Although you would think that the party brass over in China would appreciate the educational potential for a game where players control the characters in a home and can make their lives a living hell, they instead have outlawed The Sims.

The game that ranks as the best selling game of 2004 doesn't create a "good environment" for Chinese children, the government claims. Neither do Fifa2005, Painkiller: Battle out of Hell, Age of Mythology: The Titans, Battlefield Vietnam or Conflict Vietnam, to name just a few of the 50 games that made it on the black list.

The ban is part of a campaign against pornographic and illegal publications that started in 1989. The same year the Chinese government squased the student protests at the Tianamin Square in Beijing, showing its citizens that you don't need computer games to get gore and bloodshed.

27 Jan 2005