Postal dev: "Manhunt 2 was a piece of shit"

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Vince Desi vents his spleen over self-censorship

Dec 12, 2007

After looking ourselves at how upcoming violent games might be affected by Manhunt 2's clash with the BBFC, we thought we'd prod anotherdeveloper with a penchant for'subversive' gamesfor its opinion. So we turned to the brilliantly outspoken Vince Desi, CEO of Running With Scissors - creators of the notorious Postal series - and asked him if Running With Scissors would be toning down the violence in its upcoming PC and 360 Postal sequel, following Manhunt 2's ratings headache.

"No, not at all," Desi told us. "The problem has been more in the misleading and inaccurate coverage than the actual content and context.Postal the game emphasizes humor and choice, not violence and the requirement to kill like other M rated games.

"Manhunt 2 was a piece of shit that expressed extreme violence in a dramatic fashion. I wouldn't have banned it, but its nothing like Postal. Again, if the media and gamers were to ever actually play Postal, before writing about it, things would be different. The fact is when you look at our reviews, we get very high scores from gamers and press when they actually played.

"With honesty, and by being truthful, I look forward to working with the ESRB, and similar ratings groups.See we’re old school, we actually believe games should be fun to play, and play is the key. POSTAL is all about free expression, fun and humor, its not an interactive movie, with an 18 minute cinematic intro, we care about how much we can make the player laugh not how much blood we can splash on the screen.

"Gamers should demand more from developers and publishers, and from the gaming press!"

To read our review of Manhunt 2 (based on the US retail version released ealier this year) click here.

Ben_Richardson

Ben Richardson is a former Staff Writer for Official PlayStation 2 magazine and a former Content Editor of GamesRadar+. In the years since Ben left GR, he has worked as a columnist, communications officer, charity coach, and podcast host – but we still look back to his news stories from time to time, they are a window into a different era of video games.