Megaton News

Target will no longer carry Manhunt 2 because of the potential to hack the PSP version to remove the violence filters. ABCNews reporting:

On the heels of criticism over its violent content, the video game “Manhunt 2″ will not be carried by Target, the company confirmed to ABCNEWS.com in a statement Tuesday.

“All video games and computer software sold at Target currently carry ratings by the Entertainment Software Rating Board — from early childhood through mature audiences,” the statement said. “While ‘Manhunt 2′ was given a ‘Mature’ rating by the ESRB, we received additional information that players can potentially view previously filtered content by altering the game code. As a result, we have decided not to carry the game.”

This despite the ESRB saying that Manhunt 2 could keep it’s M rating:

During a conference call this afternoon, ESRB president Patricia Vance gave the rating board’s answer: Rockstar did nothing wrong.

“Once numerous changes to the game’s code have been made and other unauthorized software programs have been downloaded to the hardware device which circumvent security controls that prevent unauthorized games from being played on that hardware, a player can view unobscured versions of certain violent acts in the game,” Vance said.  “Contrary to some reports, however, we do not believe these modifications fully restore the product to the version that originally received an AO rating, nor is this a matter of unlocking content.”

The original reporting isn’t clear, but it seems likely that Target will be pulling all versions of Manhunt 2 rather than just the PSP version of the game.

The BBFC has rejected a revised version of the video game Manhunt 2. This follows the rejection of the original version of the game in June. The distributor had set in motion an appeal to the Video Appeals Committee against that decision, and this was suspended while the revised version was considered for classification.

David Cooke, Director of the BBFC said:
“We recognise that the distributor has made changes to the game, but we do not consider that these go far enough to address our concerns about the original version. The impact of the revisions on the bleakness and callousness of tone, or the essential nature of the gameplay, is clearly insufficient. There has been a reduction in the visual detail in some of the ‘execution kills’, but in others they retain their original visceral and casually sadistic nature.

“We did make suggestions for further changes to the game, but the distributor has chosen not to make them, and as a result we have rejected the game on both platforms. The decision on whether or not an appeal goes ahead lies with the distributor.”

Americans will still be able to pick the game up October 29.

Apparently recorded from the leaked internet version, this video shows the ball crushing kill from the original AO rated Manhunt 2.

IGN has a story here on some of the changes that were made to Manhunt 2 to get the game down to an M rating, sadly ripping testicles of with pliers has been removed. They have some new screens as well.