The blurring in the censored versions is annoying as hell.

I' m all for excessive violence, but that game takes it too far. I' m not digusted or anything, but playing something like that would be mentally draining after a while. It' s not the severity of the violence, it' s the frequency. Obviously the video was edited that way, but i can imagine every enemy you see having that much gore. Maybe it will be a good game to put away in a box somewhere and after having a really crappy day you could take out the game to play it for 30 minutes or so.

Even then there are better choices for excessive gore. Have you guys seen the videos for Soldier of Fortune: Payback? Now if you' re looking for excessive gore that' s the game! ***ing blowing of peoples arms. I can already hear Jack Dumbson qeefing over it. But again I wouldn' t buy a game like that either, because i wouldn' t play it that much. I' ll probably rent it though just for shits and giggles.

As for two version of Manhunt 2 I would go with the uncensored version as well. Honestly who would want the censored version? It' s totally pointless, it would be like censoring porn. It defies the purpose. We live in a sick society where we allow government to censor products that consumers pay for. At the very least the censored product should be discounted, subsidised by ESRB. If they block content I want them to pay for it. Every bleep and black square they use they should pay a dollar towards every copy of the game. Now theres a novel idea, you guys should take notes. Watered down garbage should be cheaper, since this is forced on the publishers/developers and consumers, ESRB should front the bill. Maybe they' d learn to appreciate the content they' re calously throwing away.

Infact ESRB should be abolished, bunch of fascists. It should be the parents responsibility to watch what their kids play and have the publisher rate their own games. Or at least allow publishers to have " unrated games" , then allow those games to be in retail stores. There' d be less delay to have games in stores too if there was no ESRB.

Maybe i' m too progressive. But you can bet your ass if society evolves into such where we have real freedoms. Dedicated organizations devoted to censoring entertainment will be non existant.

I can' t even tell what' s really going on in that video due to the super-low quality. I didn' t see anything that was gross, other than the compression.

ORIGINAL: Agent Ghost

At the very least the censored product should be discounted, subsidised by ESRB. If they block content I want them to pay for it. Every bleep and black square they use they should pay a dollar towards every copy of the game. Now theres a novel idea, you guys should take notes. Watered down garbage should be cheaper, since this is forced on the publishers/developers and consumers, ESRB should front the bill. Maybe they' d learn to appreciate the content they' re calously throwing away.

Asking the ESRB to pay subsidies is the stupidest thing I' ve ever heard. That' s like saying local lawmakers should pay a fee to liquor producers for refusing to sell to minors.

The ESRB doesn' t censor anything. They don' t force anyone to do anything. All they do is give games appropriate ratings. If you want to blame someone for the existence of censored products, go to the source: the cowardly developers and greedy publishers.

As a matter of fact, between the ESRB, the developers, and the publishers, the ESRB is the one who' s screwing you the LEAST. They' re doing exactly what they were designed to do. There IS an AO rating. Game makers are completely free to release AO games as far as he ESRB is concerned.

If we didn' t have the ESRB, the government would step in and you wouldn' t be playing the game at all.

As for this game, the uncensored version is available. So quit yer bitchin' .

I' m not specifically against ESRB. I' m against the principle of ESRB. The idea is that humanity is too dumb to filter their own content, so we need others to show us what we can and cannot consume. That' s a bum idea. I thought it was obvious that I wasn' t giving a serious solution though. I don' t know the exact term a philosophy professor would use, but I was giving an absurd solution to highlight the stupidity of the problem. Of course I realize a non-profit organization can' t subsidize anything. I was expressing my desire for them to die, I was trying to make that apparent too.

On the surface ESRB looks harmless, but the fact is they simply have too much power. I made the mistake of thinking they were a branch of government, when they' re not. Still, the fact remains that they have a monopoly on the rating business in North America. Retailers won' t sell AO games, so publishers won' t make them. Furthermore developers are always trying to aim for a specific rating. Certain ratings will get different attention. Some ratings sell games better on different platforms. If you want to know why Nintendo has too many kiddy games while the other two seem to only have M rated games, ESRB is a huge factor in this. They even restrict advertising.

It' s nice to have the rating right on the box, but the ratings simply hold too much weight in game development. It creats a huge gaps between the ratings. I can' t help but feel something must be lost between each rating.

It is a form of censorship, lets call it passive or indirect censorship. It' s just ignorant to think otherwise. If a developer tried to make a teen game directed to that market but gets slapped with an M rating, they have to change their content in order to appeal to their target market, it happens all the time. Or even the opposite can happen, if they want an M rated game but they get slapped with a T, they have to turn around and slap in more gore. None of these last minute changes make the game better. Just look at all the games that had to be modified after they didn' t get their desired rating. If they decide to accept the rating they always end up with less than projected sales. Videogame news is filled tons of examples of this. ESRB restricts the free flow of game design. It' s actually worse than censorship, because at least with censorship there usually is a way to find out the intended content or message.

Manhunt 2 is an extremely rare example of a publisher releasing two different rated versions of the same game. I don' t even know if it' s ever happened before. Maybe this will catch on, maybe it won' t. Even if this becomes popular, we' ll still have publishers that want one version, and that version will be targeted towards a specific rating.

This is obviously an exaggeration, but you' d have a very hard time convincing me ESRB is a good thing for the industry. Or even that ESRB has any positive benefits for the children. They' re just useless, and only serve as a speed bump for creativity.

It' s optional to have the ratings or not but they wouldn' t be able to sell the games if they weren' t rated by ESRB. If a random company came up and said, I' ll rate your games for you but you can' t put them out on big retail chains unless you accept the rating. Publishers would tell them to go *** themselves. Now it' s too late, Publishers are at the mercy of ESRB. The true villains are the consumers and maybe the conservative mindset. But we can' t change that. It would be a lot easier to simply destroy ESRB. Publishers would absalutely love to see ESRB disapear. Gamers would not miss them after seeing the benefits in games.