Price: £39.99 Players: 1 Widescreen: Yes 60Hz: Yes Dolby Digital 5.1 sound: Yes Xbox Live-enabled: No In Manhunt, your name is James Earl Cash and you're dead, or rather you're not. You were going to be executed by the state but they gave you a reprieve by 'The Director' (voiced by actor Brian Cox) in return for being hunted by weirdos and supercreeps in the dark streets of Carcer City, and all so this can be filmed for the pleasure of the authorities. Make it out of there and you get your life back. Blimey - just making it out of the first LEVEL alive is hard enough, initially. It's like a cross between the violence of Grand Theft Auto, the stalking of Hitman 2 and a little bit of the fear of Thief 2, but not a great deal as this is more of an arcade-style of experience. As you set out on your task, one of the most important aides is the radar. As you move about or make any noise, even like banging a wall on purpose to attract attention, when it flashes red at this point it means you're in earshot. However, it'll handily tell you where the nearby baddies are and in what direction they're facing in case you'd like to try stabbing them in the neck for a quick death.

What methods are on hand for disposing of them? There's a plastic bag, shards of glass, baseball bats, crowbars - and that's just for starters, so you'll get more as you progress throughout the levels. "Plastic bag?", you say. Well, yes. It may not seem as good as a bat or a piece of glass, but if you sneak up behind someone you can suffocate them with it. This game is all about killing people and zombies very violently - either by bagging them over the head, stabbing them in the neck with the glass, or going for an old-fashioned beating with anything else, and as they near death, it's disturbingly exciting to hear them plead for their life :) But there is the element of stealth too, in finding somewhere to hide, but be careful as you'll outrun one baddie, but you could head straight into the path of another, so I aim to get a few quick hits in and then leg it before they have a chance to retaliate. Remember when hiding though, try not to make a noise as this is easily done by crashing into bins and shopping trolleys lying about.

When you do come to take someone's life, if you want to do it with style, entice them in then strike when they least expect it. By holding the left trigger, you'll see roughly how much health they have left (it runs from green to yellow to red) but do this close-up and when you get the option, the arrows will change to moving ones that indicate white, yellow and red finishers. The longer you wait, the worse it'll be for them, but the more chance there is of you being spotted because these bad guys don't like to stand still! However, if you get it right, the blood will flow aplenty and you'll see the glorious death played from great camera-point-of-view shots that aren't FMV, but are created as you're playing it. Outstanding! Graphically, this looks superb. Even when things are dark you can still clearly see where you're going, which is handy when you're forced to run into unfamiliar terrority for your life. Everything plays with great fluidity too. If there was any complaint it's just that nothing on view is particularly originally, but the overall package more than makes up for that.

Sonically, the DD5.1 soundstage creates a great atmosphere whether it's running away from the enemy or tiptoeing through dank and dark subways. I also love the sick comments they come out with, such as "Coo-eee, come out wherever you are!" and "He's running away like a beat-up hooker!". Sounds gross, but darkly amusing. Your footsteps sound exactly the same as the GTA games too - nothing wrong with that, but just something I noticed instantly after many hours and days spent running in the shoes of Tommy Vercetti. Playability can be difficult with the camera angle if you misjudge trying to hide when the baddies are after you and you need to lie low. It's fairly linear game in that overall you'll end up following a set path in terms of going from one location to the next to kill the enemy, but doesn't feel that way too often as you're playing because you can roam freely about each area. At first when I played this for a while I thought it might start to become a little repetitive but that didn't worry me as things went on and I hugely enjoyed it. A couple of other points - there are sporadic save points in all the right places, once you've got to grips with each new area, so prepare to die a lot! It also has a nice touch of the game loading in like a spool of tape being fast-forwarded, and it loads them in quickly, which is essential for a game and most welcomed. Now, Rockstar, let's see some of this violence added to Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas? :)

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Review copyright © Dominic Robinson, 2004.