BBFC ban Manhunt 2 from UK release

[Shotgun OS]

Ahh, crap. I just learned about this ban/rating/suspension the other day when I got RE:4 for my Wii. The suspension/ban is total crap. I wanted a super-violent game to play on my Wii. Guess I stick to RE:4. Just my two cents.

Just another way of controlling-I mean protecting the public.

 

[0098386]

So you don't like anything, because any product can be abused and lead to death?

Wrap yourself up in a padded hospital cell and remain there for the rest of your life and reality.

Too much exercise, food, water, oxygen can kill! Lets ban oxygen because too much of it is poisonous to humans!!

Did your word a day calendar have "exaggeration" today?
Thing is - Manhunt is basically a murder simulator, and if it follows the first game (which I only played on for a short while) it has no gameplay or artistic value to it.* And why should someone be killed for something that isn't going to push people towards a new, better society, or something that isn't going to help sick people or have any impact other than "shock" to even the gaming community.
If if it was a revolutionary game with new addictive and enjoyable gameplay to bring gaming out of the cycle of rehash and sequel after rehash and sequel then it'd be a different story.


*all that said they might have realised what was wrong with the first game and fixed it for the sequel.

 

[pcypert]

There are scant few games that actually better society...all that most video games do well is keep losers huddled up in their bedrooms instead of out in public

I could see if you earned points in games that the company rolled into a non profit in the form of monetary support...then I could see games pushing people towards a "new and better society".

I think what people don't like is having to openly face their stuff. The games that are popular now are violent games...why do we want that? This is the natural progression of things. Some don't mind...some are finally taking notice. We already have games where you can run around randomly killing folks just because and then you heal yourself by sleeping with a hooker...this is just killing one person at a time to get out...at least there's more reason to it...and you don't have to do it gruesomely...that choice says something about the player.

 

[MRU]

and you don't have to do it gruesomely...that choice

But you do have to do it. That's the point.


My problem with the game is that it's soul purpose was to set out and shock people. If the ratings system was actually worth something and implemented in stores - then I would have no problem seeing this game getting an 18 certificate.

But.... in reality the certificate / rating system means nothing, and the majority of people buying & playing the game would be teens and pre-teens. You only have to look at how many kids own a copy of GTA or other 18 rated games to see this.



For me....

Physically acting out mutilations on people IS a step up from just watching it happen at the press of a button. There is an added intimacy and an extra layer of reality when your holding the tools of torture.


Whilst most adults may be able to draw a line between reality and fantasy - the point is, that a young mind may not.

Childhood innocence is beautiful and precious enough as it is, and if banning a game as offensive as this protects a few people, i'm all for it.

Is anyone really going to miss this game in the great scheme of things. No.

 

[Lord Blackadder]

The probelm is that parents should be banning games in their household - it should not be necessary for the state to do this. Where is individual responsibility in this debate? I agree that young children should not be playing this game, perhaps not even many teenagers...

But I'm a big advocate of people taking responsibility for their own lives and those of their children. A lot of kids are playing GTA who shouldn't be, because their parents can't be bothered to educate themselves about the content their children are exposed to - they are too busy saving up for that SUV or watching American Idol.

In sum, I think the fact that governments need to ban violent games represents a failure of society to get up off their collective butts and take responsibility for the way we raise the next generation - shutting them in a fantasy world of "acceptable" content isn't the answer, but neither is exposing them to everything out there without some moral reference point. It's the fault of the parents, not the state or Rockstar games IMHO.

 

[MRU]

^ true in an ideal world.

Parents should be the responsible ones. Society as a whole should be responsible. But it isn't.


The reality is.

We have government making daily decisions on how we pay taxes, how we go to war, and generally how our lives are effected on a very day to day basis.

We have government 'state' schools - teaching our children, deciding what and how they learn for nearly 18 years of their lives.

We have government 'state' hospitals - were we are giving birth to them, taking them to have operations

We have government 'NHS' GP/ Doctors - were we take them when they are ill.




The governments (as you put it) are constantly involved in making decisions that effect our lives, decide what's best for us as a society.

So why get so offended when the BBFC decide due to the nature and intent of this game it deserves a ban, do people get so outraged.

 

[Lord Blackadder]

The governments (as you put it) are constantly involved in making decisions that effect our lives, decide what's best for us as a society.

So why get so offended when the BBFC decide due to the nature and intent of this game it deserves a ban, do people get so outraged.

My issue is not with the ban so much as the fact that people think it is the government's responsibility to keep this game away from stores. That's a cop-out: you and Ishould ultimately be responsible for what we do and what our children do.

If a kid is emotionally disturbed, plays violent video games that exacerbate his troubles and then goes and actually kills people is it Rockstar games' fault? Absolutely not. Rockstar should be more rigorous in educating people about their games' content, but it is ultimately your responsibility and mine to control what we choose for our entertainment. I dont think Rockstar has ever claimed that its games were not violent - so why do we act so shocked that our own children are playing them when we as a society allow them to do so?

Yes, the government is constantly making decisions about how we as a society regulate our lives, but in a democratic state the citizens are supposed to bear the ultimate responsibility of government.

If we were all taking proper responsibility as citizens, these games wouldn't cause the controversy they do because people would educate themselves and make informed decisions for about who is permitted to play them rather than relying on the government to do all the thinking for them.

 

[takao]

The probelm is that parents should be banning games in their household - it should not be necessary for the state to do this. Where is individual responsibility in this debate? I agree that young children should not be playing this game, perhaps not even many teenagers...

gotta agree with that... though there are plenty of problems

after all i'm the one in my family enforcing it a lot more since my parents grew up in a time where there weren't ratings anyway (since of the obvious lack of owning visual media at home)

my mother simply can't control it (after all she is happy if my little 15 year old brother goes to school every day not like half a year ago)

on the other side all new consoles and i think even vista offers a central policy system to restrict access to games of certain ratings which should help to lock out younger kids who are totally out of question _but_ that only works if kids are younger
when i was 10 and my sister 13 we did set up the console in the living room and not my parents



also the technical solutions for locking out kids have to improve considerable the next, i'm thinking of some kind of add on device which would look like some some sort of USB hub with additional 5 little USB key ring dongles (colored in the rating colors) which would only have to save a unique value:
when first plugged in, the console should register the keys and don't allow these values to be overwritten by buying an additional such device

it has to to be such a hardware solution because otherwise no parent can outsmart their teenager

but it can't be an built in feature because the teenager would immediately have the control themselves

edit: another thing also about the ratings: not all teenagers are the same: for example there are quite a few games/movies with higher rating here which i don't have a problem with if my brother (15) plays them while on the other side there are some where i have a problem

that said the best ways for making your kid/younger brother/sister not play a game are:
number 1:when the age difference is not big(like with brothers) and they look at what you are playing etc. and they know your a "gamer": say the game is crap
thanks to that trick my brother doesn't play GTA

number 2: the old "i found it totally cool as well" trick.. totally overdone _but_ it still works if the age difference is big enough and you actually have the nerve to do it and you aren't like my mother who thinks Super Monkey Ball is "horrifying" ("those poor little monkeys"... "they scream so horrifying when falling down" .. actual quote .. i'm not making this up)

 

[pcypert]

From all I've read (haven't played so can't say for sure) there are a lot of choices in the game. They said that players are rewarded for sneaking up on folks with gruesome kills, but the player can do a normal stabbing or anything else you would have in a normal game...Link stabs a lot of folks too now...you don't have to horribly execute people from what I've read...you can kill them as any other game out there or do a special kill...to me that's an added element in the game...it's like you can choose to give into sick inner desires (I'm not going to or probably even play the game) or not.

So a kid is spared THIS game but still playing GTA. Show me all the killings and stuff from GTA or any other game. Now compare those acts of violence to all the acts done per capita by youth before video games. Be sure to count all the sicko stuff like torturing animals and things like that that I know went on in the country.

When I have kids they won't be playing games like this till a certain age...I'm not a worthless parent. But that still doesn't mean that banning one game is going to save these other kids...if they're in homes where parents aren't taking an interest...well banning a video game is like plugging a hole in a dam when the dam is made of paper to begin with. It looks good on paper and makes us all feel good about ourselves...but folks, that kind of censorship isn't saving anything...those kids are screwed up because people have dropped the ball (neighbors as well as parents) and not done their part. This game can be an excuse we point back to later on to make us feel better or put the blame off of ourselves...but it wasn't the game...that kid was a murdering sociopath before Take 2 ever went into development.

Paul