Nintendo tried with the GameCube to shed its image of being a video games system strictly for children by promoting games such as Resident Evil 4. With the widespread success and family appeal of the Wii, Nintendo may be facing another challenge on coming up with the appropriate mix of games for the mature crowd and everyone else.

While Nintendo may be hoping that its developers make mature games for the Wii, it may be getting more than it bargained for with Rockstar Games’ Manhunt 2.

In what could be the game with the most controversy stirred before release, Manhunt 2 is already banned from sale and distribution in the UK, recently also banned in Ireland, and is tentatively rated as AO for adults only by the U.S.-based ESRB.

Besides, these people underestimate the power of the interwebs sad.gif

The British Board of Film Classification has banned Rockstar Games' upcoming Manhunt 2 for its "unrelenting focus on stalking and brutal slaying."

The ban, announced Tuesday, means that the psychological-horror title cannot be legally be supplied anywhere in the United Kingdom. Rockstar, a division of Take-Two Interactive Software, has six weeks to appeal, according to the BBC.
Manhunt 2 logo (Credit: Rockstar Games)

"While we respect the authority of the classification board and will abide by the rules, we emphatically disagree with this particular decision," Rockstar said in a statement released Tuesday. "Manhunt 2 is an entertainment experience for fans of psychological thrillers and horror. The subject matter of this game is in line with other mainstream entertainment choices for adult consumers."

The game (click here to watch CNET Reviews' video preview) is due out in July for Nintendo's Wii, as well as for Sony's PlayStation 2 and PlayStation Portable. In it, players assume the role of an asylum patient forced to kill other characters to escape from a nightmarish institution.

"The door to your cell is open. One choice. Once chance. They took your life. Time to take it back," the promo on Rockstar's site reads.

The title is a sequel to the controversial Manhunt game. The parents of a 14-year-old boy in Leicester, England, blamed that game for their son's violent 2004 murder.

David Cooke, director of the BBFC, said that banning a game is "a very serious action and one which we do not take lightly."

"Manhunt 2 is distinguishable from recent high-end video games by its unremitting bleakness and callousness of tone in an overall game context which constantly encourages visceral killing with exceptionally little alleviation or distancing," he said in a statement on the organization's Web site. "There is sustained and cumulative casual sadism in the way in which these killings are committed, and encouraged, in the game."

Tuesday's decision marks the first time in a decade that British censors have banned a video game in the United Kingdom. In 1997, Carmagedden was refused classification in the country; the decision was later overturned on appeal.

Rockstar, of course, has endured ratings controversies before. In 2005, hidden sexual content in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas led to an uproar and ultimately to a ratings change.

June 22, 2007

Media watchdog the National Institute on Media and the Family (NIMF) has issued a statement in response to the news that Take-Two has suspended the release of the ultra-violent Manhunt 2. It's been a stormy week for the sequel to 2003's Manhunt, with the title being banned in the UK and receiving an "AO" rating from the Entertainment Software Ratings Board (ESRB). An AO rating basically means a game cannot be sold or manufactured in its current form. NIMF appears to be quite happy with the news.

First game was fairly crap, but the allure of more gratuitous violence will probably make me give it a spin when it eventually comes out.