Today, a decision by a Dutch Justice Minister named Ernst Hirsch Ballin, answered a call by Parliament to ban Rockstar's Manhunt 2 by saying that Dutch law gave no legal means in which to ban selling game in the Netherlands. While there were laws in place to prosecute retailers for selling the game to those under the age of 16, if the images were violent enough, there's no law that would offer an outright ban on the game as was done in the UK on June 21.

The game itself follows the path of Daniel Lamb, a former scientist who finds himself locked away in a hospital for the criminally insane with no memory of his life. Seeing a chance to get out of the building, Lamb gets out of his room to find other insane patients and in order to get out; he must succumb to performing executions or else risk his life.

The decision paves an interesting crossroads of sorts for law and how law interprets video game content as Ballin's letter to Dutch Parliament brings up a very simple point, "The current law is based on the principle that every adult is considered capable of deciding for himself which games he wants to play, unless it contains illegal material."

While the Netherlands lacks an industry or government backed agency that regulates game sales and content, countries like the UK (British Board of Film Classification --BBFC) and Germany (called "the Index") have established governmental bodies, which have to power to legally ban games from being distributed inside their borders.

In the United States, the non-governmental ESRB (Entertainment Software Ratings Board) gave Manhunt 2 an AO (Adults Only) rating in June, which would effectively remove it from Target, Wal-Mart, Best Buy and other retail outlets. Considering the game's originally scheduled July release date, the company considered its options.

Rather than risk the chance at broader distribution, Take-Two Interactive removed portions of the game's violent content and resubmitted the game for re-rating. On August 24, Manhunt 2's publisher announced that the edited version of Manhunt 2 was issued a more retail friendly M (Mature) rating. With that rating, the game would head to retail on horror's biggest day, October 31.

GameDaily BIZ contacted Rockstar and a representative for the company answered, "It is very good news that Manhunt 2 has now been rated Mature for North America and will be released October 31. However, we have no updated information on the BBFC status of the game or a release of the game in Europe."

For now, it appears that only Dutch players are the only EU members with the potential to play the complete version of the game as there is currently no EU organization that covers video games across all its member states.