Grand Theft Auto Delayed Til Next Year

Oh my goodness, Rockstar Games is simply struggling right now. Today Reuters announced that the hotly anticipated Grand Theft Auto IV will not release this year but rather sometime in the second quarter of '08. This is a total disaster considering they have already announced they are no longer releasing Manhunt 2 for any system. So my question to them is what games are they going to release this fall in order to make up for the loss of revenue this year. I seriously doubt a few Wii ports of Table Tennis and Bully are going to ease the pain.

Honestly, I think this is far worse news for PS3 and Sony fans because they don't exactly have that many huge games (Heavenly Sword could be awesome) coming this fall to replace the lack of such a huge title. Xbox 360 on the other hand has Halo 3, a total huge seller that is now in no way being combated by any other game. If only MGS 4 were coming out this year that could help lessen the blow.

Manhunt 2 Ban Really Necessary? [Update 2]

Just today CVG Online alerted us that Manhunt 2, the sequel to media-frenzied Manhunt for the PS2, will not be sold in the UK. Manhunt 2 is a game published by Take-Two, the same company responsible for controversial games such as the Grand Theft Auto series and Bully, and is set to release on the PS2, PSP, and Nintendo Wii. According to the article, right here, the BBFC (British Board of Film Classification) refers to the game as offering "casual sadism." But the question here is does this game really need to be banned?

Let's begin this discussion by first pointing out a few of the features of Manhunt 2. The premise of this game is quite gruesome to start with, basically you are a scientist who wakes up to find himself in a loony-bin filled with crazy people caused by your failed experiments. Essentially, and there is much more to the game but this is the jist, you sneak around the environments and you kill people in unique and creatively gruesome ways. One example, you grab the testicles of said enemy and tear them off, thus, killing him. There is actually a feature that allows the player to decapitate the enemies and wear their heads as a prize. And if that's not enough, you can later throw the heads near other enemies in order to distract them. Things get even more interesting when it comes down to the way you play the game on the Wii. Rather than seeing an animation of these kills like in the PS2 and PSP versions, you actually act out the kills by way of the Wiimote.

So this leads us to the ultimate question, is it really the responsiblity of the government to ban the sale of games like this or should it be handled on a per-store basis? If a game can legally be sold in a particular country it doesn't mean that Joe's Game Shack is required to sell the game, or that Little Tommy Thompson is required to play it. In fact, it could even be argued that games of this nature could save lives. Imagine a man or woman with homicidal tendencies who gets uncontrollable urges to act out acts of violence on other humans. Got them pictured? Good. Now imagine them being able to purchase a game such as Manhunt and act out these disgusting urges in a virtual environment rather than in real life. We just saved a life. Now obviously the opposite could be argued, someone buys the game and loves it so much that it turns them crazy and they try it in real life, but that's the great thing about debate, playing both sides.

So why the ban? Do you guys agree or disagree?

[UPDATE 2]
The official ESRB rating for this game just came out and it will be rated AO (Adults Only) here in America meaning many huge retailers won't carry the game in stock. Only GTA: San Andreas was rated AO after the "hot coffee" sex scandal but it was quickly edited and rereleased with a Mature rating. Take-Two has a chance to appeal the decision or edit the game content and release that version instead. So we'll see what they choose, my guess is they will edit it and try to actually sell some games.

[UPDATE 1]
First review for this game is up: 92%. Check out the full review right here. Either the game is actually really good or the guys over at CVG are just sick and demented.