Manhunter: New York (1988)
Genres:Adventure, Point-and-click
Themes:Horror, Science fiction
Game modes:Single player
Story:It has been over 2 years since the agressive Orbs attacked the Earth. Now you work as a Manhunter, the highest post which can a human achieve in the Orb Aliance. Your job is to hunt down all humans who, in some way, have wronged the Aliance. Once you capture them, the Aliance will correct them.
Manhunter was always that strange series in the Sierra catalogs that stood apart from the rest of their Adventure titles. An interesting combination of Sci-Fi and horror that utilizes an experimental form of visual storytelling to guide the player and keep them invested.
Manhunter: New York is a point and click adventure game developed by Evryware Inc and published by Sierra in 1988. The Manhunter games are two Sierra adventures that have yet to appear on digital storefronts (unlike other Sierra adventures) likely because IIRC the publishing rights were returned to Dave, Barry and Dee-Dee Murray, the three main designers behind Evryware when Sierra was absorbed by Vivendi.
Sitting in an interesting niche between the early AGI (text parser) and the later SCI (point 'n' click) Sierra adventures, Manhunter and it's sequel use an odd hybrid of both formats, utilising the point 'n' click system primarily for navigation while the text parser is used for interaction.
The plot revolves around a manhunter (a traitor to humanity) working for the alien orb species that now controls Earth, who is tasked with tracking people of interest to the Orb Alliance, before later picking up the trail of a ruthless serial killer.
Utilising a unique mechanic known as the MAD device (basically a laptop), you track people of interest though embedded tracking devices as they move between locations or inputting names of suspects to unlock new clues/areas to be explored giving a genuine feeling of an investigation. It is a mechanic that to my knowledge only exists in these two games and makes every discovery feel earned through deduction and tracking, which in turn help the story and game to progress while keeping the player invested. This being a game in the Sierra brand though means that death is everywhere, arcade sequences exist along with agonizingly obscure puzzles that slow progress.
However with that being said, Manhunter: New York and it's sequel Manhunter: San Francisco are an interesting and unique part of Sierra's adventure games legacy, and for that they should be recovered and preserved for a new audience.
Trivia: There were plans for it to be a trilogy, but Sierra sank before Manhunter: London, the third installment, was ever finished.
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