The longer you stay behind the enemy while holding down the Square button, the more brutal the execution is. The biggest drawback to this game was the execution mechanic, as basically you have to sneak up behind an unsuspecting foe and hold down the Square button. To skirt around you have to hit the Left and Right Triggers which allow you to sidestep silently, which you will need to do in order to get behind your enemies. There is a little HUD on the lower left screen that shows you how much noise you are making and lets you see your enemies and in which direction they are facing. Pressing X while you move the analog stick forward gets Daniel to run, which makes you extremely noisy, so it isn’t the best idea to run all the time. The analog stick is what moves Daniel around.
Since I played my PSP version I will go over those controls. The controls never hampered me as I attempted to stay in the shadows, but my impatience did because I wanted to get to the killing. The controls are pretty simple for this heavily stealth based game, which I’m insanely terrible at.
Taking it clears your memory some, and allows you to continue down the path to a full memory, and of course glorious revenge. You eventually make it to your burned out home and discover a certain drug that you left there prior to your amnesia. As you progress through the story, outside of the asylum you realize with the help of Leo that something is amiss with your life and that you have been backstabbed. You escape with the help of Leo, another inmate who basically is your tutorial person the whole first level is your escape and tutorial. You play as Daniel Lamb, an amnesiac who has no recollection of why he is in the asylum or anything of his past. There is a huge thunderstorm over the Dixmor Asylum for the Criminally Insane which somehow releases the cell doors at the facility, which in turn allows all of the inmates to escape and take over. I will slowly step off of my soap box and tell you why you must play this classic Rockstar title. I guess parents can no longer control their children and prohibit them from buying an insanely violent game, so we must all suffer. I bought a copy for every system just to piss off all the cry-babies, for the purpose of this review I will be playing through the PSP version.
Personally, I am against censorship in any form and this offended me heavily, so I did the one thing that a consumer could do back in 2007. Take-Two Interactive had Rockstar rework some of the scenes that offended and published the title in 2007 on the Wii, PSP and PS2. Back before Manhunt 2 hit the shelves the ERSB gave it an Adults Only rating, which means that no major console, Sony, Microsoft or Nintendo would carry the game on their system. Rockstar Games has never been one to back down from controversy, but unfortunately with Manhunt 2 they had to bend to the rules or have no systems to publish on.