Theres been a lot of this in the newspapers lately, and i was just wondering what people think.

Good article in the daily mirror and was reading through it about such games as GTA Vice City, Hitman 2 and Max Payne 2 as well as other 18 certificate games. Now don't get me wrong i agree Manhunt is an extreme game and i did buy it but return it, mainly because you had to be subtle about killing and i prefere to go around with a BFG!

There is several questions on this subject, the first i think is in the current case whose fault was it, i mean would the kid have done it if he hadn't played manhunt. I think so, he has to be uninged to begin with and i think that this could well be blamed on the parents, for starters letting him play an 18 game but also maybe not taking enough interest in his life to actually even notice he was like this. You can argue that parents aren't in the knowledge and it's difficult to know what the kids are up to, these are excuses, it doesn't take much to see what games they buy and what rating they have!

The second question is whether or not the game is to blame, on one side you could argue that it's given someone a thirst for violence, on the other it's provided an outlet so someone doesn't do it in the real world.

Either way i think if you're going to be a psychotic killer games don't do anything....

what do you reckon?

Games are not to blame. I believe the causes are lousy parenting and our education system. Society sometimes just loves to put the blame on something else.

It makes me laugh when a game gets banned. It makes no sense that a kid can get hold of a movie that shows graphic representation of murder, rape, kidnap...u name it - BUT when the same kid plays a game that has the same rating certificate and shows the same things....ooh the press go mad. Take the recent case of the game "Manhunt" that is all but banned in the UK now.

Sadly a kid was murdered and the press hunted for a scapegoat (much the same as Columbine & Doom). Manhunt was chosen as the reason for the kids un-timely demise....a video game. I have done a bit of research and discovered that sales weren't exactly good for this game and my feeling is that the stores who have removed it realized that they could get great press with relatively no profit loss - shrewd!

If you're gonna blame something, blame the parents, blame the system and ultimately blame the offender. I still can't understand how authorities can make any distinction between Manhunt, Half-Life, Kingpin, Far Cry....the list is endless. It's all about short-term gain with maximum press coverage. Does anyone actually care about the victim and his family?

Games are GAMES pure and simple. If you can't make the distinction between games and real life then you had better not watch any movies containing any of the above, boxing, *******, motor sports or anything else that you may decide to emulate.

It's a sad day when a relatively unknown game is given this type of publicity.