Citing a plotline that goes " way too far" , South Korea' s Media Rating Board has rejected approval of Ubisoft' s Tom Clancy' s Ghost Recon 2, according to American military newspaper Stars and Stripes. This (obviously) forced the game' s Korean publisher to abandon its plans for a localization of the squad-based shooter.

While disappointing, it is unsurprising that Ghost Recon 2 would rile South Korean censors. Its near-future storyline is set in the year 2007 on the PlayStation 2 and 2011 on the Xbox, and features commando missions into a conflict-wracked North Korea. Mass warfare on the Korean peninsula is a touchy subject, since North Korea is still technically at war with South Korea. That nation' s capital, Seoul, has an estimated 11,000 artillery pieces aimed at it by its northern neighbor, whose Stalinist dictator, Kim Jong Il, has said he could turn the city into a " sea of fire" any time he wanted.

It also won' t be much of a shock that Ghost Recon 2 is not popular with the North Korean government either. A preview of the game at this year' s E3 prompted one North Korean newspaper to write some choice words: " Through propaganda, entertainment and movies, [Americans] have shown everyone their hatred for us. This may be just a game to them now, but a war will not be a game for them later. In war, they will only face miserable defeat and gruesome deaths."

A representative at Ubisoft defended the game, stating " When we developed the story background, we aimed at staying away from key current or specific events while still having a reasonable setting for a conflict."