It's funny how Manhunt 2 has come about in the UK. One year later than our American cousins and after a fair old number of legal battles over whether or not it should be allowed on the console that the kids play Mario on, Manhunt 2 finally appears on store shelves with practically no warning. Of course, in the UK, the Manhunt series has history - it was linked to the murder of a schoolchild (before it became apparent that it was the victim and not the perpetrator who owned it, a fact that the tabloids suspiciously never reported) and various stores refused to stock it. So, it's hardly surprising that the sequel should cause some frothing at the mouth.

What is surprising is that when it finally appeared on store shelves, the screeching simpletons shouting "ban this sick filth" were nowhere to be seen. The game slipped out with no fanfare and the box doesn't even carry any exploitative advertising message such as "the game they tried to ban". The only clue that you're picking up something other than your standard Wii piece of third party shovelware is the shiny red 18 rating on the box and the warning on the back which reads: "contains very strong bloody and sadistic violence".

However, the truth is that thanks to the incredible lengths the game takes to censor itself, you're often left completely in the dark as to what sadistic brutality is actually occurring. The first game fully warranted its notoriety by giving hugely graphic animations of the executions, with weapons ranging from plastic bags and shards of glass to chainsaws and axes, but here everything is so blurred that you really can't tell what's going on. As it happens, this does work with the storyline, which sees you not fully in control of your mental faculties, having been experimented on for the last few years. As the story comes together you learn more about your character, escaped asylum inmate Daniel Lamb - the result of an experiment by Doctor Pickman (which amusingly sounds like "Doctor Pikmin" in the game) in creating a killer without conscience. It's actually a reasonably good story (though with a twist that you will spot waving at you from at least a mile away) but for reasons that I'll get into laterm, it actually detracts considerably from the things that made the original such a horrifically creepy piece of horror entertainment.

First though, for the uninitiated, this is what Manhunt 2 involves: controlling your character in the third person, you have to evade your hunters (sinister agents of The Project) and complete certain goals - typically escaping or finding someone or something. Sticking to the shadows, you must tread carefully and steer clear of your hunters, who will kill you on sight. In the spirit of "an eye for an eye" though, you can beat them to the punch, which is why the original game became so talked about. Tap the Wiimote to make Danny tap on the wall, drawing an enemy around to investigate, then when your unsuspecting foe is confident that it was just the wind, his imagination or a particularly loud rodent, you can sneak up and horrifically take him down with a makeshift weapon. In some instances you can take the pacifist's approach and get by without killing, but there are times when the game requires you to kill or be killed. Perhaps what made the BBFC so squeamish about this release when the last one passed with no protest is the fact that to execute your prey, you have to act out the actions using the Wiimote. Wii Tennis, this is not - if you're decapitating then you need to slice the Wiimote across sharply for example, and all kinds of stabs, slices, beatings and choppings are replicated with appropriate motions - not that you can see them of course, thanks to the aforementioned censorship, so it's not too far removed from Cooking Mama in terms of the movements you make, although due to the gruesome sounds, it's more like Cooking Mama in an abattoir. So, it's not exactly the murder simulation that those uninformed detractors would call it, though it's no picnic either (depending on your definition of a picnic, I suppose).

The game has three levels of execution - hasty, violent and gruesome - and this is where the plot gets in the way of the core gameplay. In the original game you were a mass murderer, released from death row by a mystery director who wanted you to lead his snuff film. It was in your interests to entertain the sick man behind the earpiece because he could easily have you killed if he wanted, so going for elaborate and gruesome kills was all part of the plot. Now, as someone trying to survive, no matter how unbalanced you may be, there's simply no reason to go for anything more than the easier hasty kills every time - especially as the visuals are the same blur-a-thon no matter what. Part of the perverse challenge of the original was pleasing the creepy director, who was always whispering violent instructions in your ear - and being forced to perform violent acts for someone's voyeuristic fun was more than a little unsettling in an entertainment product. With this premise gone, the gameplay feels immaturely gratuitous as a result, despite the fact that those who want to see stomach-churning gore will be let down, both by the aforementioned censorship and the Wii's comparatively poor graphical output.

You see, there's a reason that Manhunt 2 was only due for release on PS2, PSP and Wii - it's because they can sidestep the need to significantly improve the graphics from the last outing. As such, Manhunt 2 isn't the easiest game on the eye. It looks almost exactly the same as the series' previous instalment and lacks the expansive environments that made the last generation Grand Theft Auto games look good with the same engine. There's little variety in the enemies from level to level, the environments are incredibly samey (without carrying quite the creepy vibe they managed in the first one), it's too dark to see anything and of course all the hard work and thought that's gone into the execution animations (probably the most detailed part of the original game) has gone to waste. The Wii is significantly more powerful than the PS2 and PSP, so it's a shame to see no obvious graphical improvement over the rival formats. The sound fares much better, which is just as well, given the importance of aural perception to the stealth genre. You can listen out for the footsteps and chatter of guards, and there are plenty of creepy insanity-led noises later on to keep you on the edge of your seat. There's little in the way of music, leaving just you and your environments, which is very much the right way to go.

With so much left over from the original, it's no surprise that the gameplay at its core is practically unchanged. It's still tense and unnerving at times, although it does have some very frustrating issues. Take the combat for example - if you botch an execution (three words that should never go back to back, but there we are), which will sometimes occur through no fault of your own, you have to brawl it out with your pursuers and the balance is completely ruined. If there's one opponent then it's ridiculously easy but with more than one it's an infuriating slog towards an inevitable death as you're knocked down repeatedly before you can get back up again. This goes hand in hand with the other big bugbear: unskippable cut scenes. I can understand the need to make you watch each scene once, but every time you die, you have to watch the same bits over and over again. It's in these situations that you might be relieved to discover that the AI is very easy to dupe and I lost count of the number of times that I stood practically next to a hunter in full daylight as he stared into the shadows.

Perhaps the main problem though is that it does frustratingly little to build on the original, which is now a five-year-old game. As well as succeeding in losing some maturity points with some questionable design choices (a BDSM fetish sex club is creepy for all the wrong reasons), the additions to the game make very little difference to how it plays. You can now climb buildings, execute from above and use parts of the environment for kills (like in Condemned 2). You can also use the background noise of others to cover your own tracks, but this is so underused that it's barely even worth remembering.

On the bright side though, one typically patchy area of Wii games is passed with aplomb: the controls work perfectly well. Moving Danny with the nunchuck, pulling up an aiming reticule with the C button, and performing executions with instructed Wiimote swings works about as well as it could do, and it's a nice touch that on occasions you are required to hold the Wiimote perfectly still to prevent nearby hunters from sensing your presence. It's not a perfect system (I was caught a few times despite behaving no differently) but it gives the game some much-needed immersion.

Manhunt 2 is a weaker version of a five-year-old, slightly above average stealth game. If you're feeling completely starved of such titles on the Wii then Manhunt 2 plays reasonably well, but only if you're completely unaware of the better stealth titles on other formats. The original succeeded because it was novel, unnerving and genuinely tense (if you had a headset, guards would hear you if you spoke, such was the level of its immersion) - by contrast, Manhunt 2 feels like a less mature, diluted copycat; the core mechanics are still there but you'll forget all about it within an hour of completion - the good news is that so will the tabloids.

Reviewed by Alan Martin for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).