Manhunt 2 Banned In Britain

westlake writes "Rockstar's Manhunt 2 has been banned in the U.K. for what the British Board of Film Classification calls its 'unrelenting focus on stalking and brutal slaying.' 'There is sustained and cumulative casual sadism in the way in which these killings are committed, and encouraged, in the game.' The company has six weeks to submit an appeal. The last game to be refused classification was Carmageddon in 1997. That decision was later overturned via the appeals process."

Comments

Wasn't there problems with Manhunt in Britain too?

[TheThiefMaster]

From the Wikipedia article for Manhunt:

In the UK, the game was linked to the murder of Stefan Pakeerah, 14, by his friend Warren Leblanc, 17. Giselle Pakeerah, the victim's mother, claimed that Leblanc had been 'obsessed' with the game after the former pleaded guilty in court. During the subsequent media circus, the game was removed from sale by some vendors, such as the UK and international branches of GAME and Dixons, leading to "significantly increased" demand both from retailers and on internet auction sites. The police denied any such link between the game and the murder however, citing drug-related robbery as the motive. The presiding judge also placed sole responsibility with Leblanc in his summing up after awarding him a life sentence. GAME have since returned Manhunt to their shelves, after it transpired that the murderer did not even own or ever play the game. It was apparently the victim who owned a copy of Manhunt, even though he was under 18.

BBC bias is largely to blame.

[Xest]

What the BBC report fails to mention is that the copy of Manhunt involved in the Stephen Pakeerah case was actually owned by the murdered boy not the murderer - this is something that was acknowledged by the police.

Whilst the BBC report mentions that the police have come forward to say that the game had no impact on the killing, it's sad that they omit the very fact that frees the game from any blame, that as mentioned above, the victim owned the game. To me this suggests that they were clutching at straws to find an example of why the game should indeed be banned, and when unable to find one figured they'd use the next best thing and omit the facts that would negate the use of this example.

Of course, it was only yesterday we were hearing about how the BBC has a serious bias problem in it's reporting, so it really comes as no suprise. It's just a shame that only a day later they insist on proving their fault with the fact they once more publish half truths and bring up an irrelevant murder to try and justify the ban.

I'd argue, that the whole reason Manhunt 2 has been banned is not because there is a problem with the game as such, but because the BBFC felt it had no choice due to the public uproar various anti-video game media establishments like the BBC have produced - you only have to look at this weeks Panorama for a top notch example of the problem. How could the BBFC allow a game to be published, that as far as the general public know is responsible for a murder? It's hard to blame the BBFC on this one but easy to see that the British media is the real problem here.

Re:The Nanny State Strikes Again ...

[westlake]

Well, England is a country that believes firmly that firearms cause murder and that the best way to promote civil rights is to have 100,000 cameras filming the public at all times.

These stats are a bit dated, but still suggestive:

Gun deaths per 100,000 population

US Homicide 4.08 Suicide 6.08 Accidental 0.42 [1999]
UK Homicide 0.12 Suicide 0.25 Accidental 0.01 {1999] [*slightly simplified] Some Facts About Guns

There were 765 homicides in England and Wales in 2005/2006. The numbers are small enough that the work of a single serial killer or a lone terrorist incident can be visible on the charts. 'Homicide' - Long-term national recorded crime trend

Re:Its not going to work

[Dogtanian]

Isn't France on SECAM? And beware, there are different variants of PAL too. Short answer; the PAL variants shouldn't be an issue here, AFAIK. In fact, SECAM shouldn't either. Region coding, more of an issue, probably.

Long answer (disclaimer, I am *not* an expert). The PAL variants vary only in sound encoding and this ONLY affects transmitted material- and only with actual analogue PAL.

This is a situation where using "PAL"/"NTSC" as synonyms for 50Hz/625-line, and 60Hz/525-line displays is misleading. Digitally-transmitted and recorded material is not in PAL or NTSC, or SECAM format. (In fact, strictly-speaking, PAL only refers to the colour encoding, not the frame rate or resolution!!)

Yes, the refresh/resolution specs of our digital systems normally reflect the old analogue systems for compatibility, but they're not "PAL" or "NTSC". Remember that games, etc do not use analogue PAL/SECAM video.

Since (AFAIK) PAL and SECAM countries mostly use the same frame/refresh rates, that should be all that matters when it comes to playing back digitally-recorded and generated material. At worst, the system you are playing the game on should be compatible with your TV system (for composite video???) but this will usually be the case anyway. At best, people will be connecting via RGB SCART, so only the refresh/resolution is an issue, and that's the same in both cases.

As I said above, regional lockouts and so on would be more of an issue.

Re:Its not going to work

[Movi]

In fact, ill expand on this. As a person owing a couple of consoles, all of them chipped to play imports, ill explain.

First off, you have to defeat region coding. If you get a modchip you've got that done. If not, you have to get a EU copy (or close to EU). France doesn't use SECAM for a long time now, so no worries about that. Besides all games are 'set' to either PAL or NTSC (and if youre talking about variants, then only care if you get a Japan game - they have a modified NTSC there called NTSC-J). As the parent mentioned, the variants mostly relate to the sound, and we don't care about that since most of us use the RCA plugs to get our sound.

Now, if you are getting an import from an US country the console will _NOT_ output NTSC. And before you jump me saying that you did just that and your tv says its NTSC - i know, and the TV doesn't see the difference (well, most TVs don't) because the frequency decoder and the color decoder are usually separate subsystems.

PAL consoles playing NTSC games output PAL-60. What this means is the refresh is 60Hz (interlaced) but in PAL colour. Why should you care? If youre using a tv tuner (like a myth box) you better should because not a lot of TV tuner cards do (and even those that do don't usually have driver support for that strange mode). Setting your card to NTSC will give you a b&w picture. I have fought this for about a month when i arrived at this very resolution, then i had to catch the developer for the cx88 linux module to implement that mode (well, it theoretically was there, but it never worked and no-one tried, so yeah, Hi Mauro ;] Thank you for letting me have my Twilight Princess fix!). Also, if you have a old TV (PAL) that doesnt support NTSC - that will not work. Some PAL&NTSC tvs might get confused by the PAL-60 mix but 95% will do just fine. If you ask me - grab a MULTI-5 version from some EU country :)