Video game players attempting to import the banned PlayStation 2 game Manhunt through overseas websites have been warned they face prosecution.

On one site a gamer writes: "One of my friends bought it in Aussie, for all intents and purposes he still owns it. However, he is sending it to New Zealand because I paid him. I could basically say I'm borrowing his game."

But Internal Affairs spokesman Vince Cholewa warned: "If people try to import it from Australia they face the possibility of prosecution."

Manhunt allows gamers to play the tale of Cash, a man on death row who escapes execution but who is forced to take part in a snuff movie. The killings the character is encouraged to indulge in are at close-quarters - involving shards of glass, baseball bats and plastic bags. All are graphically horrifying.

Hastings said he did not go along with the "the game made them do it" argument - as families of two people shot in the US claimed in a $386 million lawsuit over the game Grand Theft Auto 3, which they say inspired the teenage gunmen. Australian anti-censorship campaigner Anthony Larme, whose university thesis was on censorship in games, said there was a need to study and understand adult gaming culture.

"In NZ this game is treated like it was heroin or some sort of real-life terrorist bomb. What I call that is gross overkill. However violent, a game is just fictional."

Source: Stuff.co.nz [1]