MANHUNT 2 KILLS TRIALI get what you're saying in terms of thin ends and wedges, however, I tend to refer to prosecution counsel Mervyn Griffith-Jones in the Lady Chatterley's Lover trial when he asked, "Is it a book you would wish your wife or servants to read?" I have a feeling that Rockstar would rapidly go out of business having seen all its staff lynched in the streets by the general public or by Take-Two's stockholders as the game would simply not sell. I don't know.What if Rockstar's next game was a paedophile sim involving the rape and murder of little children? Wouldn't we all feel profoundly uncomfortable with that, even if it were a well made game? Of course, as responsible adults we have a duty to protect children from sexual/violent/adult material which could be deemed offensive - but that is a slightly different debate. You might compare it with, say, Clockwork Orange - which (in its day) was hugely controversial for the sexual and violent content. In this case, in my opinion, Manhunt 2 (ab)uses its ultra-violent content - as it seems to be way too much of the focus of the game - at the expense of more-involving gameplay and an interesting storyline and so on. If the game/song/book/comic contains gratuitously violent/sexual/adult content - then it really has to be judged on its own merits. "When should we censor stuff?"Īll censorship is bad, if we don't like something then we have to formulate reasoned arguments as to why we don't like it. That's like saying - should a line be drawn in music, literature, comics etc. Rockstar?s PJ Sim ? the man charged with demo?ing the game - explained to me that the game is not a straightforward sequel to the first game, instead it is more, if you like, ?a spiritual sequel? with the player this time around taking on the character of Dr Daniel Lamb ? a Gordon Freeman-esque nerdy scientist character who seems to have been banged up in a mental asylum for a number of years ? for reasons that will no doubt be made clear later in the game as the storyline develops. Does the game work as a piece of adult interactive entertainment or not? Let?s concern ourselves here with the main thing that should matter. No doubt this is bound to wind up the player-haters over at the Daily Mail to a new level of ?oh-my-lord-whatever-next-ness? MANHUNT 2 KILLS PSPSo watch out for the almost inevitable tabloid outcry when the game is released later this summer (?call Labour MP, Zit Ah Kev, get him to say something about violence and games,? we can already hear the tabloid news editor shouting?) With that in mind, of particular interest is the fact that, as well as PSP and the PS2 version we saw at Rockstar recently, the game is also coming out on Nintendo?s family-friendly Wii. And even though the police have denied any connection in that particular tragic case (in fact, it turned out the game was owned by the victim of that crime and not the perpetrator) the follow-up is going to find it hard to shake the ?violence for violence sake? tag of the first game. However, the game was still banned in a number of countries and, worst of all, linked to the murder of British teenager Stefan Pakeerah. The ?immoral majority?s? liberal opinion (again mainly from commentators who had rarely even seen or played the game) was generally a shrug of the shoulders and a ?whatever floats your boat!? Some said that the game was sheer tongue-in-cheek horror schlock and should be judged as such, while others criticised the game for being all ?gore over gameplay?. Critical reception amid the gaming press was mixed. The first Manhunt is, unfortunately, more well-known for the tabloid reactions to the extreme, over-the-top in-game violence, instead of whether or not it stood up as a decent videogame.
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