Well, this is certainly an eye-opener.
Tipster Mick managed to get his hands on the Office of Film & Literature Classification’s report for Grand Theft Auto IV. It’s not very large at three pages, but it’s more than enough for us to find out what we want to know.
Firstly, the violence. The OFLC doesn’t see it as anything out of the ordinary for the MA15+ rating, describing it as “hand to hand combat (basic punching and kicking) [that]more regularly involves use of various weapons”. It does make particular mention of what you can do to corpses: “Blood pooling occurs under bodies that are shot at after death however no post mortem damage (such as decapitation or dismemberment) is possible”. You’ll remember that it was decapitation and dismemberment that got Soldier of Fortune: Payback and Dark Sector in trouble with the board. There’s also a few words given to the “ability of the player to set an enemy alight causing them to burn”, though it notes that this is infrequent.
The board marked the usage of the words “fuck”, and a lot less frequently, “cunt”. It also talks of a cut scene where a drug dealer “is depicted implicitly, then explicitly, snorting lines of white powder (implied to be cocaine) from a table”.
It also looks like prostitution got through unscathed, with the OFLC stating “when picking up a prostitute, the player is depicted in a car where he parks and honks the horn. The woman enters the car and the camera angle switches to the view of the number plate. While the car is visibly moving up and down, only audio cues are heard”.
Fascinating, indeed, but what is more interesting is what the report doesn’t mention.Yes, it’s that scene that was rumoured to have been removed from our version of the game before the OFLC could see it. The scene is more than explicit enough that Rockstar would have been forced to show it as part of the sample of the most extreme and questionable sections of the game. Since we posted the rumour, Rockstar has broken its silence and stated it as “untrue”, yet the report quite clearly contradicts this.
In fact, the words “anus”, “bum, “butt” or “buttocks” don’t appear at all. Neither does “sodomise”. So if the board didn’t see it, where did it go?
Don’t you think it’s about time the publisher was honest with us?
UPDATE: Another possibility is that the scene itself was cut from or not present in any edition, and hence what Rockstar meant about it being untrue. Sadly, it wasn’t very specific at all on this point and has so far been unwilling to reply to my request for more detail. We may just have to wait until enough people have played the game here and overseas to narrow down what was cut.
Rowr
April 17, 2008 at 8:20 PM
*sigh*
This is ridiculous.
Report PermalinkCs
April 17, 2008 at 11:02 PM
Wait Wait Wait Gta 4 has not been banned in Australia and it also has not been refused classification its rated Ma15+. The Uk version (full version) was not sent for classification so it could not have been Refused classification as they haven’t classified it.
That took a lot of class..ification :)
Report PermalinkBonza
April 18, 2008 at 4:21 AM
Here’s a thought, could the fact that Rockstar is keeping ultra hush hush on exactly what has been removed from the Australian version of the game be so that they don’t affect sales in Aus as much as they would by just telling us what’s missing?
Seems to me like a nice old case of greed, (being as how we can import games for almost half the price from the US…)
Report PermalinkV1L3
April 18, 2008 at 7:13 AM
Annoying as it is, it’s pretty obvious why Rockstar is keeping its big mouth shut.
Remember the sex scene from Mass Effect? Or the Hot Coffee scenes that 98% of GTA players never actually saw?
The second you call attention to something in your game (even if it was cut), people and new outlets will take it out of context and run flashing red headlines. Plus if something “important” was cut, game websites would all but call for a boycott, which (whilst understandable) is not exactly good business practice.
Anyway, back to guesswork: “It also looks like prostitution got through unscathed”
Weren’t there also scenes in a strip club involving lap dances and implied oral sex? Or was that part of the “picking up prostitutes?” Not that any of that was likely to be cut, unless Rockstar added in a scene involving guns or a baseball bat… Not that Rockstar would EVER do that..
Report PermalinkDONAR
April 18, 2008 at 5:19 PM
@Mick
Kudos man. You pretty much said it all for me.
;)
Report PermalinkChris James
April 23, 2008 at 8:54 AM
Will trade a copy of the NZ OFLC report for the Aussie one.
Report PermalinkTim
April 26, 2008 at 6:28 PM
MY friend has just received an australian version of GTA about 3 days ago that he purchased off a website.. i can tell you that you can drink drive. and get drunk and have drunk fights and pretty much do everything.. i have been told the only differences are that in the r 18+ version when you hire a prostitute you can rotate the camera so you can see the girl bouncing.. where as in the Australian MA version all you see is the back of the car.. and when you drive motor bikes.. and crash your legs and arms get dismembered or broke i cant remember which one.. and i think there are a few extra swear words and stuff like that.. i read this off xbox forum from a guy that owns the R18+ version and he says the R18+ version is supposedly a gig bigger then the australian version? well i already have my UK R18+ version shipping to me as we speakk. CANT WAIT!
Report Permalinkadam
April 30, 2008 at 7:16 PM
GTAIV’s Internet is filled with spoofs of all the kinds of Web sites that you’d only ever look at accidentally or when you know there’s no danger of getting caught. Some of them can be found only by clicking on links in spam e-mails, whereas others are advertised prominently on the search page” thats my dad works in eb games australia apparently when he reiceved the games the delevery guy sed dont bother giving 1 to your son its exactly like gta san andreas … now ive played the game 3 times now for 1 hour each time..havent seen the drink driving yet..but i know i cant use the internet yet ..on the map on http://www.gta4.net it shows the internet place its not there! mayby im in a wrong place or mayby this is true that they moved that too
Report Permalinkand most definetly it got a r18+ rating because of the sex scene and other sexual activity you can do in gta4..i recommend ordering it overseas or keeping the one in australia all da same the graphs are great ill give this game a 10/10 rating who cares about the sex bits gta is one of the best games ever made in the 21st century!
naDs
May 6, 2008 at 1:16 PM
I’m almost 1/5 of the way through GTA4, and I can tell you now that prostitution is there but it does seemed toned down and you cannot actually see Niko doing anything. Instinctively I do feel like there has been things cut from the strip clubs, drink activities and level of swearing. I have yet to come across the supposed cut scene where a pistol is inserted into someones arse or whatever, and as for the article, the OFLC probably reviewed the Australian version not the R18+ version and thats the reason why there is no mention of the cut scene. If anyone does have the proper version feel free to email me I really want to know what has actually been cut as I am considering ordering a copy from the UK and trading mine in. However in terms of gameplay GTA4 is awesome, the size and level of detail of Liberty City has to be seen to be believed, the combat system is centuries ahead of previous GTA games and driving may take a while to get used to but once you do its more enjoyable than ever.
Report PermalinkCormac
May 26, 2008 at 12:13 AM
Ive completed the game 2wice now and u can drink drive and pick up hookers in the Oz version of the game. defs 10/10 . I really wanna no wat was cut tho..
Report PermalinkRyan
May 31, 2008 at 10:33 AM
It has been revealed what was cut:
http://palgn.com.au/article.php?id=11602
I’m glad I didn’t import. The only feature that I would’ve liked to be in my version is how you can see blood appear on Niko after battles, and the pools of blood sound awesome for those big fire-fights. But meh, it’s all good =)
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