Our poor Australian friends

thorbarry

Australia has a very bad gaming censorship board. The highest rating a game can get is a 15+. Which sucks for games such as Left 4 Dead 2. On IGN the game was given a 9/10 rating, but the edited Australian version got a 5/10

http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/104/1047522p1.html

It looks like they had to edit dead bodies out of the game, most of the blood and gore basically replacing it with nothing and leaving a glitchy/ edited game in place. What do you guys think of this? Why is it only Australia that have to edit games like this? I am hoping that Australia can become like Europe and North America when it comes to rating games, and i am really hoping that Europe and North America do not become like Australia when it comes to rating games

rizzla

They have great weather and amazing beaches. It all cancels each other out.

thorbarry

rizzla wrote: »

They have great weather and amazing beaches. It all cancels each other out.

yea but they also have neighbours and home and away

rizzla

As regards the ratings it does suck alot, but I'd be more pissed with the lengthy delays. I don't think Rock Band 2 has been released there yet.

niallon

http://ie.xbox360.ign.com/dor/objects/14352241/left-4-dead-2/videos/l4d2_aussie_montage_111909.html;jsessionid=fjmojd1np8elm

The video from the review just says it all. I'll take Courtown and proper gamer gore over Oz any day!

Gunmonkey

All because the guy who could change the law and bring in a 18+ rating is a tool I read somewhere he didnt want to bring it in and the fact adults were asking an 18+ rating was "disturbing" and the usual bull about how kids might get the games and such.

And is Courtown still worth visiting , when my family stopped going there for holidays it had started to turn into a dive. That was around 98 or so.

DARK-KNIGHT

Gunmonkey wrote: »

All because the guy who could change the law and bring in a 18+ rating is a tool I read somewhere he didnt want to bring it in and the fact adults were asking an 18+ rating was "disturbing" and the usual bull about how kids might get the games and such.

And is Courtown still worth visiting , when my family stopped going there for holidays it had started to turn into a dive. That was around 98 or so.

courtown is dead now all apartments etc and the beacon is gone:(:mad:

still a nice area though im there all the time!

DeVore

It was the same in Germany a few years back, a game called "Carmageddon" had to replace people with zombies (how ironic) and turn the blood green.
It was also about the EASIEST hack to switch it back but it got past the censors (and sold a bomb too!)

DeV.

robinph

Australia seems to be missing the point that games are not for kids.

Isn't blood in all games in Germany purple.

pickarooney

I remember trying to buy Doom in Hannover in 1994. There was no way the were selling it.

Bubs101

Jesus, watching that video shows it all really, Oz are at least ten years behind. I remember as a kid the fever pitch for Perfect Dark centred around the fact that the bodies would stay there unlike Goldeneye and you could have a reward for your self alarming massacres

Gryzor

wasn't ragdoll physics banned in Germany too?? seem to remember something when Crysis was first launched....

Mitch Connor

i think more blame has to be thrown at the developers than the Censor board to be honest.

The original L4D, Aus version, had dismemberment, blood and zombie bodies that would stay a while before fading away. There is no reason why this version does not have these features - which points to the Devs or EA spending no time in trying to tone some stuff down to get 15s, but whipping it all out as quickly as possible in order to get it on the shelves as quickly as possible. Lazy and money driven move.

thorbarry

Mitch Connor wrote: »

i think more blame has to be thrown at the developers than the Censor board to be honest.

The original L4D, Aus version, had dismemberment, blood and zombie bodies that would stay a while before fading away. There is no reason why this version does not have these features - which points to the Devs or EA spending no time in trying to tone some stuff down to get 15s, but whipping it all out as quickly as possible in order to get it on the shelves as quickly as possible. Lazy and money driven move.

I think you have a good point, but i think i read somewhere (i could be completely off the mark) that the developers were only told about these changes very late in the development.

The game should have been delayed for a while and released when the edits did not effect the game play

Gunmonkey

DeVore wrote: »

It was the same in Germany a few years back, a game called "Carmageddon" had to replace people with zombies (how ironic) and turn the blood green.
It was also about the EASIEST hack to switch it back but it got past the censors (and sold a bomb too!)

DeV.

Im not sure if its true, but apparantly the german version of Half-Life has robots in place of the soldiers you meet half way through.

Lucky were not as conservative here, we only ban **** games like Manhunt 2

Asmodean

Carmageddon

God I loved that game, incidentally I remember playing a version of the censored game, took all the fun out of it!
Asia can be just as bad, world of warcraft was taken offline for months over there because they had to censor out all of the skeletons/corpses that lay around in the game and change them into sacks.

thorbarry

Asmodean wrote: »

world of warcraft was taken offline for months over there because they had to censor out all of the skeletons/corpses that lay around in the game and change them into sacks.

I don't play Warcraft but if I did, I would be majorly annoyed. Thats just completely ludicrous. Is this how they think gamers think

"oh my god, is that a skeleton on the ground? I think it is..... maybe I will make my own skeletons, but to do this i have to kill people...."

robinph

Did they maybe deliberately badly edit it? Going to too much effort for just the one small market of Oz wouldn't be worth their time really.

DeVore

I bought my 8 year old nephew a Wii because the games are more applicable and accessible to his age. He knows uncle Tom is a mad games fanatic but there is absolutely NO WAY I would let him watch me play L4D or similar games.

I did let him watch me play Lord of the Rings Online because he's mad about LOTR, and his younger niece too. We got attacked by an orc but killed him and he was ok with that but she wanted to know if he would get better or if he would behave himself now. It was really funny, she was really concerned for his well being. I told her that he was in prison and had been arrested. Thankfully and amazingly a character called "Sheriff" ran past at that very moment and she was satisfied...

Games are terrific ways to teach kids about morality and decision making and the idea that it makes them violent is ridiculous. There are age ratings on these things for a reason.

DeV.

thorbarry

DeVore wrote: »

Games are terrific ways to teach kids about morality and decision making and the idea that it makes them violent is ridiculous. There are age ratings on these things for a reason.

I agree, alot of people are of the opinion that games can only be used for bad. But like everything in this world, if they are put to use in the right hands, good things can come from it.

It is absolutely ridiculous that Australia thinks that games are only for children, and that adults can not make up their own minds on whether they want to buy a gory game or not. In Australia you dont have the choice.

thorbarry

Looks like our Australian friends have been hit again

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/avp-banned-in-australia

The Australian Classification Board has refused classification to SEGA and Rebellion's Aliens vs. Predator, barring it from sale in Australia in its current version.

The sci-fi FPS was struck off for "first-person perspective, close-up depictions of human characters being subjected to various types of violence, including explicit decapitation and dismemberment as well as locational damage such as stabbing through the chest, mouth, throat, or eyes," according to the ruling, as seen by GameSpot.

SEGA Australia told GameSpot in a statement: "We will continue to investigate all options available to us, including the possibility of appeal."

Another option would be to produce a censored version of the game, the route taken by EA and Valve recently with Left 4 Dead 2. SEGA may decide against this, since as GameInformer reported last month, the company's European arm has opted not to release AVP in Germany rather than subject it to "significant cuts that would harm the gameplay experience" to get it past the German censor.

The ACB's decision on Aliens Vs. Predator comes in the same week that it banned MMO CrimeCraft for its supposedly positive depiction of drug use.

Aliens vs. Predator is due for release in countries other than Germany and Australia in February, on PC, PS3 and Xbox 360.