Manhunter 2-San Francisco

Like a rat deserting a sinking ship, your old nemesis Phil has departed New York, as have the mysterious alien Orbs. Actually, the rat simile is apt, as you'll find out in Manhunter 2: San Francisco, the sequel to Manhunter: New York. Phil still works for the Orbs, and he's enjoying his job far too much as he shifts his murder spree from the Big Apple to the Bay City.

After following Phil to San Francisco, you assume the identity of a recently deceased Manhunter. Your plans at first are merely to put Phil out of business permanently. But then you stumble onto an Orb plot to enslave all humanity and ultimately to lay waste to the entire Earth. For some reason, the Orbs are digging beneath the surface, and they've enlisted the aid of Earth scientists to develop a monstrous fusion of human and rodent. There are signs, however, that the experiment has gone awry.

As in the original Manhunter, there are a number of puzzles for you to solve and several arcade sequences to get through. The game is divided into three days, and you must complete each day's required actions before you can progress to the next. You'll be aided by your CAD tracker and database computer, but as before, many of the puzzles you encounter have no obvious solutions. If you play the game with another person, you'll get the benefit of two viewpoints.

The arcade sequences are tricky, but fortunately the difficulty level can be changed to suit those with less than perfect coordination. This can be a lifesaver, since the arcade sections must be completed to finish the game.

The graphics emulateManhun-ter: New York and are satisfactory, though some improvement could have been hoped for. That's a minute point in an otherwise fascinating game, however. Manhun-ter 2: San Francisco can be frus-tratingly difficult (and more than a little gory), but it will keep you spellbound to the end.