apartment. From there I was able to alter the security configuration of various buildings in the city, giving me access where I needed it, and shutting down response systems to avoid being taken out during my travels. Once I gained access to the station, I found myself in a position to fly one of the Orbs’ spaceships, therefore using the aliens’ own technology against them. Sadly, it’s impossible for me to relax and celebrate while the dangerous Phil is still on the run, so I must continue to track him and hopefully take him out once and for all.”

Let the fourth and final day begin!

I’ve conquered Manhunter: New York and it feels good! I had to work for it, but somehow the game never felt like a chore. Looking back, I don’t think I could call the puzzles in the game excessively difficult, but the rather veiled plot made figuring out what each character’s roles actually were rather tricky. This in turn made it challenging to understand my own character’s motives, and subsequently what my actions should be along the way. Despite all this, I really did enjoy Manhunter, and there was no point during the last week that I wasn’t eager to get into the next day to see where things would lead. I really don’t know what the PISSED rating might look like for the game, which is a sure sign of the varying quality of its parts, but let me describe my fourth and final day as a Manhunter in New York before I even consider putting a numerical value to the experience.

I'm truly horrified that anyone would access another man's computer illegally!

My fourth day objective was to investigate an Alliance computer that had been illegally accessed. Strangely, when I attempted to watch the tracker recording of the incident, I found myself having to pass a small mini-game. For some reason I wasn’t able to see who accessed the computer unless I could “capture” the specific signal that belonged to it. This was achieved by locking onto the fast moving signal so I could then follow it to the computer, from where I could then track the user’s movements from that point onwards. It doesn’t make much sense, and the punkish human look of the analyser is one of the game’s silliest aspects, but it did give the game creators yet another opportunity to make the player pass an action based test of sorts.

I find it difficult to trust the analyser for some reason

I passed on the first attempt and eagerly watched where the suspect would go after their serious breach of Orb law. I shouldn’t have been surprised to find that the suspect was actually me, since I’d just illegally used Phil’s computer at the end of day three, but I have to admit that I was totally taken aback when the tracker showed the suspect entering my apartment and hopping into my bed! Once I realised what was going on, it became apparent that I wasn’t actually going to be following in anyone’s footsteps on day four. I was going to have to forge my own path! Thankfully, I did have one lead to follow up, which I received right at the end of day three. When I was using Phil’s computer, I’d found that I could play around with the security configuration in Bellevue Hospital (among other buildings in the city). So it was that I began my day with a trip to the hospital!

Haha...I know where the dirty hacker lives! Oh...um...never mind!

As expected, on arrival to the hospital, I found that the guard droid that had previously been blocking entrance to the rest of the building was gone. I therefore took the opportunity to go through the door in the hallway beyond where to my surprise I was quickly noticed by an Orb who commanded a droid to capture me. Rather than having to restore my game, I found myself imprisoned in a room filled to the ceiling with bones. Rather ironically the pile of bones actually allowed me to reach a metal grate near the ceiling, through which I could see a room with a conveyor belt leading humans into a highly destructive laser beam. I was able to remove the grate with my crowbar, but even after waiting for the belt to stop and the Orb to leave, any movement into the room resulted in the droid guarding the exit disintegrating me.

I think I finally know what being "transferred to Chicago" actually means.

I restored my game back to Phil’s computer system and accessed the security configuration for the hospital. This time, I not only moved the guard from the first room, I also changed the orders of the guard from the conveyor belt room, commanding it to guard the Orb. This had the desired result, as the guard followed the Orb out of the room, allowing me to enter without being killed. While it was satisfying to solve such a puzzle, I had a daunting feeling that I was going to be heading back to the computer in Phil’s apartment numerous times, changing security in buildings to resolve whatever my current situation was at the time. For the time being though I would have to continue on, facing each challenge as it arose. I retrieved module D from the machine in the room and reversed the conveyor belt, riding it out of the room and into the next.

Weeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!

What was my reward for passing these obstacles? Another maze style mini-game! This time I had to guide my little manhunter through a system of poles by climbing up and down and jumping side to side. It would have been an extremely easy task if it wasn’t for the fireballs dropping down from the top of the screen, but having a save option once again meant it was just a matter of perseverance. Once I made it through, I witnessed my character fall an enormous distance to the ground outside the hospital, only to peel himself off the ground and walk away unharmed. This is just another example of Manhunter mixing tones in an inconsistent universe. On the one hand the game is extremely gritty, with murders and player death scenes all over the place, yet on the other there’s an almost slapstick humour to it all that seems jarringly out of place.

It's like Donkey Kong without the fun!

Since I really didn’t have anything in particular that I needed to do at this point, I paid another visit to Phil’s apartment to see what other locations I could access from his computer system. I quickly realised that one of the sites was the Grand Central Station, where the computer suggested the droid had finished repairing the damaged panel (where the suspects broke in on day two). I paid a visit to the station and very quickly undid all the droid’s great work, ripping another hole in the panel with my crowbar (I haven’t had this much use for a crowbar since Half-Life). Inside...was a space craft! All of a sudden I felt like I was getting very close to the end of Manhunter, and yet I entered the craft with absolutely no idea what was about to take place.

It's not every day you get to fly in an alien spaceship!

Inside the craft I found myself staring at a console filled with buttons, lights and switches. The first things that caught my attention were the four empty slots that were just screaming for me to stuff the four modules I’d collected into them. I followed my instincts, but other than a few lights coming on, nothing of particular note happened as a result. I pressed the switch that had what appeared to be a power symbol above it and it seemed to charge up. So far so good! All the early success seems designed to create a false sense of security though, as the last four buttons had to be clicked in an exact order to avoid death. If I clicked any in the wrong order, the craft would be attacked by droids with flamethrowers. Trial and error got me through fairly quickly after which I was controlling an alien space craft and guiding it through an open hatch out into the city of New York.

I guess it would have been unrealistic if I'd known how to fly the thing immediately

Well, eventually I would reach the city. Before I got there though, I was forced to manoeuvre the craft through a maze of underground tunnels in yet another time consuming mini-game. I have to say that out of all the mini-games found in Manhunter, this was the most annoying. As if guiding the craft through a maze that I couldn’t see all of on the screen at once wasn’t bad enough, I also found the twists and turns extremely hard to navigate with the clumsy key driven controls. I bounced between walls more times than I could count, often resulting in my craft being pushed further back rather than forward. Once again it was the save and restore function that got me through the maze in reasonably good time, but unfortunately it wouldn’t be the last time I’d be subjected to the damn thing.

The Ant Farm mini-game was far from my favourite section of the game

As soon as I made it through the maze, a cut scene popped up showing Phil getting into his own Orb space craft and coming after me. Clearly a confrontation was approaching! Flying over the city was really no different to moving the cursor around the city map when choosing destinations. The main difference was that now I was in the space craft, I could drop bombs. Of course, as soon as I figured that out, I got trigger happy and started bombing everything in sight. So it was that I discovered I only had four bombs at my disposal, so I had to reload and try choosing my targets more carefully. Where would be the best places to bomb if I wanted to hurt Phil? Or was Phil my target? Maybe it was the Orbs I wanted to bring down? Either way, the first building I bombed was the Empire State Building, taking out Phil’s apartment in the process. I knew it was the right thing to do as soon as an image popped up showing the building in ruins.

With a face like this, Phil was always going to be the antagonist

By this stage Phil’s craft was trying to collide with mine so I was constantly forced to avoid him while targeting buildings. My second target was Grand Central Station, if only because I knew there was Orb crafts and vehicles stored there. Once again, that was a correct target! Where else had I seen Orb activity? The hospital! Yes, three down and only one bomb left! But what’s the last bomb for? I really struggled to come up with a good target and instead started bombing all the main buildings one by one. The museum wasn’t the right one, nor was the church, Abdul’s pawn shop or Prospect Park. I was so close to victory, yet so far! There was only one thing left to do...save my game, then restore back to Phil’s computer to see whether I could get any hints as to what the fourth building was.

The last building had to be one of these sites.

A quick look through each “site” confirmed that Site Alpha was the hospital, Site Beta was the station, and Site Delta was the Empire State Building. That left only Site Gamma as the fourth building that I needed to bomb. Under the settings of the building I was able to switch the security to Air Defense instead of Ground Patrol, and in doing so witnessed a small clip of some sort of weapon system coming out of the top of the Statue of Liberty! Alright, so all I needed to do was restore to my current game and bomb the Statue of Liberty. There was one problem though! Being an Australian, I’m pretty much geographically retarded when it comes to American landmarks and in particular, being able to pinpoint them from an aerial map.

There's only one building those spikes could belong to, but where the hell is the Statue of Liberty?

I spent a fair amount of time flying around bombing anything that might represent the statue. I figured I’d found it for certain when I saw a star shape in the middle of an island, so I was stunned when bombing it didn’t achieve my goal. Strangely enough, spending time near that island while avoiding Phil’s attempts to stop me, actually resulted in the solution smacking me in the face! During one of my evasion manoeuvres, my ship flew close to a small island off to the left of the star bearing island. As soon as I flew over it, I was shot down by anti-aircraft weaponry. The very same anti-aircraft weaponry that I’d turned on using Phil’s computer system! I was stoked to finally figure out where the fourth target was, but I can’t say I was happy about restoring back to the computer system once again, reconfiguring things, dealing with the underground maze, and bombing all the targets all over again.

Haha..take that Statue of Liberty! And Justice For All indeed!

Having no other choice, that’s what I did, and on bombing the last target, it appeared that victory was mine! Blatantly ignoring the fact that Phil was still a threat, I landed my craft, exited, and did a victory dance. A whole heap of other citizens joined in my celebration by holding me aloft and dancing. Finally the orbs control of the city had ended and life was good again! Well…it was…until Phil lowered his craft down and annihilated everyone in the gathering. Rather unexplainably, I was unharmed in the attack, and calmly climbed back into my craft to continue the fight. I take it that fight will be the subject of Manhunter 2. This bizarre ending seems pretty suitable given the unusual and unpredictable nature of the game, and I’m going to have to devote some time to thinking about whether the game should be punished for its eccentricity or praised. You’ll know my answer in the next day or two.

It was a celebration that all participating would remember for the rest of their lives...which would be limited to around three seconds.

Session Time: 2 hours 00 minutes

Total Time: 9 hours 30 minutes

Game 20: Manhunter 1 - Keeping Up With the Joneses

Manhunter Journal Entry 3: "I know who the killer is! My third day on the job has been just as action packed as the first two, starting with a visit to Greenwood Cemetery where I discovered a murdered orb. I tracked the suspect firstly to the Times Square Cinema where I found a locked safe, and then later to Abdul's Pawn Shop. I managed to gain entrance to the underground from the shop, where I passed numerous tests and discovered yet another body with a P carved into its forehead. Fortunately I was able to get a name for the victim this time, which was Harry, and using information gathered from the cinema and the cemetery, was also able to figure out that his surname was Jones. Before I could go to Harry's address, I was confronted by the murderer himself and forced to fight one on one. I managed to get in a good hit, which forced him to flee, leaving behind the code I needed to open the safe in the cinema. Opening the safe gave me another code, while searching Harry's house revealed another module. I ended the day by going over all the information I've collected in the last three days, and finally finding the answer I've been looking for all along. The murderer's name in Phil Cook! I quickly searched his house and used his computer, before the orbs sent me home to await further instructions."

Another day in paradise

Once again, day three started with me waking up and being given an incident to investigate. An orb had been found dead in Greenwood Cemetery. Watching the tracker revealed that whoever killed the orb then made their way to Times Square Cinema for a brief stop before visiting a pawn shop where they disappeared. I closed the MAD and went straight to the cemetery to check out the gory scene. The orb had been skewered on a large metal spike, but despite some significant pixel hunting, I couldn’t find anything at the scene to investigate. I thought perhaps the names on the gravestones might be important, but when I looked up Tim Jones, Joe Green and Olive Cole on the MAD, they all came back with nothing. I decided to move onto the suspect’s next location, the Times Square Cinema.

Surely being an eyeball would be one of the most painful experiences imaginable, even when you haven't been skewered.

The cinema also didn’t bring much in the way of information or items. I could see from the tracker recording that the suspect entered an office and stood in front of a particular part of the room, before leaving. That particular part of the room turned out to be a safe hidden behind a painting on the wall, but since I didn’t have any idea what the code might be to open it, I stored it to memory to come back to later. It was at this point that I remembered the tattoo I witnessed at the end of day two that clearly represented the candles in the church I visited on day one. I decided my next location would be the church, where I would finally find out what the fifteen candle setup was all about. Who knows, perhaps I would retrieve the safe code from there somehow?

A bit of interior decorating wouldn't go astray!

I made my way over to the Trinity Church, lit the three candles as represented on the dead man’s tattoo, and was rewarded with a small compartment opening up. This revealed Module A, which I immediately added to my inventory (I’d already recovered Module B from the National Museum). At this point I had no idea what the modules might be for, and since they were unlikely to help me open the safe in the cinema, I located and travelled to Abdul’s Pawn Shop, the third and last place the suspect visited before somehow avoiding the tracker’s radar. It’s here things got a little strange for me, and I have to admit that the pawn shop represents the part of the game where I started to solve puzzles through trial and error rather than actual logic.

Oh joy! Another module for which I can find no purpose!

Abdul displayed a board containing numerous badges, many of which took on fairly recognisable shapes and symbols. At first I wasn’t sure whether he was trying to sell me something, which would have been awkward since I had no money, or whether it was some sort of test. The latter turned out to be true, as choosing the incorrect symbol resulted in Abdul pulling out a sword and cutting my head off! The handy thing was that if I selected a wrong badge, I was immediately decapitated, meaning I could easily figure out which of the three badges I was supposed to choose through trial and error. I guessed the first two very quickly, as they were both religious symbols (the cross and the pentagram), but the third one took a few goes. Later on when looking at screenshots, I noticed two of the correct symbols above the candles in the church, so I’d like to think that I might have found this clue if guessing hadn’t been so straight forward.

Yes, that's my head about to hit the ceiling. Yes, I'm a bit upset about it.

Once I’d chosen the correct badges, I was allowed access to an underground area. Down there I found a sign saying “Danger is here, death is near. The buttons to choose? It’s easy to lose. The picture will tell, if you check it well.” Next to this sign were a locked door and a picture with ten numerical buttons at the bottom. It was pretty clear that I would need to figure out which numbers to press by studying the picture, which would in turn unlock the door. As soon as I looked at the picture, I saw an upside down four in the shadows. Taking this as a cue, I looked at the rest of the shadows and found what could be a considered to be a one. I pressed the number 1 button, as that was the first of the two shadows, only to have a large rock crush me and the Murry family tell me that obviously wasn’t the right button. I tried again, this time pressing the 4 button. Nothing happened, so I figured that must be correct. I then pressed the 1 button, and the door opened!

Well, there's a 4...and there's a 1...hey this is really easy!

Through the door was an identical scenario, but with a different picture. This time it was a witch with skulls, spiders and other creepy Halloween stuff. I looked and looked, but couldn’t find any numbers anywhere in the picture, nor could I see any sort of patterns that might assist. I therefore set about clicking buttons from left to right, figuring it would only be a matter of time before I got the combination. Many, many deaths occurred, but I eventually unlocked the door with the numbers 1031. In hindsight, this is obviously a reference to the date of Halloween, being the 31st of October. Unfortunately, over here in Australia, we don’t use that date format and instead would represent this as 3110, so it’s not surprising that I didn’t clue on to the answer after the first couple of numbers. I wasn’t at all surprised to find yet another room with a locked door and picture on the other side!

OK, so it's not exactly simple, but that one was unfair!

This third picture seemed to be a mathematical equation of sorts. Given that maths is something I pride myself on, I was determined to try to figure this one out before playing the trial and error game. I tried. I really did! I could see that there were two threes on the screen and that the crucifix symbol behind them could function as a minus and plus sign. Yet somehow, despite seeing that, I couldn’t find anything that worked. In the end I had to resort to trial and error, and the result was 264. Straight away I can see that this number is made up of 2 (3-1), 6 (3+3) and 4 (3+1), but I still can’t see how anyone could deduce that from the picture. I’ll give 10 CAPs to anyone that can explain to me how you get 264 from that picture.

Shut up! Who asked you!

There was yet another picture in another identical room once I got past the maths equation. This fourth picture was a vase containing a plant. To be honest, given my failure to figure out the last two pictures, I didn’t even try on the fourth one. I now know the answer is 425 through trial and error, but can’t see an obvious way to get that number. Thankfully, this was the last of the picture tests, and through the door was another dead body with a P engraved into its head. There was one difference with this body though. His cloak had the word Harry written on it. Just around the corner from dead Harry I was confronted by a man with a knife. I assume this is the guy that killed the suspect along with the others that I’ve come across so far. He immediately attacked me and I was forced to duck and jump his attacks, similar to the knife throwing gang members in the alley behind the nightclub. This time however I only had to successfully punch him once to win the fight. I succeeded on my second try, which caused him to run away, leaving an item behind. Picking it up, I was excited to find that it was a code!

Who's that guy with the P on his head? Whoooh whoooh!

There was only one place where I knew I needed a code. The safe in the cinema! I raced back there and entered the code, fully expecting that whatever I found there would open up the second half of day three. Inside the safe was…another code. UCUCC. What the hell was I supposed to do with that? I wracked my brain, but couldn’t come up with anywhere else that UCUCC might be useful. I watched the tracker recording over and over, but couldn’t come up with any other leads at all. It suddenly dawned on me that the name Harry must be somehow involved in my next step. Just like when I figured out the Anna Osborne name on day two, there must somewhere be a hint that would let me know what Harry’s surname was. But where? I revisited several locations but came up empty handed. Eventually I was forced to put in a Request For Assistance for the first time while playing Manhunter.

Yes! This is the UCUCC I've been looking for. What good fortune!

As is often the case, it was Lars-Erik that responded to my request. His first hint was “where have you been that may contain names?” I looked over all of the locations on the map and the most obvious place was the cemetery. I paid it another visit to see if I missed something the first time around. There were three names there, all of which I’d looked up previously on the MAD with no results. Tim Jones, Joe Green and Olive Cole. For the first time I noticed that the orb on a stick was actually stuck directly into the grave of Tim Jones, a detail that had avoided me previously. I had no idea why it would work, but I tried typing Harry Jones into the MAD. It did work, and I was given an address to visit! Confused, I tried to make sense of it. “Here lies Tim Jones, 1988 – 2004, he died for his father” Hang on a second…what were those photos in the cinema all about? They were described as “a picture of a boy dated 1988” and “a picture of a 14 year old boy dated 2004”. So Tim Jones was Harry Jones’ son!

I really should have paid more attention to these little suckers.

In hindsight I can see what I was supposed to think here. I was supposed to make the connection between Harry collecting something from the safe in the cinema to the photos on the wall. Then I was supposed deduce that Harry had killed the orb out of revenge and stuck it on a spit right in front of his dead son’s grave. I totally get it, but man, that’s not very obvious when you don't already know it, especially when you consider that it’s not certain that Harry was the man that left the murder scene and went to the cinema in the first place. How are we to know that it wasn’t the murderer himself? I think the main reason I’d started to have trouble at this point of the game was because I hadn’t really understood the motives of any of the characters so far. There had often been multiple figures showing up on the tracker and it wasn’t always clear which one it was that ended up dead. Was it the suspect I was following that ended up dead, or did they commit another crime during their escape? I was starting to figure out that the suspects were indeed rebels against the orbs, and they were being picked off one by one by a human murderer.

Harold "Vigilante" Jones - It's always the quiet ones!

So…if the human murderer was working with the orbs, perhaps the message I received on the data stick earlier in the game might be the key to figuring out his identity! I re-read the message from the stick: “Phil is trouble, he’s a double. He’s an eye, that’s no lie!” Is the murderer’s name Phil? If so, what’s his last name? Now that I had the address of Harry Jones, I figured the answer to the question might very well be at his house. I made my way there, but was surprised to find the only item in the room I could investigate was a radio. Turning the radio on very cutely played the Manhunter theme song, but I figured there must be more to it than that! I looked at my inventory and thought I would just try using the crowbar on it. It worked! Feeling pretty happy with myself, I eagerly picked up the item hidden within the radio. Unfortunately, it was just another module!

Well honestly, the theme song was pretty annoying

So now I had modules A,B and C in my inventory, but I had no idea what they were for. I also had no further leads, so was forced to hunt through screenshots to try to figure out what the last name of Phil might be. I did notice the screenshot where the dead man had written the word “cool” on the rock, but when Phil Cool didn’t come back with anything on the MAD, I let it go. I already knew from the comments on my last post that Charles had majorly struggled to complete day three, and I assumed I was now at the exact same point he was when he requested assistance. I dejectedly decided to read the hints that he used. One of Ilmari’s hints was “the guy has "signed" his victims with the letter P. Have you seen any names beginning with P?” So I knew I was on the right track, but I needed more than that. One of his other hints was “it is a common trope to write the name of your killer with your blood. Could the last letter be somehow incomplete?”

I still had this "hint" in mind, but hadn't been able to figure out it's purpose

This was all I needed to figure out the answer. In fact the first name I tried was Phil Cook and it was successful. But…well…does anyone else think that’s ridiculously difficult? From what I understand (and correct me if I’m wrong Charles), but both Charles and I failed to figure this out. If the word on the rock hadn’t actually formed a word, it might have been more obvious that it was simply incomplete. Since it was not certain that the game could only be progressed at this stage by figuring out the murderer’s full name, the fact that I was even trying to was lucky in itself. I’ve since read Ilmari’s spoiler which mentions a comment made by the Murry’s as the player arrives at Prospect Park (“don't get your goose cooked”), but surely that’s not enough for anyone to figure it out by that alone. Anyway, I’m sure I’ll talk more about this after I complete the game, so I’ll move on for now.

Phil Cook: I thought he would be Cool, but I was wrong.

With Phil’s address discovered, I travelled there with great anticipation. I already knew the game would go into a fourth day, but surely I was close to finding out something important. It turned out that Phil lives in the Empire State Building. He wasn’t home, but I was able to use his computer to connect to several sites in the city. From there I could turn on or off certain security measures, but since I didn’t recognise the majority of the images, I really wasn’t sure what I was supposed to be doing. One thing I did recognise is the guard droid in the hospital, which I could force to go elsewhere. That would allow me to access more of the hospital, so that seemed to be my next location. It was here though that the orbs once again intervened and demanded that I go back to my apartment and await further instructions. They also asked me for a name again and this time I was able to give them Phil Cook. No idea what that achieved, but I guess I’ll find out on day four!

I'm sure my selections in here will affect day four. Time to save!

Session Time: 2 hours 00 minutes

Total Time: 7 hours 30 minutes

Note Regarding Spoilers and Companion Assist Points: I've recently 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 20: Manhunter 1 - Tyrannosaurus Hex

Manhunter Journal Entry 2: “My second day mission was to investigate a missing maintenance robot at Grand Central Station. The tracker program in my MAD suggested that three individuals were involved in removing the robot from the station, and since each went their own separate ways, I had to follow each path to separate locations. The first led me to the Wretched Excess nightclub, and after evading numerous knife wielding gang members, I made it inside just long enough to get another keycard from the perpetrator. The second suspect led me on a crazy pathway through a landmine infested Strawberry Fields, where I not only stumbled across a crowbar, but I also found the body of the man I was looking for. I don’t know who killed him, but he had the letter P carved into his forehead. Thankfully I got enough information from the scene to find his home nearby, where I came across a key, and what I assume was his wife, also dead with a P engraved in her forehead. The final lead took me to the American Natural Museum, where I put the 13 keycards and the crowbar to use while following the suspect’s path. I arrived just in time to witness the third suspect dying after the maintenance robot exploded due to tampering, but I was able to get a pattern off his arm that I’m sure solves the church candles mystery and some sort of map from the wall that means nothing to me yet. Despite not knowing whether I’m doing good or evil, I’m strangely looking forward to day three!”

Having "days" gives the game really good starting and stopping points.

Manhunter: New York keeps surprising me! Sometimes in good ways, other times in bad, but it really does make for a captivating experience. Day two was for the most part enjoyable, and if it wasn’t for one particular incident, I would have ripped through it in less than two hours and been pumped for more. The reality is though that I struggled very badly with one particular puzzle, and I’ll be very interested to know whether I’m the only player that hit a snag at this point. It’s very comforting to know that Charles is playing through the game at the same time as me, and I hope for his sake that he’s more fortunate than I was when it comes to the discovery of one particular item. I got through without requesting assistance though, but that probably has more to do with me having a lot of time to play yesterday, and therefore having the option of going past my normal exertion limit.

Another day, another mission given to me be a large floating eyeball.

Day two started just as day one did. I woke up to find an Orb staring me down, demanding that I complete a mission. This time I was to go to Grand Central Station and investigate the whereabouts of a missing maintenance robot. Watching the tracker showed that things were going to be a bit more complicated than on day one, with three perpetrators entering the station, before exiting and going their separate ways. It seemed logical to follow the first of the three suspects, as that was the one that was already tagged by the tracker, but before I did anything, I paid a visit to the station itself to see if it offered any clues. It didn’t! All that was there was a repair robot fixing where the three broke in while an Orb oversees the work. The model of the repair robot was revealed, but nothing more.

I wanted to break in myself but I had a strange feeling that I was being watched.

Following the first suspect led me to the nightclub, where the tracker suggested they made their way into the throng of ravers before disappearing off the radar. Getting into the nightclub myself was no easy task! The bouncer wouldn’t let me in, so I had to go through a dark side alley filled with gang members. It’s here that I was subjected to another action sequence. I say subjected because while dodging knives being thrown at you in a platform style by jumping and ducking is kind of fun at first, having to do it over four separate screens, slowly edging your way towards each knife thrower before punching them out, quickly becomes as monotonous as this ridiculously long sentence. It was a nice little distraction I guess, but all fun had gone out of it by the time I was evading the last gang member’s projectiles, which just happened to be bullets that I couldn’t even see.

You have to give the creators points for crossing into so many genres

Perhaps even stranger than the side scrolling action sequence itself is the way the last gang member picked me up and threw me into the nightclub rather than away from it, but I was damn happy to be there by then so wasn’t complaining. Once in, all I was able to do was investigate any of numerous dancers. Clicking on any of them bar one resulted in me being beaten up and kicked out for no reward. Clicking on the one party goer that was dressed in a brown robe resulted in me being beaten up and kicked out also, but with one main difference. The suspect, which happened to be a woman, dropped a keycard while smashing me with her handbag, which I was able to pick up before being harshly removed from the nightclub. I couldn’t see that anything else could be worth investigating, so I moved on, wondering what on earth the keycards, which now totalled thirteen, might be for.

How cool would a nightclub filled with multicoloured monks be! It's almost worth the alien dictatorship.

Time to follow suspect number two! The first location that they stopped at was a Vend-O Deli, which is apparently a place to go to solely to use vending machines. I could see that the suspect stood in front of one of the noticeboards, before being joined by another individual and leaving. I took the time to visit the Vend-O Deli before moving onto their next location, and spent quite a bit of time looking at the noticeboard for clues. The majority of what was on there seemed entirely irrelevant, but one message seemed to be in a similar poetic style to the message I received on the data stick at the end of day one. “Listen up brother, we saw the mother. She’s ready to go, on with the show...Harvey.” As much as I wanted it to, this meant absolutely nothing to me, so I moved onto the next location...Strawberry Fields.

All the other Harvey's are just imitatin'

On entering Strawberry Fields, it quickly became apparent that this was not going to be a walk in the park. The place was riddled with landmines, so venturing off the exact path that the suspect and his accomplice took resulted in a mess of body parts and an ugly spray of blood. Unfortunately, while the path the suspect took at each landmark was obvious when watching the tracker, it wasn’t always easy to discover it in the “real world” environment. On each screen I was given the option of about 16 different directions, with many of them being only very slight variations of left, forward and right. Just because I knew that the suspect went left doesn’t mean it was easy to figure out which of the four or five lefts available they actually took. Many, many deaths followed! Things were not helped by the fact I had to watch through the entire tracking recording from the start, every time I needed to find out where the suspect went next.

I hope the gardener is geting some serious danger money

There were also a couple of confusing moments, particularly when the suspect seemed to take a right path for a while before circling back and ending up at the same starting position, before then going left. I simply followed their movements exactly, and after close to half an hour, found myself confronted by a dead body. Interestingly, the body had a P carved into its forehead, and while still alive had been writing what appeared to be the word “cool” on a rock with their own blood. On the ground next to them was a note saying “meet Anna at 4:30”, a candy wrapper and a piece of cloth with the name H. Osborne on it. With nothing else to go off, I wracked my brain and skimmed through all my screenshots to see whether I could figure out the meaning of it all. Was it Anna that the suspect had met at the noticeboard? If so, where was she now? Or was I staring at the accomplice and not the original suspect? I had none of the answers, so I decided it was time to go with suspect number three.

Harvey will always be remembered as an unflinching optimist

The third suspect led me to the American Natural Museum. The tracker showed them going up three floors before finally disappearing off the radar in a specific room on the fourth floor. I figured it wouldn’t be too hard to move from room to room, continuously bring up the tracker to see where they went next, but first I was going to have to figure out how to get into the Museum. I found a locked door at the side of the building, but could find absolutely no way to unlock it or get in any other way. It soon became apparent that I wasn’t going to be able to, and in all likelihood was going to have to find the key for the lock somewhere else to progress. But where?! I was pretty certain that I’d done everything I could at the nightclub, and this idea was enforced when I went back there to find it closed. The answer was going to have to come from Strawberry Fields or in the clues I found there.

Locked glass doors! The ultimate obstacle!

I spent some time looking over the noticeboard message and the note to meet Anna. It suddenly dawned on me that if I knew a name to enter into the MAD, I could find an address to visit. I had three names...Anna, Harvey, and H. Osborne. I thought I would try entering Anna Osborne into the MAD device and was more than a little chuffed when it came back with an address for her. Not only that, but I could now see that location on my map, and set out to go their immediately. I later tried Harvey Osborne and got the same address, so they must be at least relatives if not husband and wife. Inside their home I found exactly what I was looking for...a key! That wasn’t the only thing I found though. Anna was hanging in the closet, also with a P engraved in her head. Was it Harvey I found dead in the field? Was it Anna that had met up with him at the Deli? Did she simply go home after he was killed? I assume they were killed by the same person(s) as they both have the P on their forehead, but the rest is unclear.

Another corpse with P on its head. This murderer is a real sicko!

Regardless, I had the key for the museum, and quickly went back there to unlock the door. I soon found out that I wasn’t going to be able follow my plan of moving from room to room, accessing the tracker as I went to find out where to go next. The tracker wouldn’t work in the museum due to a communication issue, meaning I had to draw the path the suspect took before entering. Following the path involved using keycards to get through lots of doors, but I fairly quickly made my way up to the fourth level, feeling like I was right on the verge of completing day two. This confidence was about to be shattered! I used up my last keycard, standing very close to where the suspect went out of range, and was suddenly confronted with a large wooden door with a massive plank of wood holding it shut. Even if I did have another keycard, that wasn’t going to be of any use here. I could see no way of getting past this door, and yet I had to!

Somehow I don't think a keycard is going to help me with this door

My brain raced back through everywhere I’d been and all the little hints I’d received. Nothing gave me any clue as to how to get past this door. I was stunned, but determined to figure it out. I revisited Grand Central Station and satisfied myself that there was nothing to do there. I restored to the nightclub and made absolutely certain that the only thing to get from there was the thirteenth keycard. I spent time in the Vend-O Deli, looking at the two noticeboards to see if I could gather any other hints of value. I couldn’t imagine that there might be anything else to discover in Strawberry Fields, as that was more about survival and navigation than item hunting. I decided whatever I needed must be in the museum itself. The question was, could I really visit any other sections in the museum and still have enough keycards to even get to the wooden door. After a few minutes of wandering around, I calculated that there was no way I could move through any of the floors in a more efficient way than the suspect did. The answer wasn’t going to be found in the museum!

Studying the blueprints revealed no accessible areas of interest

So it was that I stood at the beginning of Strawberry Fields once again, preparing to make my way through the seemingly endless mines while searching each screen for something, anything, that might help me get past that damn door. It was only then that I thought of that odd part on the tracker that showed the suspect racing off to the right before coming back to their original position, seemingly for no reason. I made my way there, and stared at the only screen in Strawberry Fields that didn’t have a landmark on it. There were no items waiting for me there and no pixel hunting revealed anything. The tracker didn’t really show that the suspect had left this section in any particular direction and they just appeared to move around wildly. The only thing to do was to start trying each of the possible exits from the screen, starting from the bottom left and working my way around. Within a few gory deaths, I finally had what I needed. One particular exit led to a screen contained only one thing. A crowbar!

There's a crowbar just off to the northwest. What do you mean you can't see it?

Should I have found this crowbar earlier? Perhaps! I probably should have spent more time investigating the anomaly in the suspect’s behaviour on my first trip through Strawberry Fields. If I hadn’t received any other items or hints from that section, I definitely would have, but the lead to the Osborne house left me thinking that there was nothing else to be done there. Regardless, after spending well over an hour trying to figure out how to get past the wooden door in the museum, I had what I needed! I raced back to the museum and made my way to the wooden door, eager to see what was on the other side. I used the crowbar on the door. What happened next was more than a little surprising. I was attacked by a dinosaur! At least I think it was a dinosaur. It might have been a wingless dragon, or a baby Godzilla. Whatever it was, it didn’t fit in with game so far at all! Manhunter is a game based in the real world, albeit one where aliens have invaded and taken over humanity. How do dinosaurs fit into that world?

Do all Natural History museums contain live dinosaurs? I'm so naive!

While I sat there in disbelief, the dinosaur killed me and dragged me off. As usual, the Murry’s gave me another chance, and this time I tried to think about what I might have in my inventory that could fend off a dinosaur. I couldn’t see how it would help, but I tried using the medallion just as the dinosaur was about to get me. For some unexplained reason, it worked, and not only that, the dinosaur very happily helped me out by removing the heavy plank blocking the door and took it away. This begs the question of course. Since the dinosaur came from behind me (not through the door), and since it removed the plank blocking my path, why did I need the crowbar at all?! The crowbar triggered his appearance, but otherwise achieved nothing. Given how much trouble I’d gone through to get it, I felt unreasonably ripped off by this strange turn in events. Thankfully, there were no further blockages to ending day two.

Everyone knows that dinosaurs are part of the rebellion against Orb domination

Through the door I found the third suspect, but seconds later he exploded after apparently tampering with the maintenance robot. Whether he did this intentionally to avoid me capturing him or accidentally I can only guess, but I’m thinking the latter. On the wall I found a map that will undoubtedly be useful down the track, while on his arm I found a tattoo that made sense to me immediately. It was a tattoo of fifteen dots, clearly representing the fifteen candles in the church I visited on day one. Three of the dots were white, so the first thing I’ll be doing on day three is visiting the church and lighting those three candles. Day one took about two hours to complete. Day two took me three and a half! I wonder what day three has in store for me. Despite the struggles I encountered on day two, I’m still keen to see what happens in this game.

He's going to regret that tattoo when he's older. Oh...forget I said that!

Session Time: 3 hours 30 minutes

Total Time: 5 hours 30 minutes

Note Regarding Spoilers and Companion Assist Points: I've recently 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!