As Danny creeps toward and draws ever closer to an enemy, the anti-hero will raise his hand to let you know that you can go into an attack. You trigger executions by holding down the A button as you sneak closer and closer to your foe. There are three levels to every execution, as determined by how long you hold the A button down before you begin an attack. An on-screen execution graphic will change colors from white, which is described as hasty; to yellow, which is violent; and finally to red, which results in gruesome kills.
In the PS2 version of the game, you merely hit a button to trigger the whole animation, which is far less engaging. On Wii, you act out the execution with a series of gestures timed to on-screen cues. If you're cutting into a man's skull with a saw, which you sometimes do, you might have to make a forward/backward motion with the Wii remote, hit the B trigger to a visual cue, and then gesture quickly upward with both controllers to put the finishing touches on the attack. It's much more immersive both because motion-based controls are inherently so and also because you're stringing together these attacks in the Wii build, while they are canned animation sequences in the PS2 one.
Now multiply these disgusting special attacks by at least 30, as there are -- bare minimum -- that many more weapons to use in Manhunt 2, all with brand new and completely gross executions. There are knives, swords, saws, hammers, syringes, pens, sledgehammers, pickaxes, and more. You'll be stabbing people in the head, in their neck, slicing into their gut, up their chest, and so on. Jamming a pen into an unsuspecting hunter's neck and watching the brood spray is disturbing, but we'll admit it - this is a videogame and not reality, after all - kind of satisfying, too. Exclusive to the Wii version of Manhunt 2 are three new weapons, including the razor, mace and a broken bottle. There are all sorts of guns, from hand weapons to shotguns, which blow entire holes through the heads of enemies. On Wii, you simply hold the C button to go into aiming mode, where you'll have pixel-perfect accuracy with the Wii remote; then you tap B-trigger to fire. (You can cycle between different gun and melee weapons at any time by press down on the D-pad.) You can even cut off a person's head and wear it - yes, wear it - on your belt buckle; it dangles around as you run through the environments and you can hurl it at foes or toss it into hallways as a distraction device.
