And Chubear...I don't what point you're trying to make...but it's not coming out well.

The NY Times doesn't know anything about the games industry? Who cares? This article is about one man's opinion who actually PLAYED the game, and he says he's confused because movies have a lot worse content.

It is a compelling argument. But the U.S.'s screwed up attitude towards sex goes far beyond just games and movies. Take the Superbowl scandal. Millions happily watch two scantilly clad people singing about how they want to get eachother naked and fuck like rabbits, but the moment a human nipple exposed for 3/16ths of a second, and the pitchfork bearing masses take to the streets over the unholy smut that our innocent children have been subjected to.

Actually the U.S. is a Puritan society from a moral stand point. Sex is viewed as bad and violence not as much. Most other countries have an opposite view. Here in the U.S. the basic Puritan view of sex and violence remains over 400 years after the colonization of North America and I have no idea why it hasn't faded away like the rest of the crazy Puritan views.

@Darc Requiem - Ah, gotta love that word "Puritan." Allows us to quickly lump together the ideas of having good morals with the idea of crazy witch hunts. Makes having morals look bad somehow; that's some trick.

The fact is that our kids (particularly) should not be exposed to excessive violence OR sex. Somehow people get the idea that, because violence is treated as acceptable by society, sex, a "lesser evil" by comparison, should be treated even more so. You're drifting in the wrong direction: if violence is accepted and sex is not, then the adjustment should be that sex AND violence not be accepted. If you accept anything based on how bad it seems next to violence, you're going to condone anything before long.

And it certainly is fading, don't worry. We've been in moral decline in this country since Nietzsche suggested morals and God didn't exist, and everyone decided being able to do whatever you wanted was more important than anything else. Just compare society's reaction to violence and sex before the 60's, and you'll see the moral decline. Why didn't people back then crave violence or sex in their art? Why can't we do without it now?

But I don't expect anything to change. I'm just promoting a mindset that might keep us from going further in that direction faster.

More on topic, I think the AO rating is unfair for Manhunt 2. M is appropriate; as has been said, movies of comparable violence are rated R.

The thing is Lucia is not porn... except maybe in the US. I accidentally donwloaded the cut version, and it's just ridiculous. Cutting Hostel to the same level would leave you with no movie at all. We're not exactly a very open society in Portugal, and the uncut original version of Lucia is 16+, while Hostel is 18+.

And just what kids are those? Are we talking 17 year old "kids" that can't handle sex with parental guidance (but that can perfectly handle butchering)!? No... what we are talking is 40 year old parents that just can't handle the moral decline of guiding their 17 year old "kids" about sex. Give me a fsckin break!

Is it necessary for the ESRB to have the same standards as the MPAA?

I think people should stop and think before they start using the MPAA standard to critique the ESRB's rating. If anyting the MPAA is far more screwed up than the ESRB could ever hope to be. Watch This Film Is Not Yet Rated to see for yourself. They're biased toward indendpendent films, have double standards against gay sex over straight, and allow the most hedius violence to get an R while steamy non explicit sex scenes get NC-17. I'd really hope the ESRB wouldn't look at the MPAA to check itself, and instead just go on it's own standards.

Manhunt 2 is the most violent game ever made, according to some like Matt at IGN it's far and away the most violent he's ever seen. Whether it matches up to the worse of R rated slasher fair is probably subjective, but even if it doesn't it's AO rating is likely deserved.