Manhunt 2 Banned in UK

[manthing]

british board of censors just banned manhunt 2 for being violent for its own sake / too violent.

who are these people. they are not elected into that post but rather are appointed. and how can they speak for everyone in UK?

an adult is someone who is responsible for his/her actions. any adult who uses this game as a reason for killing someone is simply using any old excuse to get away with murder and any judge/jury who believe this should be shot in my view.

why bother banning the game?
it will find its way into UK tother means - underground, posted by someone in USA, peer to peer etc.

and then lets look at the violence side.
weren't these anonymous people at the censor board the ones who banned films like straw dogs years ago only for it to be available today.
so is banning only meant to be for a short time?

so people today can watch straw dogs and commit rape but cannot play manhunt 2? doesn't make sense to me.

we have a soap called "eastenders" here.
shown at 7:30PM thrice weekly.
has alsorts of violence and sordid storylines - including revenge killings, rape, sleeping around, domestic violence etc

sure we don't actually see "real" violence, but which "kid" doesn't know what is going on?

this week one woman nearly carried out a violent attack on another pregnant woman (wanted to do a cesarean section).

this is "family" viewing?
but manhunt 2 is extreme?
whatta joke.

i have no complaints about removing violence, but lets look at things holistically.

the "real" problem in UK (and probably USA) is the largely undocumented/unspoken domestic violence.
mostly carried out by men towards their girlfriends/wives, but occasionally the other way as well.
recent studies show that maybe about 750,000 people in UK see domestic violence in their homes and "accept" it as part of life.

shouldn't we be takling this issue rather than banning violent games?

or take the "proper" road down that path and ban all violent films as well like straw dogs, scarface, goodfellows etc.

possibly extend to others like bond, die hard and so on.

in fact lets go back 100 years and ban/not show any film/tv show/game of any type then we won't have any violence of any sort right?

afterall, rape, murder, wars etc did not happen at all until tv/movies/games were invented right? RIGHT!

i wonder what those people blamed their actions on?
probably their mothers!

[manthing]

the sleeping around is just as bad as any violent act in my opinion as UK has the highest rates if sexually transmitted diseases in europe, and costs billions in health costs. and highest rates of abortions.

similarly domestic violence. some suggest around £3 Billion a year.

[ogopogo2000]

I've often thought that violent programming and video games are not the inspiration that drives a person to violence. Perhaps I am wrong though. It would not be the first time. My opinion has always been that people who have a violent streak in the first place are predisposed to liking violent games and that the game, itself, does not create violence.

And yes, you are right. People should be talking about domestic violence (and non-domestic as well) instead of hiding their head in the sand and addressing the problem in this fashion.

[markatisu]

Its now banned in the US as well because it received an AO rating

[lordsmurf]

It's easy to blame a video game. It's hard to actually find reasons for problems in society.

If I recall correctly ... feel free to "set me right" ... violence has existed for thousands of years before video games. I mean, just look at all the violence in books, such as any mainstream religious book, that describes such things. There are actually large groups of people who look forward to the apocalypse, they actually welcome worldwide destruction. Funny enough, those are usually the same folks who find video games evil and sinful.

I'm still amazed how nudity (non-sexual) is so taboo in the USA, yet showing somebody's brain getting exploded from their head on network tv is perfectly fine.

I don't particularly care for kill-type video games ... or hardcore porn, for that matter ... but others do. If anything, it's a release for them. I think doing it in a game prevents them from doing it in real life. We had gang violence when Pong was the only video game. Same goes for the rape-porn connection.

I think anonymous reviewing should be abolished, especially when it affects everybody. I have a feeling most participants are ultra-conservatives, and not an average person.

[Tranzor]

Just because it received an AO rating in the US does not mean its banned. It just means you will have to get it at places other than regular retail store carriers.

The UK censors board in general is horrible. How many films and such have seconds or minutes cut out for the dumbest things imaginable

[manthing]

robot - you said it.

there is a spaghetti western, cannot remember the name at the moment, that has about 1 or 2 seconds of the film cut.

what did they cut?

was it an extremely violent killing scene? rape? torture? drugs?
nope.

it was the way a horse fell during a general chaotic event!

c'mon censor board.
have you got no lives?
its a film for god's sake.

if any animal did get hurt in the making of the film, then fine. prosecute the producers & crew.

otherwise why waste our tax money on something so silly.
most of use would have missed it anyway.

and don't give me any bull about UK being an animal loving conutry.
thousands upon thousands of cats & dogs have to be put down every year as people abuse them or throw them away after the xmas love affair wears thin.

then there's the "accepted cruelty" of whipping horses in racing and making them jump fences that sometimes maims or kills the horse. maiming the horse is just as bad as it will be led away to be "humanely" put down anyway as it no longer of "use" - ie won't make money for the owner. but i digress.

going back to main topic - doesn't the censor board eventually allow banned films as they feel society has "grown up".

so, for example, straw dogs is now available 20 or 30 something years after it came out.
is UK now violence & rape free?
no don't think so.

so how did censor board allow this film to be passed fit for consumption?
what is the thinking process?

back to computer games, is manhunt 2 any worse than any other "killing" game, like max payne or mafia or gta?

is killing orcs & trolls in warcraft okay?
is killing nazis in castle wolfenstein okay?

i say we should round up the people in the censor board and shoot them!

in case any of you get suspicious of me, don't worry.
i don't play FPS games like manhunt, doom, quake etc.
those games give me "motion sickness" / makes me feel sick.

i stick to gentler art of killing orcs ala warcraft or blownig up ships ala homeworld.

and i'm waiting for the day the censor board ban those as well!

[markatisu]

quote:Just because it received an AO rating in the US does not mean its banned. It just means you will have to get it at places other than regular retail store carriers.

Actually that is not true, AO on a game console means its pretty much banned.

To release a game on a game console you have to have the consent of the platform owners (remember they still get a cut even if your game bombs), this is written into their agreements when they decide to manufacturer the games.

Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo have policies that state no AO games can be released for their consoles. Which leaves three options

-Release it independently via your website store, but face a lawsuit (a certain one at that) from the platform/console owner. The legal fees alone and the fact that advertising would be supressed under a court order would kill the game where it stands. It would get very little in sales given that Nintendo/Sony in this case would do everything in the book to keep the game delayed till the court ruled.

-Cancel the game

-Tone it down to M rating and be able to release it at Walmart and elsewhere as well as advertise

AO games have only ever been released digitally (usually overseas and usually porn related) or on the PC. Since the PC is not a company specific platform it is not legally bound like the Wii, PS2/3 and 360 are. Thats where the misconception that AO games can be released comes from, to date I think only 23 games have ever been given an AO rating, only 1 has ever been a console game.

The only AO game to ever see a console release was GTA: San Andreas and that was an AO rating that was placed after the game was released and there was something found that was not found in the intial rating (when released it was Rated M). The game was retro-slapped with an AO, pulled from shelves and banned until a M version of the game was released. There was even talk of holding legal hearings over the game (I know, our tax dollars at work).

I agree with the Analyst who said "in shooter games kids are readily allowed to use guns, often to kill defenseless characters. Killing is killing and if the ratings boards are going to dictate that killing is bad in one game, they need to turn the mirror on the entire industry and say killing is bad in all games. There should never be a discussion of just how much killing is acceptable when you are taking the morality stand, its too hypocritical"

[Tranzor]

Not to turn this into an agrument but if you could show me where they have it in their policy (microsoft/sony) of no AO games I will agree. With the discovered hooplah of GTA san Andreas the game was pulled, but at EB games and Gamestop you could still easily buy this adult version before/during and after the ban. Again I really do not think the companies in question have a
problem with an AO game, but of where and who will carry it that is their main concern. Rockstar could release two versions of the game. I have been checking online with info on manhunt 2 and all I have come across was that it has not received a rating in the US yet. The uk is more strict in rating than the US, so thegame could still receive an M rating here. Where did you see/read the info that the game was already rated AO for the US market?

EDIT: I just emailed rockstar, hopefully they will reply

[Tranzor]

Rockstar told me to email 2kgames. 2k has no listing of man hunt or any of the few others that have their logo. I spoke with Eb games today and they told me that even if it does retain the AO rating in the US it can still be sold just not at major retailers. Microsoft may frown upon it (on the surface) but the game companies can pretty much do what they want.

At anyrate the game was pushed back so it may end up getting toned down a bit, who knows.

[markatisu]

I think Rockstar is going to tone it down, there are some really good articles up now about people who got to play the game last week where they say they can understand it getting an AO rating. But now the issue becomes censorship which a lot of people in the press feel this is. There is a good article (I need to find the link) that compares Manhunt 2 to Saw III and Hostel II to show the hypocrisy.

Also about the Sony AO thing just look here

http://www.google.com/search?q=ninte...ient=firefox-a

They issued a response when asked whether an AO game would be allowed on their system and they flat out said no it would not be allowed.

And I dont know where you looked but it did receive its AO rating, Rockstar has the opportunity to appeal but as of right now it has an AO rating in the US.

And you are right as far as Rockstar selling it without approval but there is already precedent set by Nintendo vs Namco back in the mid 80's when Tengen was releasing games without Nintendo's approval and Nintendo took them all the way to federal court to get the games removed from stores. Sony probably in the PS2 years would not have cared but with all the recent negativity surrounding the poor sales of the PS3 I have no doubt in my mind they would take legal action if Manhunt 2 were pursued as a release with the AO rating (it would be viewed by Sony as a slap to the face). Childish it may be it would happen.

I think it sucks, I really wish they would just release it rating be danged.

[Tranzor]

well if they do tone it down, im sure at some point in time the uncut version would surface on some torrent. For the intial US ratings search I went with google, but it mostly brang up the UK rating and nothing with the US. Rockckstar's website as well as a few online reltailers still have no rating listed for the game. Regardless, we will see what happens down the road.

one of the pages off the link you gave has some interesting info. I bet if anything a full version on the PC would be released and a fixed version thanks to hack groups, restoring it all back to the console versions of the game (this was done with resident evil as well).