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Hitman 2: Silent Assassin
Sikhs branded Eidos's meticulous murder-sim "racist and offensive" after it was discovered that the game's climactic showdown took place in a gurdwara (a Sikh temple) that bore more than a passing resemblance to their most holy site, the Harmandir Sahib. In the offending level, players where instructed to kill a group of "fanatical believers."
The SikhNetwork website launched a petition urging Eidos to recall the game, saying in a letter to the game's publishers that "Sikhs are deeply concerned about media stereotypes in the video game world that depict violence as a form of victory over people of a particular faith, ethnicity or origin." You can read the petition in its entirety here.
Interestingly, this article appeared on The Sikh Times website a couple of months after the initial fervor and writer Jasvinder Singh Gulati notes: "After playing the version of the game released for PlayStation 2, I believe that us Sikhs totally overreacted."
A response from Eidos stated that "no offense was intended by the developers or the publishers and both parties have taken considered steps to help rectify the situation." While the PS2 and Xbox versions of the game remained unaltered, when released on GameCube and PC the offending material had been removed.
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waksi - December 14, 2008 8:41 a.m.