Following the news of an unlockable uncensored version of Rockstar's controversial Manhunt 2 for PSP, advocacy groups like the Parents Television Council and anti-media violence types like Senator Leland Yee called for the game's ESRB-issued rating to be changed from Mature back to its original Adults Only rating. The Entertainment Software Rating Board investigated the situation and has issued a response, defending the game's M rating in light of the hacked versions of Manhunt 2. "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 statement reads. "Our investigation indicates that the game's publisher disclosed to the ESRB all pertinent content in the authorized Mature-rated version of Manhunt 2 now available in stores, and complied with our guidelines on full disclosure of content." The statement goes on to further distinguish between this instance and the Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (PS2, Xbox) Hot Coffee mod in a number of ways. Whereas the Hot Coffee mod unlocked content Rockstar had knowingly included in the game and hadn't disclosed to the ESRB, Rockstar disclosed the content in question and modified it via censor blurring to be compliant with an M rating. Lastly, the process requires a modded PSP as well as unauthorized copies of the game. It's a much more complicated process than getting Hot Coffee to work on PC or PS2, which only required a cheat device for the console version. The statement uses these same issues to differentiate the Manhunt 2 modifications from the re-rating controversy surrounding Bethesda's The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (PC, PS3, X360), which was changed from T for teen to M for mature for the availability of a partial nudity mod and graphic in-game violence. The ESRB was aware of the content in question in Manhunt 2 because Rockstar disclosed it during the game's initial submission to the rating board--where it received an Adults Only rating and was barred from release. Only after a modified version was resubmitted did the title receive a rating of M for mature. ESRB president Patricia Vance added a comment in the statement addressing the M rating, adding that even without being Adults Only, Manhunt 2 is still clearly for adults. "Manhunt 2's rating makes it unmistakable that the game is intended for an older audience," she said in the statement. "The unauthorized hacking into the code of this game doesn't change that basic fact." The M rating denotes games suitable for an audience of 17 years or older, while titles given an Adults Only rating are intended for gamers at least 18 years of age. However, most retailers won't carry Adults Only titles, effectively making the rating the kiss of death for a developer.

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Update: Rockstar has confirmed to GamePolitics that hackers have indeed reversed some, but not all, of the edits made to the PSP edition of Manhunt 2. "It is unfortunately the case that no one in the entertainment software industry is immune from hacking," explained Take-Two chairman Strauss Zelnick. "We hope that consumers will not engage in hacking or download illegally modified copies of our games. We encourage them to enjoy our games as they are meant to be played." "All of the game material, and especially these specific edits, was submitted to and reviewed by the ESRB in accordance with requirements regarding disclosure that were enacted two years ago and any contrary suggestion is inaccurate and irresponsible," reads the company's statement. Original Story: In an unsurprising revelation that is beginning to seem all too familiar, a group of hackers is reported to have once again enabled purposefully disabled content in a title from Grand Theft Auto developer Rockstar. This time around, the game is Manhunt 2 (PS2, Wii, PSP), which was just released yesterday. By editing the title's initialization files, players of the PSP edition can supposedly experience the uncensored version of the game that was originally rated Adults Only and denied release. In order to secure a retail release for Manhunt 2, Rockstar "modified" the violent title, resubmitted it to the ESRB, and received a Mature rating. The company's VP of product development Jeronimo Barrera maintains the game was not neutered. The unlocking process is a little more complex than that of the Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (PC, PS2, Xbox) "Hot Coffee" scandal, which required a cheat device or editing of the game's files to unlock the sex mini-game. In order to play the so-called uncensored version of Manhunt 2, PSP owners must modify their system to play homebrew code, copy the game data from the UMD, edit its configuration files, and then boot the game from the Memory Stick. Whether or not that complicated process will have an effect on the possible repercussions remains to be seen. Though the Hot Coffee scenes of San Andreas were not attainable through regular gameplay, their mere presence on the disc was enough to cause the ESRB to re-rate the game Adults Only and force Rockstar to release a version of the game with said content removed.

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Halloween is my favorite holiday. Maybe it's the zombies. Maybe it's the candy. Maybe it's because Halloween is the only holiday that feels like it's trying something different. Most holidays are more sugary and sappy than any two candy bars. Halloween is the Batman Begins to the rest of the year's Batman and Robin. Halloween knows what it's about.

It's not about the girls in slutty costumes or the giant inflatable Frankensteins, either. Okay, I guess it can be about the girls in slutty costumes too, but leave your $2000 lighting displays and elaborate mechanized lawn ornaments for December. Halloween is really about cornfields at dusk, and eerily glowing squash, and that feeling you get walking from the car to your door at 3am. It's about the macabre and the living dead and reveling in the dark side of things. It's about the spooky-yet-fun vibe that something like The Nightmare Before Christmas captured so well, the sickly twisted tales that writers like Edgar Allen Poe popularized long beforehand, and women being attacked by ferocious cats. Plenty of video games try to capture this spirit, too. The gaming horror genre, ever-expanding since the release of interactive PC titles like The 7th Guest, has truly exploded since the advancement of 3D graphics. Now any game can have a cutscene that pans to a dead body and plays a stock sound effect, and in fact that particular effect seems to have been made a requirement by those bloody-thirsty dogs at the ESRB. A likely page from their constitution, surely following the section disallowing fun: "If the game is seeking an 'M' rating, it must include a cutscene that slowly pans to reveal a dead body. Note: No nipples, please." Luckily for Acclaim, the Batman and Robin tie-in game must have slipped past the ratings board. Most of these "What the hell happened here?!" moments of corpse discovery predictably fall flat. However, some games manage to sustain a tangible tension for hours, frightening and entertaining in the process. Back to Basics If we're talking pure suspense, it doesn't get any better than the original Aliens vs. Predator PC game. Rebellion's rendition of the decayed Aliens environments may seem rudimentary these days, but its graphics had a grittiness to them that sold the whole package back in 1999. Playing as a lone marine, dropped into an empty colony full of foggy construction sites and welded blast doors, there was nothing more terrifying than hearing that "blip" on the radar, knowing that an Alien might be crawling down from above. Hacking the Gold edition to play in cooperative mode made the experience only somewhat bearable. If Gearbox's upcoming Aliens game is half as tense, it will still be quite a litmus test on the pants. Of course, traditional genre standouts Alone in the Dark, Resident Evil, and Silent Hill rightly deserve recognition. Infrogrames practically invented survival horror all on its own with Alone in the Dark, a fact that most people--Resident Evil fans in particular--forget these days. The original title's non-linear gameplay and investigative focus set it apart from the poor sequels that would follow. And while Silent Hill 2 may stand as the most interesting entry to the series, the first game is still the one that got my blood flowing the fastest. The opening scene--with Harry creeping down the gore-soaked alleyway, his surroundings growing more and more gruesome as the sound of air-raid sirens blare in the background--is close to perfect. The initial glimpse of the hellish void that Silent Hill's various roadways spill into is an iconic image. The rusted-out schoolhouse remains a location that I still have trouble going back to. Outside of the now-accepted franchise king Resident Evil 4, the earlier RE titles are still notable for their skillfully realized atmosphere. Who can forget the classic police station setting of Resident Evil 2, with its cavernous lobby, boarded-up hallways, and impressively-engineered sewer system. Evidence of the STARS team's last stand is immediately foreboding. What's always been wonderfully reliable about Resident Evil games is their steady progression into chaos. They open with a disaster, and as bad as things seem at ground zero, you can always count on the situation to impossibly worsen by the end. As a player you know that in a few hours those barricades will be torn down, and some mutant, three-armed zombie will be chasing your ass through a mansion at high speed. And really, when looked at from the perspective of increasingly tense gameplay, all video games can be scary at times. Who hasn't been put into a cold sweat as they approach 95% completion on a difficult Guitar Hero song, or felt their heart beat a little faster in a close Counter-Strike match? Just thinking about my system performance in Crysis is enough to force me under the covers. Turn the page for more. _PAGE_BREAK_ The Doom of Doom It is harder for a video game to be scary in other ways. Not only do games have a longer period of time to keep the tension taut as compared to a film, but they also have the disadvantage of instant re-playability. For instance, the first 30 minutes of Doom 3 was a genuinely spooky sequence, but after dying four times in a row from the same demon that jumped out from the same set of stairs, I was entirely ripped out of the game. I could see how that zombie didn't really exist until I turned the corner and triggered his spawning, and like an unprepared father, I didn't want to know I was responsible for that. It's the equivalent of being shown a behind-the-scenes documentary on how the Jaws shark was made, as you're watching the movie for the first time. Once you glimpse the proverbial zipper, you can never stop looking at it. However, games should--and often do--have the edge when it comes to surprise encounters. Enemies in a title like System Shock 2 aren't going to always come at you from the same angle, or say the same things at any given moment. Whereas a movie or a novel can never change the second time around, a game can. Diablo's randomized dungeons ensure that you never know what kind of ghoulish demi-demon is around the next corner. The Diablo series is another that's worth looking back to its original entry. The home town of Tristram--a location now tied to its mind-blowingly moody music by Matt Uelmen--couldn't have served any better as a prelude to madness. The entire game is one long descent into hell, punctuated by increasingly demonic foes and environments. It is essentially a quest to knock down the Devil's front door and beat his brains in--a simple concept, but executed with an integrity that holds up. The characters within the world take it all seriously, causing us to buy into their fear--to the point that when we first meet the Butcher face to face, we kite him like cowards rather than stand our ground. Clever Girl Predictable scares can also work in some cases. Few things got my 10-year-old hands quaking more than Ocean's painful SNES adaptation of Jurassic Park. The game has you running around the abandoned park in a top-down, third person view most of the time, zapping lizards with laser beams and squat-jumping across rooftops. It's a really stupid game, and entirely forgettable, until the second you enter a maintenance shed, and the sheer terror of first person inadequacy sets in. Staring out from the muddy, pixelated darkness are several soul-crushingly sinister 2D raptors--and they aren't moving. Even after hours of staring contests these bastards won't attack, mainly because their insidious computerized brains aren't smart enough. Their stupidity is more horrifying than anything else--like a great white shark, but programmed by geeks rather than nature. They just stand there, staring straight at you, or pacing back and forth, catching a glance of you out of the corner of their lifeless eyes--black eyes, like a doll's eye. Only when you step forward do they attack, but even contemplating the concept of facing them down usually forces a retreating maneuver. Combined with an even more terrifyingly-clunky first person control scheme, the whole sequence has probably scarred me for life. On the lighter side of things, some of the best horror-themed games aren't really horror games at all. LucasArts' Grim Fandango is more hilarious than horrifying, but Schafer did the jazzy skeleton-men even better than Burton. The man-eating pianos and creepy carnival music of Mario 64's ghost world were especially memorable. And if World of Warcraft is a theme park ride of an MMO, Tirisfal Glades and its surrounding areas are the Halloween attraction, a near-perfect testament to the holiday complete with pumpkin patch quests, silver moons, and howling werewolves. Sound design is one area that can't be overlooked when it comes to creating a spooky ambiance. Harry's radio interference in Silent Hill works on two levels: it is both an unsettling noise and a gameplay mechanic, a brilliantly integrated indicator that the player is being hunted. Whether it's the muffled whispers of Clive Barker's Undying, the screams of System Shock 2 enemies, or the haunting musical wailing of Fallout, horror titles showcase some of the best sound work in the industry. And still, a lot of the games trying to be genuinely frightening end up like dull slasher flicks--boring, pointless attempts at cheap scares. One common thread has run through most of the aforementioned games--they don't play up pre-programmed horror. You can't scare someone by saying "boo" to their face, and you can't scare someone once those cutscene bars kick in. Whether you're playing Fallout or Undying or Resident Evil 4, if something gets under your skin, chances are there was an unconventional element at work--a random encounter, a deliberately chosen test, or a sudden chainsaw decapitation. These are moments that only video games can provide. But enough about how scary my Smash Bros. playing is. What are your favorite spooky games? Does Undying doing it for you? Are you a Pyramid Head purist? What game will you be playing tonight with the lights off?

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Though modified, Rockstar Games' brutally violent Manhunt 2 (PS2, Wii, PSP) was not neutered in the company's quest for an M rating, claims Rockstar VP of product development Jeronimo Barrera. "We feel we kept the original vision and the content and we didn't neuter the game as people say we have," Barrera told MTV. The original version of Manhunt 2 received an Adults Only rating from the ESRB and denied a rating by the British Board of Film Classification, causing Nintendo and Sony to deny the game a release on their platforms. Rockstar later submitted a "modified" edition of the game to the ESRB, securing a Mature rating and scheduling the game for an October 31 release in North America. At the time, Rockstar refused to specify what those modifications entailed. It has since been reported that the so-called censored edition adds blur to some of the game's more violent non-interactive scenes, making it more difficult to discern the on-screen actions. Barrera was adamant that no portion of the game's story and cutscenes were removed, though a system that awarded players for repeatedly performing the most violent acts in the game was taken out. "The scoring was a hold-over from the first game, and when we had the opportunity to make edits because of the rating, we decided to remove it," noted Barrera. "We felt it flowed better without a score screen between levels. "You know, a lot of people just believe this is a murder simulator and all you do is kill people," he stated. "But the reality is that there's a really strong narrative. And I think we've built something that's really unique in the sense that it puts the player in a position that you absolutely would never get into in the real world." As for an uncensored PC version of the game, Barrera emphasized that the pays attention to feedback, but did not have any announcements to make at this time. He also hinted that a multiplayer-oriented Manhunt title may be in the works. "I think we all here want to make the best games we can possibly make," Barrera concluded. "We make creative decisions along the way. There are guidelines we adhere to and think we are well within. I don't understand why a game like this got an AO while we were well within the M-rated territories."

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"Your momma sucks dwarf cock." What. What? Doesn't this guy realize that I'm The motherfucking Witcher? The infamous slayer of monsters and devilry? The pale-faced, bar-hopping amnesiac? The sterile, dwarf-loving tough guy? I have silver swords and shit. What is he thinking? "You fight like a lass," he says, taunting me. What the hell is this game? The Witcher The Witcher isn't exactly a breath of fresh air. It's more like the musty, stimulating smell of an old library; somewhat stale, but comforting, nostalgic. It's a throwback to an age when the ESRB didn't exist, and when game designers were free to fling as much sex and violence around as they saw fit; when they were willing to fill their RPGs with outlandish one-liners and depressingly realistic scenarios, and to pose nude on box covers.

Take the main character of Geralt, The Witcher's silver-haired antihero whose role you'll be playing out. Within the first 30 minutes of the game, players will see him coring the chest cavities of guards, banging his female co-star, and attending a reverent funeral. From there, it's a short hop to an inn, where you can participate in an endless round of bar fights and drunken slavering. No, this isn't your average G-rated Star Wars RPG. This is something else. This is European. The world of The Witcher is based on a series of novels by Polish author Andrzej Sapkowski. Witchers are essentially the mutated Ghostbusters of Sapkowski's fiction, a band of sterile humans with supernatural abilities and enhanced fighting skills. Almost immediately I lost track of the main thread, forgetting which witchers were good, and which witchers were bad. The grandiose storyline begins with an attack on a laboratory and Geralt losing his memory, another example of how deeply rooted this game is in its own genre. No RPG released in 2007 that looks this slick has any reason to be carting out that tired videogame cliche, but for whatever reason, The Witcher still works despite it. Maybe it's because I haven't satiated my appetite for a good, solid, singleplayer RPG in a while. Maybe it's because I'm tired of cookie-cutter MMO-style quests, tasks which almost never make an attempt to capture your attention or stand alone as any kind of substantial anecdote. Or maybe it's because you just have to admire a game that so thoroughly knows what it is, and isn't afraid of playing it all up to gloriously overblown effect. Sure, the 100% voice-acted dialogue is uneven, and at times badly written, but how can you not dig a line like, "Finally! This place makes my flesh crawl... Did you bring wine? Thanks, I'm not scared now." Geralt himself is a sardonic fellow, often cracking wry jokes or narrating his own thoughts. After noticing an over-sized set of armor in the corner of a room, without any clicking or cutscenes, he comments, "From the blood and dents this armor is a warrior's, but this fatso's more familiar with a tankard than a sword." This constant usage of voice effectively involved me in the world, and within an hour, I didn't really care whether I knew what was going on with the overarching plot or not--simple exploration was more fun. The Quandary of Quandaries But let's get back to Mr. Dwarf Cock for second. A game that's willing to step far over a line like that should probably allow me to outright kill the fucker who said it. Instead, The Witcher locks down the Geralt-on-villager combat in some areas, while allowing it in others. You can't draw your weapon indoors, and you can't kill anyone outside until an area becomes "dangerous"--typically at night. There will be no wanton pillaging and slaughtering townsfolk at all hours of the day. You won't be soiling your naked victims to the detriment of Youtube. Hacking the groins of children will not be tolerated. This murder law illustrates the difference between The Witcher and something like Oblivion. Whereas you won't be stealing people's jewelry or rearranging their physics-enabled furniture in The Witcher, you do have a far more fleshed-out story to chew on than is presented in Bethesda's game. A huge amount of NPCs are waiting with full dialogue trees and quests to present, and while playing the game, I never once felt the boredom that would lead me to a mindless slaughter of innocents. I wanted to hear what these people had to say. For instance, once while wandering around in the wilderness late at night I ran across a traveler, some random fat guy in a robe. He soon came under attack by a dog, which, strangely enough, had been chasing me to that point. After coming to his defense, the man introduced himself. Turns out he knew me before I lost my memory, and his business has been doing so well thanks to my help that he was willing to give me a wad of cash, right on the spot. I didn't have to save him, but if I had let the sucker die, I would have never known gotten the cash. Rather than allowing you to act in a bluntly negative way, The Witcher instead allows you the choice of not acting at all. You're a kind of Batman character, perched above the world's common concerns, indirectly choosing who lives and who dies. Of course, offering the player moral choices is the mechanic de rigueur of RPGs, and The Witcher is no slouch in that regard. Shacknews editor Chris Faylor wrote an excellent preview outlining the unconventional method The Witcher employs to remind players of the choices they have made in the past--choices which can impact gameplay hours later. You are sometimes faced with choosing the lesser of two evils--or five or six evils, depending on the varied amount of dialogue choices--but more often than not these quandaries appear to be straight forward right-and-wrong affairs. Saving a dwarf from racist bullies is about as clear-cut as it gets. CD Projekt, DVD Game You have to appreciate what developer CD Projekt has done with The Witcher's visuals. Taking the original Neverwinter Nights engine and retooling it over the course of nearly four years, these Polish developers have crafted a very polished game. The animations, player models and architecture may not be on the level of Crysis, but they get the job done, and more importantly, they all meld in a coherent way. This is a gritty, dark world, and you rarely feel ripped out of that by something like a plastic wall texture or gaudy purple cloak. Turn the page for more on The Witcher. _PAGE_BREAK_ Perhaps my heaviest criticism of The Witcher lands on its control schemes. Played from a third person perspective, you'll have the option of two main camera angles--either an angled view from above, with click-based controls a la Diablo, or an over-the-shoulder view, with a more traditional WASD-based movement. These are two great options for an RPG to be offering, which makes it even more of a shame that neither succeeds fully. The Diablo-styled click-to-move mechanics become an issue when indoors, requiring you to manually rotate the camera as you ascend a staircase. Outdoors you simply miss the scenery, unable to view the horizon due to the elevated camera. The best bet is the keyboard-based side of things, but I ran into problems there as well. Because the game feels built on the top-down, command-based engine, there is a small amount of lag when a running Geralt adjusts to camera movement. This delay isn't quite as painful as something like Dungeon Runners was at release, but it's a similar problem, and a blemish on an otherwise smooth operation. Hang Up The Click Habit The rest of the interface is your standard set of maps and quest journals. You'll have access to all sorts of abilities, accumulated by leveling up--a rather subtle process, rather than a constant numbers game--and gaining trait points, which can be applied to the many branching skill trees. In all, there are only five main UI buttons, which reside in the top right corner. The emphasis is on simplicity here, with most actions in the game only requiring a simple click to carry out. Want to pick up a sword? Click on it. Want to talk to someone? Click. Want to instantly skip a line of dialogue? Click. Want to skip it all? Click click click. Strangely enough, perhaps the only time when you'll have to hold back on the clicking is in combat. Battle is a matter of matching up one of three combat styles--strong, fast, or group--and clicking on enemies to swing away, timing your follow-up clicks to the audio/visual indicator in order to initiate further combos. At the end of a combo, you might knock an enemy down with a force-like power, stabbing him in the chest in any number of gruesome animations. The level of violence is certainly high. Violence aside, the system is reminiscent of Wind Waker's musically-timed combo attacks. And though it's ultimately involving, it's nothing revolutionary. You probably won't be playing The Witcher through the night because of the riveting combat, or out of an inextricable need to get to the next level. You'll be more interested in knowing what kind of crazy dialogue options the next seedy NPC is going to offer you. Put on the Red Light (For +4 Strength) With all of the monster mashing going on, it's important to note that the witcher's corruptive power also extends to the many females he encounters. The pale, long-haired, "emo" Geralt fittingly ends up in bed with more chicks than even God of War's muscle-bound Kratos. Depending on how you look at it, these sexual encounters come off as glaringly-dated, sexist trash that should only exist in pulp fantasy novels, or--ah. Exactly. After saving one woman from a band of would-be rapists, I'm hit with a quest to run her back across town to her house, protecting her from roving helldogs in the process. All the way, she's teasing me with promises: "Hustlers always get rewarded, hee hee." Yeah. "I live with my grandma. I'd rather not shock her," she says on arrival. Typical. At this point I figure the jig is up--Game Over--which is just when my sly character suggests meeting the next day, at a secluded mill down the road. At this point I'm talking to the screen: "Geralt, you cheeky bastard." "You bring the wine, I'll bring the food," she replies, prompting a quest to find a bottle of wine in time for the rendezvous. Which I do, for science, and inevitably all of this triggers a cutscene. "Something haunts the old mill tonight," says one nearby guard. "We should engage a witcher or some other magician to look into it," replies his friend. "Never around when they're needed, they are." This is followed by scenes of polygonal passion, carefully hidden by a painting of Geralt's seductive, scantily-clad mate of the hour. The sequence is repeated for every sexual con-quest, with the witcher amassing paintings like a collection of trading cards. Geralt soon steps out of the mill alongside the woman--a woman who, only hours ago, had thrown me a cold rejection: "I'm a decent girl." The witcher can shamelessly corrupt women, easily cream a horde of zombies, and heroically protect a town of villagers, all in the same day--if you want him to. What else is there to life, really? If you're a fan of hardcore, unabashed fantasy RPGs, The Witcher is worth a look. The Witcher is coming to the PC on October 30.

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Old-school action specialist Treasure's acclaimed--but relatively obscure--Nintendo 64 rail shooter Sin & Punishment looks to be coming to English-speaking territories for the first time. The game was originally released in 2000 and has developed a strong following among the import crowd. Last month, it was revealed on Nintendo's official Japanese Virtual Console site that Sin & Punishment is being released to the Wii download service in September. While encouraging for fans of the game, the news did not necessarily suggest a release elsewhere, as the game had never been localized outside of Asia. Now, however, an entry for the game on Australia's Classification Board indicates that the cult classic is finally being localized to English; the game has received an M rating, roughly equivalent to the ESRB's T rating. Currently, Sin & Punishment has not shown up on the ESRB's own site. Shacknews has sent inquiries to Nintendo as to whether the game is heading to the Virtual Consoles of other territories, which seems likely given the minimal distribution costs for games on the service once ready to be sold.

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Following calls from media watchdog groups for an investigation into the ESRB's recent re-rating of Rockstar Games' Manhunt 2, the board issued a statement today from its president, Patricia Vance. In the statement, Vance defended the ESRB's decision last week to change the Manhunt 2 rating from its previously assigned Adults Only status to a more marketable Mature rating. The change came after Rockstar modified the game and resubmitted it for review by the ESRB. "Publishers submit game content to the ESRB on a confidential basis. It is simply not our place to reveal specific details about the content we have reviewed, particularly when it involves a product yet to be released," Vance said in the statement. "What can be said is that the changes that were made to the game, including the depictions themselves and the context in which those depictions were presented, were sufficient to warrant the assignment of an M (Mature 17+) rating by our raters." Vance also addressed her detractors, anti-violence activist Leland Yee and the Campaign for a Commercial Free Childhood, in the statment, essentially saying their concerns are unmerited and unnecessary. "The FTC, the national PTA, the Kaiser Family Foundation, and Peter Hart Research have all found that parents are overwhelmingly satisfied with the ESRB rating system," Vance said in the release. "Rather than publicly second-guessing what is unmistakably a strong warning to parents about the suitability of a particular game for children, which presumably neither Senator Yee nor CCFC have personally reviewed, we feel a more productive tack would be to join us in encouraging parents to take the ratings seriously when buying games for their children." Manhunt 2 will retail October 31 for PlayStation 2, Wii, and PSP. The PlayStation 2 version's development was helmed by Rockstar London and Rockstar North. Rockstar Toronto crafted the motion-controlled Wii edition, with Rockstar Leeds taking on the PSP release.

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Rockstar Games today announced that Manhunt 2, the much-maligned game that was put on indefinite hold after receiving an Adults Only rating from the ESRB, has now been "modified" and assigned a Mature rating. The brutal horror title is now coming to stores this Halloween--Wednesday, October 31--on the PlayStation 2, Wii, and PSP. Rockstar London and Rockstar North handled the PS2 version, with Rockstar Toronto responsible for the motion-controlled Wii edition and Rockstar Leeds on the PSP iteration. "Manhunt 2 is important to us, and we're glad it can finally be appreciated as a gaming experience," said Rockstar executive producer Sam Houser. "We love the horror genre. Manhunt 2 is a powerful piece of interactive story telling that is a unique video game experience. We think horror fans will love it." Manhunt 2 publisher Take-Two was left without a strong seasonal release following the delay of Rockstar North's Grand Theft Auto into 2008. It had previously planned to release the highly anticipated entry in its popular franchise this October, with many expecting the game to be among the year's top-selling titles. Originally planned for a July release, Manhunt 2 was "temporarily suspended" following the ESRB's AO rating of the uncensored game. The British Board of Film Classification refused to rate the original PS2 and Wii versions, preventing them from being sold within the United Kingdom. Console manufacturers Sony and Nintendo subsequently refused release of the game on their platforms on the basis of the ESRB's rating. Update: When questioned about the changes made to Manhunt 2 that resulted in the lower M rating, a Take-Two representative responded, " At this point we have no further comment beyond what we said in our press release this morning."

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Update: Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's office released a statement today saying the governor will appeal the ruling of District Judge Ronald Whyte. Whyte declared a California bill restricting the sale of violent games to minors unconstitutional in a lawsuit brought against the governor by the games industry. "I signed this important measure to ensure that parents are involved in determining which video games are appropriate for their children. The bill I signed would require that violent video games be clearly labeled and not be sold to children under 18 years old. Many of these games are made for adults and choosing games that are appropriate for kids should be a decision made by their parents," said Schwarzenegger in a prepared statement. "I will vigorously defend this law and appeal it to the next level." Original Story: A federal district court judge declared the 2005 California bill restricting the sale of violent games to minors unconstitutional today, effectively closing the book on the legislation. Northern California District Judge Ronald Whyte had already passed a preliminary injunction against the bill in late 2005 in response to a complaint filed by the Video Software Dealers association, now defunct, and the Entertainment Software Association. If not for the injunction, Assembly Bill 1179--introduced by Senator Leland Yee and signed into law by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger in October 2005--would have gone into effect January 1, 2006. The bill aimed to stick retailers with a $1,000 fine if they sold to minors games depicting "serious injury to human beings in a manner that is especially heinous, atrocious, or cruel." It also would have created a label separate from the ESRB system to designate which games contained said depictions of violence. Judge Whyte's ruling lists many factors that contribute to making the bill unconstitutional. He says the bill's definition of violence as listed is too broad. "The definition could literally apply to some classic literature if put in the form of a video game," he writes. Whyte also says that the evidence presented by those in support of a causal link between video game violence and real world violence--particularly the work of Iowa State University psychology professor Craig Anderson--does not justify extraneous regulations on their sale. He writes:

However, at this point, there has been no showing that violent video games as defined in the Act, in the absence of other violent media, cause injury to children. In addition, the evidence does not establish that video games, because of their interactive nature or otherwise, are any more harmful than violent television, movies, internet sites or other speech-related exposures. Although some reputable professional individuals and organizations have expressed particular concern about the interactive nature of video games, there is no generally-accepted study that supports that concern. There has also been no detailed study to differentiate between the effects of violent videos on minors of different ages.

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Developer and publisher Rockstar Games today announced Bully: Scholarship Edition for Xbox 360 and Wii. The game will be comprised of the original PlayStation 2 version of Bully, along with some additional unspecified content. Bully is a third-person action adventure title that tells the story of a 15-year-old boy attending a fictional boarding school. Players take part in minigames and various challenges, as well as story-based missions that advance the surprisingly deep tale. Developed by Rockstar Vancouver, the game was initially met with a spate of controversy due to the publisher's history of violent content and the then-recent Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas Hot Coffee mod/fiasco. Bully was eventually rated T for Teen by the ESRB. Rockstar expects Bully: Scholarship Edition to ship to stores this winter.

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In what 3D Realms co-founder Scott Miller described as a "sucker punch", the Duke Nukem series developer has come under fire from the Entertainment Software Rating Board due to the use of outdated ESRB imagery on its official website. Last week, the developer received a letter from the ESRB, which it forwarded to Shacknews, listing over 30 instances of its website violating the ESRB's Terms and Conditions Agreement. Most of the violations stemmed from 3D Realms' use of "old pixilated" rating icons and the lack of content descriptors, such as "Blood" and "Nudity." Steps to obtain the proper rating icons and content labels were not provided, though the letter contained contact information for an ESRB representative. The ESRB specified that 3D Realms had only 10 days to comply before facing penalties. Actions available to the ESRB, as described in the letter, depend on the severity and the frequency of the infractions, but can range from mere warnings and the "temporary suspension of all ESRB rating services for any other of [the] company's products" to fines of $10,000 for repeat infractions. Miller expressed disappointment in the heavy-handed manner with which the ESRB approached his studio. "I think they came off like a school yard bully, rather than an industry partner," he told Shacknews. "Why all the threats right off the bat? If the ESRB people know what was being said about them in underground channels, so to speak, they'd see that their antics have caused them much loss of faith as an industry leader." These developments follow what seem to be renewed efforts on the part of the ESRB in governing content on video game-related websites. The ratings boards recently demanded gaming sites remove a trailer for Digital Extremes' Dark Sector, which publisher D3 claimed the ESRB had described as containing "excessive or offensive content." "The role of ESRB, as the industry's self-regulatory body, is to ensure that consumers have easy access to reliable information about the games they consider buying for their families, and that games are marketed appropriately and responsibly," said ESRB president Patricia Vance in a statement released to Shacknews. Vance referred to the ESRB's Advertising Review Council, which seeks to "monitor marketing practices of companies publishing games carrying an ESRB rating" and ensure that the organization's ratings display guidelines are followed. "The Federal Trade Commission has repeatedly confirmed that ARC marketing guidelines are being actively enforced and that the industry is now almost universally compliant with them," Vance continued. In response to inquiries as to whether the ESRB has recently taken a more stringent stance regarding online display of materials from ESRB-rated games, Vance noted, "ARC notices that are sent to publishers are merely a reflection of ESRB fulfilling its obligations to the industry to enforce the guidelines it has adopted."

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The Entertainment and Leisure Software Publishers Association announced the introduction of PEGI Online today. The online addition to the Pan European Game Information ratings system expands the ratings to "include games playable online via consoles, PCs and mobiles." The official PEGI Online website lists browser-based games, advergames, network games, and massively multiplayer games as the four main categories of "online" games to be covered by the initiative. A PEGI Online logo will appear on participating gaming Web sites or on retail boxes of online games. The logo details the online capabilities of the game and specifies whether "the particular game or site is under the control of an operator that cares about protecting young people," according to the PEGI Online site. To be a part of PEGI Online, participating companies must meet the requirements laid out in the PEGI Online Safety Code. Requirements include games being age-rated under the standard PEGI system, the existence of reporting mechanisms for harmful content, and methods to remove offensive materials. Participants must also obey certain advertising principles, such as not advertising for their products in a way "that is likely to cause serious or widespread offence." Some of the initiative's motivations address issues the Entertainment Software Ratings Board has had with publishers in the United States. The PEGI Online Web site says the initiative aims to protect children from "content being created as a result of the game which could be unsuitable for young people and a mismatch with the rating given for the game." Both Rockstar North's Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas and Bethesda Game Studios' The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion brought the ESRB under fire due to user-created mods made available for the games after their retail release. Notably, the PEGI Online initiative places the regulatory responsibility for such content with the participating publishers.

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Original downloadable games are headed to Nintendo's Wii, courtesy of the company's newly announced WiiWare service. With titles distributed exclusively online through the online Wii Shop Channel, today's announcement claims WiiWare will provide a means "for smaller, more creative games to make their way to the public at lower prices" when the service launches in early 2008. Due to the ease and cheap cost of online distribution relative to the expensive hassles of dealing with physical media, WiiWare opens the door for smaller independent studios to more easily see their titles made available on Wii. "Independent developers armed with small budgets and big ideas will be able to get their original games into the marketplace to see if we can find the next smash hit," said Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime. "WiiWare brings new levels of creativity and value to the ever-growing population of Wii owners." According to N'Gai Croal's Level Up, developers and publishers will be responsible for obtaining a content rating from the ESRB for their WiiWare offerings. Meanwhile, Nintendo itself will determine the pricing for each game and also run a title through a certification process to verify its stability. "We're providing the venue and light of day for games that might not have gotten attention otherwise," Fils-Aime told Croal. "All our SDKs and dev tools are already--I don't want to call them inexpensive--they're darn near free to developers. This is unlike our competitors, where you have to spend a lot of money building high-res assets to be competitive. So in that sense, there's almost no cost to developers; the tools are already available at rock-bottom prices."

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In a request sent to numerous gaming media outlets, including Shacknews, D3Publisher of America has requested on behalf of the Entertainment Software Ratings Board that two previously released gameplay videos taken from Digital Extremes' upcoming shooter Dark Sector must be made unavailable for download. The brief note did not elaborate on the extent of the ESRB's jurisdiction over such matters. "We recently received a ruling from the ESRB stating that the two officially released Dark Sector gameplay montages have been deemed to contain excessive or offensive content; and to this end are not to be available for download or viewing, regardless of being placed behind an age gate," reads the request. "In order to comply with this ruling, the ESRB has requested that the two Dark Sector gameplay montages be pulled immediately upon receipt of this notice and no longer made available for view by consumers." D3 noted that "this in no way effects the final gameplay content of Dark Sector," suggesting that the ESRB may have different standards for video content released over the internet and in-game content purchased at retail. Dark Sector has not yet been content rated by the ESRB. The ESRB maintains separate age gate requests for trailers from games rated Mature and Adults Only. Shacknews regularly receives publisher notices relaying ESRB judgments of gameplay videos, but generally such messages only concern putting videos with Mature-rated content behind an age gate that theoretically restricts the videos from being viewed by those of insufficient age. One such notice was delivered today by 2K Games, which stated that the most recent trailer from Starbreeze's The Darkness must be placed behind an age gate restricting the video from being viewed by those under the age of 17. While the note is not unusual in its basic request, it does include a telling disclaimer. "The ESRB requires that all trailers for Mature ("M") and Adults Only ("AO") rated games be appropriately age-gated," it reads. "Game publishers that do not comply with the age gate requirement are subject to enforcement actions by the ESRB." The mention of unspecified "enforcement actions" by the ratings organization implies a contractual relationship between the two entities on the matter. Shacknews has contacted 2K Games for further clarification. There was no explicit mention of penalties in D3's statement. Shacknews contacted the publisher regarding that point and received a general response from representatives, who declined to comment beyond the ESRB's official statement (see below). Update: ESRB president Patricia Vance has released the following statement:

"The ESRB's Advertising Review Council (ARC) regularly monitors game ads and trailers to make sure that they adhere to industry-adopted Principles and Guidelines for Responsible Advertising Practices, which were established in 2000. Since 2005, ARC guidelines have required that trailers for M-rated games on publisher websites be displayed behind an age gate to help restrict viewing to those visitors who are 17 and older. Game publishers are also required to use best efforts with respect to ensuring the presence of age gates on third party websites that display their M-rated game trailers. If a third party site insists on carrying a trailer for an M-rated game without placing it behind an age gate, our guidelines require the publisher to request that such trailer be removed and/or provide an edited version of the trailer to be used in its place.

"However, the mere presence of an age gate does not permit a publisher to simply put whatever content it wishes into the trailer. All trailers must still conform to ARC's Principles and Guidelines, which prohibit the display of excessively violent content or any content likely to cause serious offense to the average consumer. When ESRB notifies a publisher that the content in a trailer is in violation of these ARC requirements, or that there is an age gate issue on a third party site, that publisher then must notify third party sites to rectify the problem. The notices issued recently by game publishers to third party websites are simply that - steps in a chain of publisher compliance with ARC guidelines and the ESRB enforcement system that have been occurring since their establishment seven years ago."

The ARC guidelines in question specify a number of types of content--including various levels of depictions of violence, drugs, sex, sacrilege, and more--deemed taboo in advertising for interactive media. While these guidelines and the age gate requirements have indeed been in place for over a year, it appears that the ESRB may currently be taken a more stringent approach to their enforcement than has been taken in the past.

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The New York State Senate and Assembly have agreed on the terms of a bill that would classify the sale of video games containing "depraved violence and indecent images" to minors as a class E felony, GamePolitics reports. However, lawmakers were unable to pass the proposal before the legislative session ended, postponing the bill's official approval until the next session in July, at which point New York governor Eliot Spitzer is expected to sign it into state law. Introduced late last month by New York assemblyman Joseph Lentol (pictured left), the proposed legislation also calls for console manufactuers to allow parents to restrict content playback based off ESRB ratings--a feature already present in the current generation of home consoles--and the formation of an advisory council. Known as the Advisory Council on Interactive Media and Youth Violence, the committee would look into the effectiveness of the ESRB's current rating system and investigate the effects of violent video game. Lentol's proposal drew criticism from many within the video game industry, including executives from the New York-based development studio Vicarious Visions. CEO and CCO Karthik Bala and president Guha Bala penned an open letter to New York legislators following the details of the proposed legislation, labeling it unconstitutional and unnecessary. "We know many in our state may not like the content of some video games, and, to be frank, we do not like some of it either," they wrote. "However, a better way to spend our much-needed state resources would be to support public-private statewide partnerships to encourage use of video game ratings and parental controls."

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