Think the UK might still be reeling after the whole Manhunt 2 debacle? The Advertising Standards Authority has banned an advert for Condemned 2: Bloodshot for being too violent. How violent was it anyway? You can check out the vid for yourself in the full article.

After the Gerstmann controversy has subsided, we thought news about Kane and Lynch will just be confined to DLCs. However, Eidos' Kane & Lynch: Dead Men (PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, PC) may not be done yet - its ad campaign has just been banned for its graphic violence. More details after the jump.

Realism has, for the most part, been touted as one way to get across the idea that a game is good. This approach works well in video games, but in the advertising world, if a game looks too real, and is deemed to be too violent, then you can expect the ad to get the axe.

That's exactly what happened earlier today over in the UK, as the Advertising Standards Authority banned an advertisement for John Woo Presents Stranglehold (Xbox 360, PS3, PC) because it was too violent and realistic for broadcast on television. More on this in the full article.

A Microsoft ad for the Xbox 360 was banned by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) of UK for supposedly promoting and glamorizing dangerous driving.

The ad in question showed a car chase on a rooftop and the streets, where in the end the actors congratulated each other. According to ASA, "We were concerned that the ad gave the impression that reckless street car racing was exciting and fun, and considered that was compounded by the congratulations offered to the other driver at the end of the race by the other young men involved." Because of this, the TV ad will be barred from being shown on UK TV on the grounds of "breaching rules on health and safety and driving standards."

Microsoft, however, has stated that they were particularly cautious with the treatment of the ad, saying that they were keen on avoiding misconceptions regarding the message of the commercial. In fact, they even had the caveat through an on-screen text explicitly stating that the stunts being shown were conducted in a controlled environment and that the cars never broke the speed limits.

ASA insists, though, that "the text reinforced the sense that the events in the ad were real, rather than fantasy, and were therefore capable of being copied."

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Update: We finally found a copy of the Microsoft advertisement "Cops and Robbers" on YouTube, uploaded by xboxscene. Here it is. (Thanks, code2006 for showing us where to find this vid!)