It seems that Rockstar Games is still having trouble getting its gratuitously sadistic killfest, Manhunt 2, rated for UK release. Oh drear, oh drear…

Readers may recall that the BBFC had refused to certify the original build of the game earlier in the year, effectively banning it. This left Rockstar with the options of canning the UK version of the game entirely and concentrating on less censorious markets instead, or cleaning it up a bit, okay a lot, in the hope that it’d pass the board a second time around.

Well, in the first instance Manhunt 2 has now been greenlit by the ESRB (the US ratings board) and we understand that all’s well in the Far East too. Alas (or fortunately) things aren’t going quite so swimmingly in regard to the latter, where the BBFC has just refused to pass even a toned-down rebuild of the game. Here’s why:

"We recognise that the distributor has made changes to the game, but we do not consider that these go far enough to address our concerns about the original version,” says BBFC director, David Cooke. “The impact of the revisions on the bleakness and callousness of tone, or the essential nature of the gameplay, is clearly insufficient.There has been a reduction in the visual detail in some of the 'execution kills', but in others they retain their original visceral and casually sadistic nature."