Postal 2

[ainwood]

Censor bans violent computer game
30 November 2004

A computer game in which the main character exposes his penis and kills people in a variety of ways has been banned by New Zealand's censor's office on the grounds that it was likely to be injurious to the public good.


Postal 2: Share the Pain is the second computer game to be banned in New Zealand, after Manhunt was banned late last year.

The decision of the Office of Film and Literature Classification was announced by the Chief Censor, Bill Hastings.

In Postal 2 the player controls a character called Postal Dude who interacts with other characters by exposing his penis, urinating on them, kicking them, killing them and mutilating their corpses.

Characters react to the Postal Dude by screaming, vomiting, begging for their lives, fleeing or attempting to kill him. The player is able to use a wide variety of weapons including spades, police batons, electronic tasers, sickles, gas canisters, petrol cans and matches, firearms and a festering cow's head that releases anthrax.

Visual and vocal references throughout the game reinforce callous racist, sexist and homophobic stereotypes and often provide the motivation for interactions with other characters.

"Completion of mundane tasks such as buying milk creates opportunities to kill more characters in a variety of familiar and ordinary circumstances," Mr Hastings said.

The office found that:


The game is designed, and has the capacity, to allow the player to test how much violence and humiliation he or she can inflict on human beings and animals in a variety of everyday settings and circumstances.

The player's ability to elect the amount, type and speed with which the violence is escalated into extreme cruelty requires an antisocial attitudinal shift (and reinforces such attitudes among those who already have them) that is likely to be injurious to the public good.

Postal 2 was submitted to the office by the Internal Affairs Department after its inspectors became aware that a small number of copies were in circulation in New Zealand.

The game has not been made available through any commercial outlets in this country. The banning of Postal 2 means it is illegal to possess, import, distribute or advertise the game.

Link.

Generally, I'm against censorship. But this game does sound ridiculous.

 

[Dell19]

Where does the game actually come from? Its strange what makes a team of developers design a game like this and I wonder what the marketing came up with for a target audience...

 

[Smash]

Theres lots of violent games out there like GTA for example.

However,the main goal in those games is not violence.Violence is a side product of a more grand endeavor.We see this in many games.

This game is different.It is violence just for violence sake.

We gotta draw a line somewhere.

I would also question the developers/publishers.If I were a shareholder,I'd sure like to see market analysis,sales projections etc.Seems like a real dud to me as far as game concepts go.

I'd have to play the game before I could ban it though.I hate the idea of animal cruelty being included.Thats close to a ban right there in my books.

 

[Knowze Gungk]

I have the game and I don't think it's gone too far. The main objective of the game isn't violence, infact you can complete the whole game without hurting anyone (although you'd have to be an extreme twinkle toes & have rat cunning to do so).

What the game does is give the player freedom to do whatever they want (within the game parameters). If certain individuals just want to spree kill, then so be it, they're not hurting anybody. Unfortunately there are a few people who can't tell the difference between fiction & reallity & probably 99.99% of them are the ones that push fo bans. The other 0.001% of them are the psychos who have been made avatars of violent games, despite the fact that a psychotic mind is a psychotic mind whether there is the intervention of a violent video game or not.

On a side note, the video game that has aided the most in real life carnage is MS Flight Sim 98, but I've never seen a push to ban flight sims.

People are strange in the way they view some things. Let's compare a violent FPS with Civ 3, in the FPS you can run around personally removing the heads from the animated representation of individuals or, in Civ3, you can kill off a numerical representation of tens of thousands of people through starvation. Ahh, ethnic cleansing, a wholesome activity the whole family can enjoy.

One last thing. This is the first thing that a player sees every time they start up Postal 2...

 

[SunTzu]

I have this game and its pretty damn fun to play.

 

[Thrawn]

I think I'll stay away from you then SunTzu.

 

[steviejay]

I'm tempted to buy it now, just to see what all the fuss is about

 

[Dell19]

What is the actual objective of the game then?

 

[ainwood]

What is the actual objective of the game then?

Beats me!

I think the censorship may also be in part due to a belief that PC games are for kids, and therefore this game is meant for kids. I don't think I've ever seen anyone in NZ actually check the ages of the purchasers of games, even though some of them are restricted.

 

[Knowze Gungk]

The game spans Monday to Friday and you have "to do" list for each day. The tasks are the objectives, they are menial wide spread across a town...a town full of idiots who deserve no good to come to them

 

[Dell19]

So the objective is basically to kill people since these tasks sound like they are dull and just there to guide you around the town?

 

[Thrawn]

I think the censorship may also be in part due to a belief that PC games are for kids, and therefore this game is meant for kids. I don't think I've ever seen anyone in NZ actually check the ages of the purchasers of games, even though some of them are restricted.

I've been asked for id before, and I live here. Although I wasn't asked for id when I bought gta:vc, which I thought was a bit odd.

And no, that won't be the reason for the censorship. There's only a couple of games that have been banned here, and unlike our aussie counterparts, we got the unedited version of gta:vc.

 

[Knowze Gungk]

So the objective is basically to kill people since these tasks sound like they are dull and just there to guide you around the town?

Only if that's the way your mind works. As I said before, killing people is optional. There is no part of the game that won't progress if you don't kill someone.

Although, there are many people in the game that make it hard for you to not kill them. Every day one of the tasks lands you on the bad side of certain groups of people, and for the rest of the game they attack you on sight, but you can always run to the cops & they'll deal with the attackers.

 

[SunTzu]

I think everyone should get the game so u can light gary coleman on fire and then put him out by pissing on him
This game is definately for adults.

 

[Knowze Gungk]

Last time I saw Gary, I stood there & watch him kill about 20 cops before they took him out. He was my hero of the day.

 

[CIVPhilzilla]

I have this game, and its good for a laugh now and again.