Videogame nasty

The hunter has become the hunted. Manhunt 2, the latest in a long line of controversial releases from game developer Rockstar, is no more. It has kicked the bucket, shuffled off its mortal coil, gone to meet its maker and joined the choir invisible. As far as Ireland is concerned, this is an ex-videogame.
On June 18, the Irish Film Censor’s Office (IFCO) officially banned the game from sale in Ireland, the first videogame prohibition in the Office’s history. The ban was announced citing Section 7 (1) (b) of the Video Recordings Act 1989, which refers to “acts of gross violence or cruelty (including mutilation and torture).”
Like the smoking ban, the Irish decision is being emulated in the UK. The British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) has refused to classify Manhunt 2. Meanwhile, on the sunnier side of Europe, the Italian Communications Minister Paolo Gentiloni has described it as, “cruel and sadistic, with a squalid environment and a continuous, insistent encouragement to violence and murder.”
Perhaps the greatest blow to Rockstar’s publishers, Take Two, is the US ESRB’s decision to give Manhunt 2 an Adults Only (AO) rating. Although the AO cattle brand does not outlaw content, many retailers in the US, the world’s largest market for games, refuse to carry such titles, and both Nintendo and Sony have policies prohibiting AO content from appearing on their consoles. It's a major problem for Take Two, then, since Manhunt 2 was set to appear on the PS2, PSP, and Wii platforms.
How has the IFCO’s decision affected Irish game retailers? “I don’t think pre-sales with Manhunt 2 were huge,” says Tanya McDonald, Marketing Manager for Gamestop. “There wasn’t the interest that there is in Halo 3 or other titles. Customers who paid for pre-orders can get their money back or they have the option of transferring their money to another title. We have removed all Manhunt 2 promotional materials from the stores, and we won’t be stocking the product.”
By all accounts, Manhunt 2 is more horrific than a Paris Hilton lookalike convention. Drenched in blood, sweat, poo, and bucketfuls of anguish, the game is rumoured to have rewritten the rulebook for depraved filth. Protagonist Danny and his mentally ill mate must escape from an asylum, home to dodgy governmental experiments. Like the first Manhunt, the sequel is a stealth-action game in which players sneak along dark corridors, killing in the most outrageous ways possible.
Combat is articulated in an over-the-shoulder Resident Evil 4 approach, as Danny bashes heads with toilet seats, takes axes to spinal cords, and uses telephones as lethal weapons (just like Russell Crowe!). The pre-rendered executions become nastier the longer the player holds down a button, making the game’s modus operandi evident: Manhunt 2 has murder in mind.
“IFCO recognizes that in certain films, DVDs and video games, strong graphic violence may be a justifiable element within the overall context of the work. However, in the case of Manhunt 2, IFCO believes that there is no such context, and the level of gross, unrelenting and gratuitous violence is unacceptable,” the Censor’s Office announced in an official statement.
From one perspective, Manhunt 2 is but another in a long line of mainstream torture porn, perpetuated in cinema by films like Saw and Hostel. On TV, 24’s Jack Bauer tortures people on a weekly basis; even Eastenders recently featured a woman chained to bed whilst being threatened with a Caesarean section. The biggest argument against Manhunt is that it exists for no other purpose than to depict killings. However, mindlessly violent entertainment for its own sake is not exactly breaking news.
Ever since the whole Romans/Christians/Lions kerfuffle, humans have shown an unnerving bloodlust that is reflected in art and story-telling. From Hamlet’s mass stabbing to American Psycho’s ingenious use of a rat during an enema, violence is hard to evade. Is videogame violence any different? Doom was taken to task (alongside Marilyn Manson) for the Columbine killings – but both were ultimately acquitted.
The first Manhunt – which, incidentally, was not very good – was similarly linked to the murder of Stefan Pakeerah in England. However, the police dismissed any link, citing drug-related robbery as the motive. It later transpired that the killer did not own, and had never even played, the game.
While game content has yet to become a political issue in Ireland, Manhunt 2 has certainly brought the subject to the fore. Take Two have halted their global release, probably to make cuts (as in editing!) to the game. Meanwhile, the IFCO stand firmly by their decision.
When asked about how the Office reviews games, Ger Connolly, Deputy Film Censor, responded: “Video games are played through and the time required varies. The criteria we use can be found on our website www.ifco.ie”.