Cyber Manhunt Review: Become a Hacker

Cyber Manhunt is a puzzle game developed and published by Aluba Studio. It was fully released on Steam on February 5, 2021, but it was in early access since August 25th, 2020. 

The second part of this game has been released in early access recently and since it caught my eye, the only logical thing to do is play the previous part first. We do things properly around here.

Gameplay

Intro to Cyber Manhunt

Cyber Manhunt starts with you doing the last round of testing for a new job at a company called Titan Matrix. Your interviewer is the CIO of the company, Ashley Clayson. And her first task for you is to hack into the data center of the Titan. 

The only clue you’re given is the nickname of one of the employees at the company. Which was more than enough information for such an amazing hacker as myself. 

Firstly, at your disposal, you have a browser, email, database, crack, and lastly we’ve got phishing. With the combination of all of those, you’ll be able to gather all the necessary information in order to complete the task given to you by Ashley. 

The main campaign of Cyber Manhunt

Right after completing the introduction task, Ashley will give you your first task. You’ll need to investigate the death of the Kapil Modi. You’ll have to find out what happened prior to his death, what scandals was he involved in, and also uncover hidden secrets. 

At the beginning of the mission, the only “clue” you have is a link to a news article that Ashley sent to your email. Once you read the article, you get the name of Kapil and his ex-wife Lisa. Once you dig deeper you’ll uncover more dark secrets about the target and his ex-wife and the rest of the people who were somehow involved. 

After completing all the tasks and finding all available information, you send a report to Ashley and that marks the end of the mission. There are 5 missions to be completed and as you progress, it does get easier to complete the task but the amount of information you need to gather is bigger. 

Without spoiling the rest of the story and what happens in the rest of the missions, I’ll say one more thing that might help you later on. There will be a couple of instances where you’ll have to make a choice, which will affect the ending of the game. There are 3 endings: “Good”, “Neutral”, and “Bad”. If you are the type of person who cares about which ending you get then I suggest looking up some guides online.

Mechanics of the Cyber Manhunt

The most important thing in the game is gathering information, and as long you don’t rush, you should be fine. Most of the time, you’ll have one piece of information to go from which is more than enough. 

Now, what you do with that is totally dependent on what kind of info you got. Usually, you can use it to browse the internet. And 90% of the time, that info will lead you to Toothbook which is their version of Facebook. 

There you can gather TB ID, nickname, and other information from the posts of the users. Occasionally there’ll also be articles that can hold vital pieces of information, so make sure to read them carefully. Once you have done that, you should have enough information to go through the database and get more info about the target you are researching.

At this point of the mission, you should have enough to use a “Crack” feature, which gives you the password of the user and also gives you access to their email, HiTalk, or Toothbook. This is one of the more important features in the game because it gives a glimpse of the target you are researching.  

Other “tools” that are available to you are phishing which you use sometimes to bait clues via text. You also have hacking which gives you access to the phone of the target, and lastly anonymous which you also use to bait people by calling them.

The Cyber Manhunt also features a couple of mini-games/puzzles that need to be done in a timely manner. As long as you read everything thoroughly and try to memorize important clues, you’ll have no problem dealing with them. If nothing, you can just do them again until you get it right. 

Graphics and audio

When it comes to the looks of Cyber Manhunt, I can’t lie and say it’s a perfect-looking game that deserves every praise. There aren’t many details to begin with and what little animation exists isn’t the best quality. And for the audio part, the music and the acting are also on the mediocre side. With that being said, considering the type of game and limited budget that they had, I’ll give them a thumbs up. 

Final thoughts

I enjoyed my time playing Cyber Manhunt, but there are a couple of things that I would love to see being fixed and improved. That’s why I’ll be playing the next part first and seeing if they worked on stuff and made the game better. If not, I’ll address all of it in my next article. Stay safe, enjoy gaming, and keep your data protected.