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Edited Left 4 Dead 2 Okayed For Australia
by Leigh Alexander [PC, Console/PC]
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October 8, 2009
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A version of Left 4 Dead 2 will launch on time in Australia after all. The region's classification board had refused to rate the game thanks to its violent and gory content, but Valve has undertaken edits sufficient to earn an MA 15+ rating, which will allow it to be sold.
"No wound detail is shown and the implicitly dead bodies and blood splatter disappear as they touch the ground," says the Board in its full report (.PDF warning). "The game no longer contains pictures of decapitation, dismemberment, wound detail or piles of bodies lying about the environment."
Valve and distributor Electronic Arts had appealed the board's original decision, which was that Left 4 Dead 2's realistic, frenetic and unrelenting violence" is "high in impact... and therefore unsuitable for persons under the age of 18 to play."
EA says it still hopes to release the unedited version in the region, but the modified edition of the game was necessary to ensure it made its launch date.
"We are waiting until we get the results back from the resubmitted full version, just in case it gets classified after working with the OFLC, we would much prefer to release that one," EA spokesperson Cameron Jenkins told Australia's News.com.
Australian gamers continue to suffer for the lack of a category for mature content equivalent to the ESRB's M rating; titles that fall into this category are refused classification by the government's Classification Board, which effectively bans them from an as-is release in the region without often significant edits.
In August Tom Crago, president of the region's Game Developers Association of Australia, spoke out, calling the classfication system "antiquated" and a "joke," stating that "we are embarrassed at how backward our government is."
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I've seen footage of the German version, which sounds like this, and it definitely makes the game look substantially less fun. I'm not buying it until it's a proper release, not because I'm all "yay blood", but because it's like saying "Here's a Mario game, but you can only jump half as high". It's pretty essential for the experience of being overwhelmed to have a whole lot of stuff going on on screen.
(seriously, look up that animation, I don't see how it is any lesser (graphic gore-wise) than any modern zombie games out there. Granted it's sprite based, not 3D, but still.)
Most games which receive an R18+ rating in the US come out at MA15+ here. Overall, classification is far more liberal than the rest of the western nations. The games which are banned are done so for legal reasons - a lack of an R18+ rating - not for moral or hoity-toity fundamentalist right-wing extremist reasons.
And the reason Australia currently lacks an R18+ rating is due to ONE self-righteous jerk in a seat of power. Over 90% of the country wants an R18+ rating, but unfortunately, due to a massive failure in the way our government is structured, this one self proclaimed moral crusader is allowed to abuse his power to 'parent' the rest of the population.
Australia as a whole is far less conservative than most of the rest of the world (minus Europe, obviously). We just have some really old and out of touch politicians, who should stop enforcing their antiquated (and ignorant) 'values' upon the rest of us. That this man considers it his moral right and obligation to ban this content, and that he believes that fundamental civil liberties come in second place to HIS personal moral code, is fucking abhorrent.
But then, I'm sure we're not the only country that suffers from that problem to one degree or another.
/agree