Tue 19 Jun 2007
8:40 pm
The follow-up to the hyper violent Manhunt got a crowbar to the face today in both England and America. First up, the British Board of Film Certification refused to rate Manhunt 2, making it illegal to be sold anywhere in the UK. A few hours later the ESRB slapped an AO on it, meaning very few retailers will stock it.
Needless to say, Rockstar isn’t too thrilled, and it’s not hard to understand why. The Saw and Hostel movies got by with R ratings, but the second a controller is involved it turns to the equivalent of NC-17? Manhunt 2 is clearly not a game for kids (or me, for that matter), and it’s going to be a bizarre, disturbing experience. Is the content worthy of being banished from the store shelves, though? It’s hard to say, not having played it, but I have my doubts.
Rockstar is currently checking into its options, arguing with the ESRB, and trying to get its game out there for its July 10th on-sale date. Will Manhunt 2 get hacked into something more M-worthy? Will the UK and US have to import the game from mainland Europe to see it in its true form? It’s a mystery, but we’ll let you know as details develop.
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June 20th, 2007 at 3:11 am
What I don’t understand is, why do retailers refuse to carry AO rated games? They like to tout how they enforce the ratings and don’t sell M-rated games to minors, so why should AO games be any different? It’s absurd that the rating even exists if it essentially means that no game can feasibly use it.
What’s truly absurd is virtually every movie nowadays is put out on DVD as an “Unrated” special edition. Violent movies are even more violent and comedies like American Pie feature even more nudity and sexual content, essentially adding back in all the stuff the MPAA made them cut, but no one bats an eyelash at those being on the shelf at Best Buy. If a game publisher wanted to put out an “Unrated” version of a game no one would carry it.
It’s a shame because Rockstar is either going to have to censor the game or resort to selling it on their own. I don’t know if magazines and websites will even allow ads for an AO game.
Vivendi did sell an AO version of the last Leisure Suit Larry game through it’s website so perhaps Rockstar could do the same, even if it was a limited edition.
In any case, I’m curious to know what exactly makes this game AO worthy where the first game wasn’t. So far AO has pretty much been applied to games due to sexual content. Receiving an AO for violence is unprecedented to my knowledge…
June 20th, 2007 at 4:00 am
IAWTP ^^^^