No More Heroes

Plans for a lap-dancing club in Sunderland city centre have been given the go-ahead thwarting objections from the Mayor and church nutters. Privilege, in Crowtree Road, has been granted a Sex Establishment Licence for lap-dancing, pole-dancing and strip shows.

Mayor of Sunderland, Iain Kay, objected to the move, which he claimed would be detrimental to the neighbourhood and send mixed signals to potential developers. He spouted:

In the immediate future, we have a vision for the area of the city as a public open space where families can enjoy a spot of rest and relaxation in the middle of a busy city.

As a city council, it is critical that we take all steps necessary to raise the profile and image of this area within the city centre and allowing such a licence at this time would be very much to the detriment of the exciting family orientated future this area has available to it.

Father Michael McCoy, of St Joseph's in Millfield and St Anee's in Pennywell, also hedged around moral objections with the usual nutter waffle:

The granting of this licence would be very much to the detriment of our city and in particular to this area, which we hoped would be developed into an open space where families could relax in the middle of a busy city centre.

The parishes we serve here in our area of Sunderland are large, vibrant communities and include many young families. We know that many of these families and many others in our parishes would welcome the redevelopment of parts of the city centre in to 'family orientated' areas - the granting of the licence for the club would seriously harm this.

We strive in our parish communities to uphold the dignity of all people and to support family life, and don't want to see this club opened in the heart of our city centre.

The MD of Rising Star Games, Martin Defries, has responded to criticism levelled at the company following the announcement that forthcoming title No More Heroes would be toned down from the US edition.

Defries has told GamesIndustry.biz that those claims are wide of the mark, because the European edition will be identical to the one just released in Japan, localisation notwithstanding.

There are two versions of No More Heroes that are going to be published in the West, he said.

Ours [Europe], which will be drawn down from our parent company, Marvelous Interactive, which is directly from the Japanese iteration of the game, and there will be a version in the US that is a full-on gore, beheadings, dismemberment…and it seems some confusion has come to the fore in the past few days as to which version Rising Star Games will publish.

Why the decision [to add in additional gory detail to the US release] has been made is a difficult one for me to comment on - that's a Ubisoft decision for the North American market.

I t has been confirmed that the latest and greatest Wii game from Suda 51, No More Heroes , will not have blood in it in the European version.

Rising Star Games, the European publisher of the title, was asked if this was due to the response of the BBFC to Manhunt 2 , the company gave only this one word response, "Maybe."