Thursday, June 21, 2007

"Manhunt 2" release cancelled, and now I feel so safe!

"So Manhunt 2 has been banned from the UK and now it looks certain that the game won't ever see light of day in the US either. Even though the game was rated by the ESRB (unsurprisingly it got 'Adults Only'), both Sony and Nintendo refuse to touch AO-rated titles." [more and more]

Just a bit of history: Manhunt 1 was accused of being responsible in the death of an 11 yr old in England ... and was actually being made out to be more responsible than the 17 yr old who actually did the murder. Here's the punchline: The 17 yr old didn't own a copy of the game, the 11 yr old did. Cue Ed Boon in MK II: "Whoopsie!"

Manhunt 2, with its emphasis on stealth and snuff-like kills, already had an uphill climb to make. In a time when the game "Bully" was being called a "Columbine simulator" (which is bullshit, if you've played the game), this game seemed destined to be the bane of gaming's existence. The first game was hardcore and was rated an M. It featured a grand amount of swearing and violence, and the storyline (a death row inmate being filmed for the latest installment of a snuff film franchise) was gritty.

The walnut shell under the supermarket buggy of this game was, in my opinion, the Wii. You can't have a murder-based game on a platform that relies on the level of interactivity that the Wii has. I'm by no means a supporter of the Jack Thompsons of the world, but I'll concede that point.

So Manhunt 2 was going to be rated AO, and then it's cancelled. I'm a 32 year old male who is being told, by my government, that I cannot have a game that I'm (in my most humble of opinions) morally responsible enough to play and be entertained by. I have no intent to let a child play a game of this type, and I don't have an immature or underdeveloped personality or connection to reality that would result in my committing crime based on what a videogame tells me to do. Never mind that films like "Hostel" and "Saw" are made available on the shelves of Wal-Mart in "unrated" versions. Never mind I can see bared taint on "Nip/Tuck" and graphic facial burning on a stove eye on "The Shield." Never mind that the fucking local fucking evening news shows me more violence and twisted acts against our fellow man than I've seen in my whole 1000+ DVD collection, as well as my near-120 video game collection. Never mind that we live in a world where, in entertainment, gun violence and profanity are not as vilified as sex between consenting adults (i.e. pornography).

You know that this is all about deficient parenting. I'm being told what I can and cannot be exposed to because people can't parent for shit anymore.

Whoa, this is scattered. So many points of impact, so many words in the dictionary ... and yet the one I keep coming back to is "fuck."

4 comments:

Rev. Joshua said...

I'd say this game will see release on PC and/or X360. I'd also be a bit surprised if Rockstar doesn't consider swinging their cock at Sony to see if maybe Sony can't find room in their heart to go ahead and release Manhunt 2 unless Sony wants to see GTA 5 as an X360 exclusive with the announcement coming a week before "Pony Up and Buy a New System Day," October 16th. Producing a video game is expensive and I'd doubt Rockstar is looking to eat that budget.

Also, I won't concede the point that the Wii provides too interactive of an experience for Manhunt 2, either. Making stabbing motions with your hand isn't going to make you any more likely to top off an eight-hour session of Manhunt 2 with a three-day killing spree than playing it with a standard controller. Jack Thompson is a douchebag with a law degree and "Columbine simulator" is the secret word that douchebags with law degrees use to identify each other in the wild, kind of like fraternity handshakes.

The level of moral hypocracy in this country is beyond belief.

Nate said...

I would like it noted that my concession is only based on the psychological dynamic of generalization of behavior (a Wii remote, a knife, a pencil ... stabbins is stabbins), plus that we are talking about a younger population of gamers, left unchecked by adequate parenting, a population very prone to learning by way of behavioral generalization.

Nate said...

You know, wait ... I reread that article.

It's not so much the action associated with the "kill" behavior, it's just a universal series of controller behaviors that indicates the severity of an on-screen situation. A slash of the controller would indicate a testical severance, an eyeball gouge, or a spinal destruction. It could also generalize to the swing of a baseball bat, the swing of an axe to chop wood, or some other innocuous behavior not associated at all with a murderous behavior.

Now, I feel a lot less Nazitastic.

Nate said...

Here's an article about how the Wii will train our future killers.
[article opens in new window]