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For the first time in 10 years, a video game has been banned from British shops on the grounds that it encourages extreme violence and "casual sadism".
Manhunt 2 has been made illegal to sell by The British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) for its "unrelenting focus on stalking and brutal slaying".
The board said the game "constantly encourages visceral killing with exceptionally little alleviation or distancing".
It is the first game to be banned in the UK since 1997, when Carmageddon was briefly kept off the shelves before an appeal overruled the decision. David Cooke, director of the BBFC said that rejecting the work was "a very serious action", but that its "unremitting bleakness and callousness" meant that, even with modifications, the game would be unsuitable for public distribution.
Mr Cooke highlighted the game's "unrelenting focus on stalking" as another reason why Manhunt 2 would cause "a range of unjustifiable harm risks to both adults and minors".
The game would have been widely distributed in the country, as it was to be made available in both a PS2 and Nintendo Wii version.
This is not the first time the game series has courted controversy.
The first edition of Manhunt was blamed for the killing of 14-year-old Stefan Pakeerah. The schoolboy was brutally stabbed and beaten to death by 17-year old Warren LeBlanc in February 2004.
Stefan's parents still maintain that his killer was inspired by the 18-rated game, although the trial found no evidence of its part in the murder. The victim's mother, Giselle Pakeerah, lashed out at the gaming industry, calling it "morally irresponsible."
- INDEPENDENT
