The early 1990′s were the Golden Age of Sierra Adventure Games, which featured a bunch of addictive, kid-friendly adventure titles like So You Want to be a Hero? and Space Quest III. These games featured cheesy protaganists and plenty of self-deprecating humor. So when Manhunter: New York came along, the sudden turn towards a dark tone and bleak atmosphere was shocking.


Manhunter: New York was set in the unimaginable post-apocalyptic future of the year 2004. An alien race called The Orbs had occupied New York City two years before and turned it into an impenetrable fortress. The Orb’s domination of the city was total — all inter-human contact was strictly forbidden. To make matters worse, your nameless protaganist was one of the stooges for the alien oppressors. As the eponymous Manhunter, it was your job to track down and arrest human criminals on behalf of the Orbs.

The most memorable thing about this game was the overwhelming sense claustrophobia and gloom. These days, a game released by a major studio set in post-apocalyptic Manhattan would probably embrace the open-world genre, giving you freedom to roam about freely and find all kinds of hidden goodies, side quests, and easter eggs. Manhunter took the completely opposite approach. The story development was absolutely linear. You visited locations in a certain order, and could not move to the next location until you had met a specific objective. It sounds rigid, and it was. But it also perfectly created the feeling of being a prisoner in your own world, a slave with no choice but to obey your master without question. The Orb’s control (at least at first) was total, and you could do nothing but obey the order to go from one crumbling, desolate area to another. Along the way you saw corpses, clues, and hints towards a greater mystery beneath the surface.

Listen to your friend Billy Zane, he's a cool dude, he's trying to help you

I had mixed feelings about the end (SPOILER ALERT)! In the course of the game, your investigations bring you to find a human criminal killing other human. It turns out there is a Resistance against the Orbs, and your target is killing members of the resistance. When you take him out, you become the Leader of the Anti-Orb movement; and by the end of the game you drove the invaders from New York. It felt somehow jarring to have a happy ending after the game had opened with such a bleak atmosphere. But it was good for the franchise to end on a high-note: the sequel Manhunter: San Francisco saw you going cross-country a few years later to end Orb domination of that city.

Graphically, Manhunter: New York just doesn’t hold up to the test of time. And come to think out, the gameplay mechanics weren’t all that great either. But the game did created an unusual and richly-visualized setting, in an alien-dominated New York City, which I have fond memories of exploring to this day.

This edition of Games We Loved is contributed by our friend and gaming junkie Alexander Liss