News Manhunt 2 banned by BBFC

Well thats just one step closer giving up our Liberty's. Hey I got an idea, lets just say to hell with and live like people in the middle east! All the women will have to cover thier hair and we can all live our lives the way the government wants us to!

There's nothing wrong with giving something like that a rating, it gives people a chance to make an informed choice about what they are purchasing.

However it is wrong to just out right ban something, just because one person may or may not have harmed another because of it. There has never been a single solitary thread of proof that video games can cause someone to flip out and blur the lines of reality and fiction.

I can tell you for a fact that playing a videogame doesn't prepare you for anything in real life. You can be the best Halo sniper in the world but if you've never picked up a real rifle you're not gonna hit the broad side of a bus. And just because you can knock out free bird on expert in Guitar hero doesn't mean you can play the real thing.

Parents have become lazy, and apathetic. They're not as involved in their childrens lives as they should be. Video games aren't the problem, it's the people trying to use them as scapegoats to cover thier own mistakes and short comings.


.....booh-ya

 

I dont understand their reasons for banning it. Agree with what Jamie said about the "buuble-wrap" society.

The BBFC is taking the choice away from (would be) responsible individuals and forcing them to conform to some rather stupid "law".

In all fairness though, I can't see why a game thats based on casual violence, and disturbing murders would WANT to be bought by the British public anyway. Where's the entertainment in finding the most gruesome way to kill someone??

 

stupid reaction,

just gonna make the kids want it more, (will be the same as the copies of driller killer and cannibal holocaust i passed round the playground)

If the parents are too negligent to adequately protect there kids/raise them properly, then go crying that they are blaimless(brainless??) and it was all someone else's fault. So be it, society needs protecting from them, not protection from the next thing they want to bitch about.

End of the day people need to start taking responsibility for them selves, and there children until they are legally an adult (18). This whole find maddy thing, if the parents had done there jobs and not left there kids unattended would that have happened? yeah its a shame that there kid is missing, but seriously why are they not in court on grounds of negligence?
As far as censorship goes, im pretty against all forms of it, if nothing else there are always going to be unofficial ways of getting hold of anything, the legality of obtaining is a relative thing. for example hardcore pr0n, pot and any of the US series you have on HDD that havnt aired in the uk yet, i doubt many of you would feel like any laws you may have broken will give you a moral dilemma, all censorship does is drive up the demand, just look at prohibition America, and all the good that did

 

Owh.

I loved the original Manhunt. It had some interesting and some funny social commentary, along with some very atmospheric horror. The violence was just in context.

True Rockstar were trying to push the boundaries to provoke a reaction, but it was interesting to see how far they could go. After all videogames have no bearing whatsoever on reality, so adults should be able to do anything they want in a game without any fear of consequence.

CardJoe mentioned good taste, but good taste is subjective. Offense to one person might be hilarity/interest to another. As long as things remain private if necessary, then what's the dilly?

 

True, but we live in a society where we chose the BBFC to make these decisions for us. I'm very anti-censorship, but I've seen the game and I have to agree with them on this one and they are very even-handed:

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2007/04/18/BBFC_releases_gaming_report/1

Yes, offense is subject, but we chose to stay in a society where the BBFC exists and a large panel is used by them to make this decision. We could rise up and stop them if we wanted to, gamers aren't exactly a small group after all, but I don't see anybody willing to cry revoloution over this and fans can still get their games from abroad if they are that commited to doing so.

On the other hand, I'm cynical enough to believe that Rockstar deliberately pushed the boundary too far to get this reaction and will then appeal the BBFC, as they are allowed and as Carmageddon did, and present a toned down product that will hit the shelves - though Nintendo may not back the Wii version anymore knowing them. That gets them lots of free publicity and the attention of the people on here who want to play the game just to understand the controversy despite the fact they found the original a mediocre game. My opinion of the original was that it was a over-violent game which tried to hide behind social issues so people would defend it. There wasn't anything really thought-provoking in there.

My two cents.

 

The BBFC, eroding your right to choose since 1912.

On my course at uni we study censorship, it comes up in discussion quite a lot and all of us agree that the only reason it exists is so that people can't blame the government for killing sprees etc. Also it demonises the media, so that parents who fail at raising children properly can blame the EVIL video games or the evil movies etc.

 

green blood made me cut my self and other people to see if they had green blood......NOT!!!!!
this is a step towards a nany state, be careful you British guys.

if you don't want to play the game and think it is extremely disgusting then don't buy it, just stamp a 18+ on it and say that it is the son of the devil and be done with it, if parents are responsible then kids will not get these games, and life it self is more disturbing than most video games i played, so lets ban life.

 

The above points may be true, but I don't think everything can realistically be dumped under the parents umbrella. For example, some people are biologically or inherently evil, or abnormal, like it or not and there are a lot of people who have empathy problems etc from a very young age which we cannot completely blame parents for. Thats why so many murderers actually have normal childhoods if you look at it in-depth - parents may try to raise childen as best they can, but children can fail parents just as much as parents can fail children.

By banning the game we also ensure that the game isn't finding its way into the hands of younger children, because like it or not most games store clerks don't give a **** about it and I've personally seen copies of games like GTA and Manhunt sold to under twelves on numerous occasions and have bought such games myself at a young age.

As pointed out before, properly aged fans will still be able to import a copy if they must, the government is just trying to do its best to keep this material restricted.

And a nanny state? No, it's a continued effort to follow the laws which UK citizens continually agree to live by. It's also only the second time this has happened, first if you remember that carmageddon was un-banned after modifications. When it happens ten times then I'll say it's a nanny state and you'll see me at the front of the marches, making my voice heard. Until then, theres no point in over-reacting to the fact that an uber violent game was banned by a government body established to professionally regulate it, for the second time ever.

I also believe that there isn't a clear cut line between parent and childs reponsibility. Before I was 18 I did a lot of crazy, illegal stuff that my parents bought me up not to do and which they actively encouraged me not to do. Thats not my parents fault, they did everything they could to stop it, but it is my fault despite my age and regardless of how everyone would assume it could be the product of a poor upbringing.

 

wasn't there a bit of science done that showed that murderers are effectively "hardwired" to kill (at least they say CAT scans show it) and why would someone "train" on manhunt 2 if they were only try to rob someone?

 

This is stupid. if its 18+ then it is for ADULTS to decide to buy it or not. I don't mind a bunch of old posh fools classifying games, but when they make the decision that i am not allowed to play it then that really annoys me.
I guess this is a game we will have to get through bit-torrent then.

as far as I'm concerned if it hasn't got kiddie porn in it then it shouldn't be banned.

 

Seriously, that's just retarded, what f*in difference does having different coloured blood make

when someone decided to replicate a game, axes someones head off, sees the red bloody and goes, ah bollox i thought it was green like in the games

Seriously, WHAT DIFFERENCE does it make, whether the blood is green, red, pink, orange, technicolour, etc

Anyway, this ban isn't going to stop anything, you can get it from bittorrent, or they can just use an online delivery system and ignore the ratings completely

 

Carmageddon was changed a bit more than that. Some version had people replaced with slow moving zombies who bled green and a story was supposedly tacked on about aliens, while other versions reportedly had people replaced with walking trashcans IIRC.

 

Who cares, game was going to suck anyways.

 

Very true. Controversy doesn't replace quality.

 

this was the case before video games existed too. there have always been issues with such problems. the same kid that shoots up a school because of lack of empathy was the same kid in the 50s that stomped a kids head in at the playground in the 50s. if a kid is miswired to be evil and have the natural desire to kill, then he will. has nothing to do with what he is exposed to. you are talking about an instinct that is coded in them. no video game, movie, TV show, is going to change that, i mean ****, kids learn about all the violence they need to in history classes. does that mean we should stop teaching kids about the worlds violent history? cause real violence i would imagine is certainly allot more effective then simulated.

i mean who are you gonna blame for things like, Ted Bundy, Jack the Ripper, Son of Sam, the Zodiac killer, Charles Manson. all of those people never even dreamed of a video game before they killed someone. yes they were older at the time they were prevalent, but they had been methodically doing it over years as apposed to one big outburst. Video games have changed nothing.

 

History class, where children are taught about the past in a distanced and objective way as much as possible is not comparable to playing Manhunt 2 on the wii, where gamers go through the actions of swinging knives and axes at innocent people before decapitating them. Not comprable at all.

As for this issue about effect of games, yes I agree that some people are miswired to do bad things anyway but it doesn't mean that allowing to them be exposed to things like manhunt is a good idea. It's a good idea to stop people like that being exposed to this game and a good idea to stop children and minors from being exposed also. Meanwhile, adults who really want to get it still can get the game, though they have to acknowledge they are going against the laws of the society they choose to live in.

 

QFT.

I don't normally agree with banning and outright censorship, but since the game was probably going to be dire and shallow anyway it's probably a good thing.

Plus, previous cases of controversy have revolved around games like Grand Theft Auto and Carmageddon which put a tongue-in-cheek twist on the violence, whereas the Manhunt games are decidedly darker and, dare I say it, more perverted.
On top of that, the game was being released on the Wii, a console with associations with the younger, more impressionable demographic - The Mario, Zelda and Pokémon demographic - It may be up to the parents to monitor what games they play, but the majority of parents don't do it, so it's probably for the best that the BBFC stepped in.

 

that part is the responsibility of the parent, and in the case of a miswired kid, swinging around a sward in zelda is still teaching them a violent action. so it again goes to say, that miswired kids are miswired no matter what they are exposed to. you're saying this game should be banned because its pointless violence, but to a kid that has no empathy, all killing is for no reason, its just killing, and killing for revenge is probably worse, because they will think killing for any revenge is acceptable.

so because most people don't drive the speed limit or don't drive with sensibility when consuming alcohol we should ban cars?

 

No, but we should actively try to stop drink drivers and ban cars which are unsafe from being on the road, as well as banning unsafe drivers...

 

I too am with the BBFC on this one. Frankly I'm appalled to live in a world where people make money off of crap like the Saw & Hostel movies. In my opinion these things have no redeeming qualities - Who really needs this mind filth? What is "freedom" worth if we pollute it until we've destroyed it and ourselves?

May the well-worn paths of your mind lead to happy and productive places.