NZ censor goes postal over violent, bigoted game

WELLINGTON: New Zealand's censor has banned a videogame as injurious to the public good, citing racist, sexist and homophobic humour directed at gays, Asians, militant Islamists and conservatives, news reports said Tuesday.

Chief censor Bill Hastings said the American game Postal 2: Share the Pain asked players to control a character who exposed his penis, urinated on, attacked and killed opposing groups including "angry parents protesting violent games, Arab terrorists, Catholics, Indian shop owners, gay men and other stereotyped minority and protest groups."

It is only the second computer game that Hastings' Office of Film and Literature Classification has banned. The first came last year and was another American product, Manhunt.

The ruling on Postal 2 said, "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."

It said the need to protect the public good from injury outweighed the right of individuals to entertain themselves with the "callous and brutal" game.

Anyone who supplies, distributes, exhibits, displays or advertises the game faces a year in jail. -- dpa