Game First to Be Banned in a Decade

Jun 20, 11:24 AM

Current Headlines: By PHIL MILLER ARTS CORRESPONDENT

AVIOLENT computer game, partly created in Scotland, has become the first game in 10 years to be banned in Britain.

Yesterday, the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) refused to place an age classification on Manhunt 2, made by Rockstar Games, because of its "casual sadism" and "unrelenting focus on stalking and brutal slaying". The game "constantly encourages visceral killing", the BBFC said in its ruling, and exhibits an "unremitting bleakness and callousness of tone".

The game, in which the main character kills his way out of an asylum using a variety of weapons including glass shards, shotguns, syringes and pens, is the first to be banned since a game called Carmageddon in 1997. Elsewhere in Manhunt 2, the player can kill enemies by pushing them face-first into a live fuse box, using telephone cords to strangle them, or drown adversaries in a toilet bowl.

Last night David Cooke, director of the BBFC, strongly defended the banning of the game, which was due to be released on July 13 in the UK for use on the popular Playstation and Nintendo Wii platforms. The game was developed in a number of the Rockstar development sites, including its Rockstar North premises in Edinburgh. "Rejecting a work is a very serious action and one which we do not take lightly, " Mr Cooke said. The original Manhunt game was given an 18 classification in 2003 and was "at the very top end of what the Board judged to be acceptable at that category", he said.

The company - which also makes the controversial Grand Theft Auto range of games - now has six weeks to submit an appeal.

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