I dunno what it is with Australian censors but games have a lot of trouble passing their weird standards.
A number of games had already been banned this year, including the new Silent Hill game and Shellshock 2. Two other games, Dark Sector and Fallout 3, were also banned but were eventually allowed to go on sale after content modifications were made.
The censorship continues with F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin, the sequel to the hit FPS F.E.A.R. Australia’s Classification Board refused the game making it illegal to sell or even bring the game into the country. The Board said that the basis for the refusal was the game’s “high-impact violence”.
This prudish attitude towards games is really disconcerting especially when you get to see shows like Big Brother Australia where female and male genitalia are shown on TV.
The simple answer as to why it was banned is that we don’t have an R18 rating for video games.
The long answer involves lengthy rants about South Australian Attorney General Michael Atkinson – who is the main reason we have no R18 rating.
While I don’t know about the other games, I do know that Fallout 3 was banned because there was references to morphine. Which was subsequently removed from all versions of the game.
There’s a difference too… male and female genetalia being perfectly natural and nothing to be ashamed of… whilst simulated violence is not to some extent.
of course, it’s the other way around in the US. A nipple on TV causes outrage, but showing someone getting shot to bits is fine.
I’m not a big fan of censorship in such a total state though. the lack of R18 is the flaw, and as such probably needs to be sorted out as outright banning of the games is a little draconian.
This whole situation is stupid.
F.E.A.R was the best game ever invented for its time, and still outranks many of the new games interms of skill level required to play the game without having to glitch punch or shoot thru walls due to the lack in dev support.
F.E.A.R 2, Project Origin was to give new life to the better of us here in Australia.
You really should look up the definition of prudish.