Bummer! Thwarted & Frustrated! I can't shoot people in the head with a nail gun after all! This really sucks!

yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee-ha!

The big news here -- buried where you can barely see it -- is that I have an X-Box and Take-Two/Rockstar was DISSING ME by only making Manhunt 2 for Nintendo Wii and Sony Playstation.

So hahahahaha Rockstar, now NOBODY will buy your game and NOBODY will get to shoot people in the head with nailguns, hahahahaha!

This company is managed like a high-speed drunk driving accident. It's one thing to try to sell weird, tasteless, questionable crap to adolescent boys. It's another thing to manage a publicly held NASDAQ corporation as if you were adolescent boys.

With the UK trade association's Death Penalty rating, which bans Manhunt 2 from being sold in the UK and the Republic of Ireland, and the USA video game trade association's Adults Only rating looming over Manhunt 2's head, thus making the giant retail chains unwilling to sell it, I wonder (but not enough to surf the sites) if the on-line video game retailers will still sell it. If you're a bit more plugged into this scene than I am, please Leave A Comment. If you're too embarrassed to admit who you really are, make up a silly nick, like AxMrdrr.

Manhunt 2, all ready to rock n roll with 500,000 units in colorful DVD cases ready to ship off the loading dock, but now with nowhere to send the 500,000 units, may end up being marketed to teenagers the way marijuana, schnapps, anabolic steroids and ecstacy are marketed to teenagers -- in dark alleys and apartment building basements.

I really love the Frame Story of Manhunt 2. A guy (i.e. YOU, the player) wakes up in a cell in some sort of secret prison laboratory. He doesn't know his own identity, he has no memory of where he is or what's been done to him. All he has is outrage, mega-anger, Zero Impulse Control, and the desire to escape at all costs, using any object he can find along the way as a weapon. So essentially the Hero no longer has any of the compoents of a Conscience. Nothing he does is his fault. For a 14-year-old boy, this is truly a delightful, liberating, satisfying Fantasie.

I am SO BUMMED! I was so looking forward to sneaking up on people and shooting them in the brain with a nail gun.

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The Associated Press
Friday 22 June 2007

'Manhunt 2' Video Game
Release Suspended

by MATT SLAGLE

Players of the video game "Manhunt 2" would have assumed the role of a scientist with amnesia who escapes from an asylum and then goes on a bloody killing spree as he tries to remember his past. But consumers may never see it on store shelves.

Following bans by Britain and Ireland, as well as a ratings predicament that would have made it nearly impossible to buy in the United States, publisher Take-Two Interactive Software Inc. (nasdaq: TTWO - news - people) decided that it might already be GAME OVER for "Manhunt 2."

In a short statement Thursday evening, the New York-based company said it was temporarily suspending plans to distribute the game while it reviews its options.

"We continue to stand behind this extraordinary game. We believe in freedom of creative expression, as well as responsible marketing, both of which are essential to our business of making great entertainment," the company said.

"Manhunt 2" had been scheduled for a July 10 release in the United States on both the Wii by Nintendo Co. and the PlayStation 2 from Sony Corp.

But earlier in the week, Britain banned the game because of the violent content. Ireland followed suit a day later, and then Italian Communications Minister Paolo Gentiloni said Thursday that he would seek to have the sale of the game canceled there as well.

In a statement, Gentiloni called the game "cruel and sadistic, with a squalid environment and a continuous, insistent encouragement to violence and murder."

In the United States, meanwhile, the video game industry's self-regulated ratings board gave a preliminary version of "Manhunt 2" an "adults only" rating instead of the more lenient, and far more popular, "mature" rating for ages 17 and up.

Slapping "Manhunt 2" with the Entertainment Software Rating Board's most stringent rating would likely doom sales. Large retailers including Best Buy Co., Target Corp. and Wal-Mart Stores Inc. won't stock AO-rated games.

Rockstar was given 30 days after receiving the ESRB's suggested rating to present an appeal or make changes to the game.

A spokesman for Rockstar declined to comment on Thursday's suspension, which was announced hours after Take-Two issued a statement saying it was determined to bring the title to market regardless of criticism.

Another issue had to do with the console makers: Nintendo and Sony disclosed they have policies barring any AO-rated content on their systems.

Microsoft Corp. has a similar policy, but "Manhunt 2" wasn't planned for its Xbox 360. There are no such restrictions on games for personal computers.

The suspension was the latest setback for creator Rockstar Games, which has come under fire for its popular, critically acclaimed "Grand Theft Auto" series of urban crime games. Take-Two is still dealing with the fallout of a shareholder coup earlier this year that ousted its chief executive and nearly all of its board.

Rockstar and Take-Two have long been a focal point for debate over the effect of video-game violence on children.

Two years ago, Rockstar was forced to replace its first edition of "Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas" after a hacker discovered a password-protected game inside it that involved a sexual encounter. [actually lots of sexual encounters, but all consentual]

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Copyright 2007 Associated Press. All rights reserved.

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Reuters
Thursday 21 June 2007

Take-Two Suspends
'Manhunt 2' Game Plans

SAN FRANCISCO -- Video game publisher Take-Two Interactive Software Inc. said on Thursday it has suspended plans to sell "Manhunt 2" after the title was slapped with restrictive ratings for its extreme violence.

The game, developed by the same Take-Two studio behind the controversial "Grand Theft Auto" and "Bully" titles, had originally been scheduled for a July 10 release.

Take-Two said it "temporarily suspended" distribution plans for the game while it reviewed its options following the banning of the game in Britain and a U.S. ratings body decision to give it an "Adults Only" rating.

The rating would prevent its release on game machines made by Sony Corp. and Nintendo Co. Ltd.

"We continue to stand behind this extraordinary game. We believe in freedom of creative expression, as well as responsible marketing, both of which are essential to our business of making great entertainment," Take-Two said in a statement.

"Manhunt 2" casts the player in the role of a psychotic man who escapes a mental institution and kills enemies with a variety of weapons and objects as he tries to find out what happened to his family.

Take-Two's statement followed comments from Chairman Strauss Zelnick on Wednesday saying he fully backed the game and considered it a work of art.

The company's options include canceling the game entirely, releasing it unchanged only for personal computers -- a move that would drastically limit sales -- or altering its content to achieve a less-restrictive rating.

"Manhunt 2" was originally expected to bring in about U$40,000,000 in sales for Take-Two, which had just over $1,000,000,000 in total revenue last year, according to Wedbush Morgan research.

Take-Two shares fell 4 cents to $20.61 on Nasdaq on Thursday.

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Copyright Reuters 2007. All rights reserved.