@Schoolimangooli's...: Hmmmm, reply wouldn't work for your comment.

Anyway, who cares about the rights of adults if it's "for the children".

As the late and great George Carlin once said, "Fuck the children".

deadjesterx

I still don't understand why they can't make a M18+ rating. Not only does it stiffle creativity, but the politicians just end up hurting the local economy. Rather than support local game shops they end up making a booming market for imports.

deadjesterx

I can't wait for Yahtzee's opinion on this subject, just because it'll give him one more thing to focus his unrelenting ranting upon. Weeee. Good times.

Salen

Don't you love people that don't know you deciding what you should watch?

Schoolimangooli's backpack turns into a ham sandwich!

Fuck your civil rights violations. Fuck your censorship.

I don't care if it's just one line of dialogue, I'll be importing.

elevenoverzero

Will have to see what they do change though; I was thinking of pre-ordering too

simmo

@MisterMcThursday: No, we have to get rid of one particular politician whose backwards views are getting in the way of a sensible decision.

Australia's fucked-up version of federalism makes progress on censorship (and certain other) matters nigh on impossible.

NameYourCharacter

Not interested in the altered version, but that just made importation a whole lot easier.

NameYourCharacter

I feel bad for gamers in oz, they might have it worse in other countries, but still they got it pretty bad there.

Dimipapa

@kennyd1: It's almost 11 pm in Sydney

Nilyx

Em, if it's the middle of the night in Aus, why are you awake Luke? Don't you kind of... eh, live there or whatever?

kennyd1

You fellows down under have got to get rid of your politicians.

MisterMcThursday

Just import the US PS3 version or whatnot.

UkGuru

they are only depriving themselves of decent game revenue when all the gamers import Euro or US copies

Dappa

What a load of crap, not only do aussies have to wait for the games euro release dates but they have to the games edited too

excel_excel

Hurray for internet shopping! Thee save me money and give me better goods.

Nilyx

gta4 and now this. prices in aus are also crazy. import ftw.

kitsuneconundrum

Well it would be nice to see what's been changed, but if I was Austrailian I'd be happy that I get to play it, albeit an edited version, rather than not at all.

Arnold Rimmer's Garden Strimmer

Please do. I'm always curious about censorship revisions since they happen so frequently in the US. Bionic Commando, Breath of Fire IV, La Pucelle, etc.

I wonder what else they changed.

WittyUserName

I prefer having something over nothing, but I would have preferred if the developers would just stop bowing to the will of Helen Lovejoy-Atkinson.

TrjnRabbit

Australia's the worst country to be a gamer in.

Heck, we still don't even have Rock Band 1 yet.

anarchron

You win this time Mr. Plunkett >:(

okenny :) ...building bridges (to hide under)

@AcidCrownie:
Unfortunately, because of one backwards person who has drawn a lot of heat for his idiocy, it's either okay for 15+ or not okay at all. There is no 18+ option because apparently that would allow more inappropriate content in which children might be able to (illegally) get their hands on.

Don't ask me how the logic there works, because nobody aside from Atkinson seems to and he might not even really get it.

TrjnRabbit

So wait, they say the game isn't suitable for the country, let alone the 18+. Now with a few simple name changes (still not sure on what they did, though.) they say it's safe for FIFTEEN+??? Understand, I do not.

AcidCrownie

Man...Aussies got it rough. I feel for you down under.

Rebochan

Cool.

Maherr

Hrm. I wonder if there will be a patch downloadable from the internets that turn the ultraviolence back up to 11?

Once the game is out in a "safe" version, would .au freak out about patches the same way the USA does?

ThatGuyOverThere

Fuck Australia and its censorship.

fl3tcher

@TrjnRabbit: Yeah, I've heard that. Honestly, sounds like that guy needs to be fired, fast.

Ashkihyena

wounder if they are aloud to watch Trainspotting

killy_spark

Oh great, last time this occurred with GTAIV we got the edited version as well in New Zealand. Not that it was a big deal really, but still...we do have R18!

I feel bad for Aussie of course, but I wants my unedited fun!

Tystarr

Sigh,

Only one Pollie to go. Then, we, As one, can stand up against the tyranny that is known as the Australian Government, and fight. Fight like we have never fought before. Tooth and nail, axe to the grind. And so on.

But seriously, we only need to change the views of one man, to allow an R18+ rating for adults to purchase games.
Simple solution for people who are underage from buying the game? ID checks, they do it in the pub. It's not difficult, and it only takes a few seconds extra during the sale. It should be mandatory already!

Games have changed since the original legislation was created - it is outdated, Archaic even.

We need to convince Michael Atkinson that his views need to change, and need to change NOW.

Supreme_101

@ThatGuyOverThere:

It wasn't the violence that got it Refused Classification, it was the drugs. From the OFLC guidelines on what will get you RC:

"DRUG USE
Detailed instruction in the use of proscribed drugs."

elevenoverzero

Lets just hope that New Zealand don't get the same short straw as last time around with GTA IV.

We had to have the Australian censored version here even though we had an R18 rating because somebody somewhere was too damn tight to pay the cost of having it cleared for NZ seperately...its bad enough living next to the Aussies without having to suffer there pathetic lack of appropriate ratings for video games as well!!

For the record I'm not a Kiwi but there's nothing like banding together with the locals....

Motardboy

@Supreme_101 wrote: "We need to convince Michael Atkinson that his views need to change, and need to change NOW."

It's not going to happen. He's basically said that there is no way he will change his mind, even though he concedes that there is sense behind the push for an R18+ rating. He's behaving irrationally and he's proud of it.

Remember, this is the guy who proposed a bill to censor the Internet in South Australia (to get rid of anything that he deemed "offensive"). He's a loon. Yet he apparently has enough political influence to keep his position.

Marlor

Torrent/Import games from overseas. Luckily blu-ray has only 3 regions and its fairly board.

togenshi

@MisterMcThursday: Actually it's just the one Attorney General that's the problem.

I'm still going to import a copy, then take a video of myself drinking a coffee, smoking a cigarette, applying a patch, taking a painkiller and injecting some insulin or saline and send it to the douchebag.

Apparently he has no problem with those sorts of drugs...

r1nce

Two words. Play Asia.

Dr Terror

The Rudd administration has a severe case of yellow fever (wiki Kevin Rudd and you'll see what I mean). They're starting out slowly by refusing to allow the R+18 game classification. Next year the Internet in Oz will be censored and it'll raise the already-expensive internet access prices. To add insult to injury, the government is going to have a nationwide FTTN rollout that'll put Telstra back in the monopoly game. The only thing left for Australia to do is to start detaining journalists, run over people at city squares, stomp over human rights, and fund African militants. Then they can start painting their flags red and add a hammer and a sickle on the upper right corner.

And that, my friends, is the People's Republic of Australia. Stay tuned for its completion in the near-future.

garytek

Well at least I can now import without much worry regarding it being stopped at customs.

RaptorShadow

@garytek wrote: " The Rudd administration has a severe case of yellow fever (wiki Kevin Rudd and you'll see what I mean). They're starting out slowly by refusing to allow the R+18 game classification."

No, actually they've been spearheading the attempt to get an R18+ rating. Robert McClelland has been especially active in this regard.

It's Michael Atkinson who is blocking it. He's the SA Attorney General, and is from the extreme right fringes of the ALP. He's refused to see sense, despite massive lobbying from the Federal ALP and the games industry.

And I can't believe someone used the phrase "yellow fever". Who are you? Pauline Hanson?

Marlor

Hehe, they don't even have to import from America. AUS's neighbor, New Zealand, has had R18 rating for video games for years, and I doubt that those neighbors are on different regions.

Barring that (correct me if I'm wrong), Austraila and Europa are lumped together as part of the PAL region, so 360 games from the UK should work there as well.

RawSteelUT

@elevenoverzero: Which is another reason Mr. Atkinson is wrong here. In any sensible region of the world, the violence would have been enough to warrant the game a sterner rating. However, since the OFLC has to at least do some compromising in order to even HAVE a game industry in Austraila, we get games like this and Prey, grossly violent, getting the equivalent of a Teen rating.

RawSteelUT