Manhunt 2 Ready For Release, Politicians Angered

After much hemming and hawing, Take-Two appears to have secured an 'M' rating for Manhunt 2 from the ESRB. The title is now due in stores around Halloween. The reversal of fortunes for the much-maligned title has prompted a number of conspiracy theories and outright outrage from groups 'fighting' videogame violence. Well-known commentator on the subject and California State Senator Leland Yee is demanding more transparency from the ESRB as a result of this decision. From GamePolitics' coverage: "Parents can't trust a rating system that doesn't even disclose how they come to a particular rating. The ESRB and Rockstar should end this game of secrecy by immediately unveiling what content has been changed to grant the new rating and what correspondence occurred between the ESRB and Rockstar to come to this conclusion. Unfortunately, history shows that we must be quite skeptical of these two entities."

Comments

What?

[Aladrin]

What do they REALLY expect when they give a single entity complete control over something? I'm sure the ESRB says 'we won't tell you why' because they don't want to get into arguments about specific content and they don't want the constant 'well, is this okay then?' that they'll get if they start that.

But I've always felt that was a bit uppity of them. They decide what is right and moral for all of America and nobody has any say-so, or any idea what they are even saying.

At the very least, I think the system should be overhauled to rate each thing seperately. Violence, nudity, language... Everyone feels differently about each of these. While I would put nudity down at Pre-Teen level, I would keep outright sex at Adult level. Shooting a weapon would be Adult, for any reason and any enemy. 'Bad' language would be Teen. And I'd add a concept, though I don't know what I'd call it: Concepts, Politics, Ideas... The overall concept of the game, and the message it brings, should be rated. Games about raising a horse for fun would be for Everyone. Games about raising a horse to be a war-steed would be Teen.

I can already hear people screaming about how I'd rate things. Don't bother to respond, that's exactly my point. Nobody agrees with me exactly! The rating system should explain WHAT is bad about that aspect of the game, instead of just giving it an overall rating.

I'm making this up, because I have no idea what Manhunt 2 entails, but I imagine the ratings should read like:

Violence: Firearms, killing humans.
Nudity: Full nudity, deviant sex
Language: Full range of taboo words, constant usage
Concept: Killing for pleasure, little consequence for actions

And then a parent that thinks killing people is fine, but showing skin is absolutely taboo can properly understand what they are handing to their child.