New Zealand bans Postal 2

Postal 2 has been banned by the Office of Film and Literature Classification (OFLC) in New Zealand, where it's now illegal to own or sell the game with various fines and even prison time for offenders.

The OFLC's ruling is the climax of a yearlong investigation into the game, and anybody found with the game can now be fined NZ$2,000 (â'¬1,075), any retailers selling or even displaying it can be fined NZ$20,000 (â'¬10,750) and potentially go to jail for a year, and any larger "incorporated" distributors or retailers can be fined NZ$50,000 (â'¬26,860) for similar breaches.

"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," the OFLC said.

Running With Scissors founder Vince Desi, continuing his life-long mission to make the games industry appear as childish, immature and petulant as possible, responded with typical irreverence: "I'm glad that PeeTER [sic] Jackson can hack and slash up orcs, elves and pseudo-humans in Lord of the Rings, but a videogame like Postal, that lets you piss on yourself, is somehow evil," he told GameSpot.

Postal 2 isn't the first game to be banned by New Zealand in recent months; last Christmas, the country banned Rockstar's Manhunt from sale, months before it became the centre of a major tabloid controversy in the United Kingdom after being linked to the murder of a teenager in Leicester - although investigating police categorically denied that any such link existed.

Additional reporting by Rob Fahey