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Citing Violent Content, Target Pulls 'Manhunt 2' Video Game

by Tim Stevens on November 7, 2007 at 09:17 AM

Target Opts Out of 'Manhunt 2'


The first 'Manhunt' was one of the most brutal games of all time, calling on you to do a raft of icky feeling things to survive, like killing thugs as they plead for their lives, or stabbing broken pieces of glass into the necks of unsuspecting guards. While many look at the 'Grand Theft Auto' series as bad, it doesn't even compare to the level of disturbing behavior in 'Manhunt'.

Recently 'Manhunt 2' made a stir, as it was banned in a number of places due to its excessive violence. A cleaned-up version was finally approved for release, which blurred out the really nasty bits in the same way that 'The Sims' blurs out the naughty bits of your characters while they shower. Now, retailer Target has decided to pull even that cleaned up version from its shelves, since it was recently discovered that it may be possible to get rid of the blur.

As with the 'hot coffee' scandal before, which resulted in the discovery of sexually explicit content in 'Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas,' hackers have managed to uncover all that explicit violence that was hidden from the retail release of 'Manhunt 2.' However, unlike the hot coffee hack, this one actually seems to require that the people unlocking the content have a modified version of Sony's PSP to see any of it. In other words, without a lot of work, it's not possible to reveal the extra violence. For this reason the the video game rating board ESRB decided to keep the title's M (Mature) rating made possible by the blur.

Unfortunately, it's not good enough for Target. The discount retailer is pulling the game in all its formats due to the content. It might start a trend like the one that resulted retailers worldwide pulling 'San Andreas.'

Really, though, it doesn't seem like this one's going to get quite the same publicity as the earlier scandal, if only because 'Manhunt' is a relative unknown and even its basic premise is so much more fringe than 'Grand Theft Auto,' which at least had a vague resemblance to movies like Scarface. What does 'Manhunt' resemble -- a snuff film? Who relates to that?.

Regardless, you'd think Rockstar, creators of both games, would have perhaps worked a little harder to lock out the bad stuff this time around, particularly after nearly being driven to bankruptcy after getting badly burned by hot coffee.

From ABC News

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Tags: breaking+news, hot coffee, HotCoffee, manhunt, Rockstar, target, top, video games, VideoGames

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