As an update to my last post about the banning of Manhunt 2 in the U.K., it appears that the AO rating that the ESRB recently gave to the game effectively prevents it from being played on Nintendo and Sony’s console. Nintendo and Sony both have a policy in which no AO-rated games can be sold for their hardware.
I’ve never played the original Manhunt game, which received an M rating, but I’ve read reviews and it is apparently pretty violent. So how much worse can Manhunt 2 be to be slapped with the dreaded AO rating?
Only 23 games have ever received an AO rating. 21 of those games are PC games, where anything goes; although you won’t be able to buy an AO game at EB or Wal-Mart. Of the two console games, GTA: San Andres was a originally an M rated game, but the “hot coffee” mod that was discovered after its release prompted the change to AO, and Thrill Kill never saw the light of day.
The head of the ESRB was really vague in detailing why Manhunt 2 got the AO rating. So does Rockstar have an M-rated version of the game ready to go and this AO version was just part of the hype machine?
