Back in September, Australia’s Classification Board banned the upcoming high-profile game, Left 4 Dead 2, due to the fact
that the game contains excessive violence. As everybody knows, this is due to Australia’s lack of an adults-only rating thanks to one retarded politician. The decision makes it illegal to be sold, advertised, demonstrated, or even imported into the country. The reason:
The game contains realistic, frenetic and unrelenting violence which is inflicted upon “the Infected” who are living humans infected with a rabies-like virus that causes them to act violently. The player can choose from a variety of weapons including pistols, shotguns, machine guns and sniper rifles. However, it is the use of the “melee” weapons such as the crowbar, axe, chainsaw and Samurai sword which inflict the most damage. These close in attacks cause copious amounts of blood spray and splatter, decapitations and limb dismemberment as well as locational damage where contact is made to the enemy which may reveal skeletal bits and gore. Projectile shots to infected humans can cause abdominal wounds which can reveal innards or even cause intestines to spill from the wounds.
The Infected attack the player In an unrelenting fashion, with numerous foe attacking the player at one time. The use of the “melee” weapons can wipe out several Infected in one blow which cause the above mentioned blood and gore effects. The player kills a very large amount of enemy characters to proceed through the game. Whilst no post mortem damage can be inflicted, piles of bodies lay about the environment.
The interactive nature of the game increases the overall impact of the frequent and intense depictions of violence. This coupled with the graphic depictions of blood and gore combine to create a playing impact which is high.
The above was taken by the Classification Board’s report. What I don’t understand is why these dickheads can’t tell the difference between “real” and “fantasy”. As for the rest of the report, the amount of violence mentioned in the report is something that is present in the original Left 4 Dead.
In response to the ban, Valve went to the Classification Review Board to appeal the decision that took place on October 22. In the meantime, they went back and edited out the content that made the game get banned in the first place. The new version was rated MA15+. Valve only did this merely as a backup.
On October 22, Australia’s Classification Review Board confirmed the decision made by the Classification Board that Valve should be refused classification. So, as a result, while gamers overseas will get to play L4D2 as its original form, Australians have to make do playing a crippled version of the game, a version that basically has all the violence removed.
So why the hell did the Classification Board approve the original game regardless of excessive violence, only to ban the sequel due to exactly the same reason? Well, decisions are made on a “majority rule” basis, and almost half of the panel carry a poor understanding of the guidelines set out before them. Otherwise, more and more games would get banned every year (around 10 or more). The same thing happened with F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin, but in this case, the Review Board overturned the Classification Board’s decision, approving the game to be sold with a MA15+ rating. In conclusion, you would have thought that L4D2′s original rating would be overturned as well.
Like the original game, L4D2 will arrive on shelves for PC and XBox 360. Even though it is illegal, you can be sure that avid gamers will go out of their way to import the game, but only if they have a 360 console.
As far as I know, the PC version of Left 4 Dead 2 will exclusively be available on Steam. That means it would be useless trying to buy the uncut version of the game and downloading it to your Steam folder. The service determines what country you are in by your Australian IP address, so you would be downloading the censored version whether you like it or not. However, I was told that you can ask someone you know overseas to gift the game for you, allowing Australians to play the game in its original form. I wonder if Steam would identify this loophole?
