As you’ve doubtlessly heard by now, South Park: Stick Of Truth is the latest game to fall foul of the Australian Classification Board due to — you guessed it — an anal probe. Rather than remove the offending content, the developers decided to get a little bit cheeky (pun intended). The results sound even more offensive than the uncut version.
Alien anal probes seem to be a bit of a sore point for our censors — who could forget the infamous Saints Row IV fiasco. Despite the passing of an R-rating for video games, the tongue-in-cheek title was refused classification until a certain rectum-probing weapon was removed.
South park: Stick Of Truth has run into the same issues, although in this case the content was made even worse by the inclusion of underage characters, as Player Attack reported. The probe weapon’s visual resemblance to an actual penis was presumably frowned upon too.
After a number of failed attempts to get the game cleared for release, Obsidian Entertainment decided to go down the satirical route, and by gosh it appears to have worked.
In the Australian edition of the game, the interactive scene is now entirely gone. It’s been replaced by text descriptions of the action, including “aliens forcibly probe your rectum with a dildo-shaped probe”, “probe his arse with violent force” and “causing his anal probe to penetrate him over and over”.
Is it just us, or are these textual descriptions far more offensive than the comical 2D animations they are replacing? It appears that our Classification Board just got unwittingly served. Well played, Obsidian.
Oh, and while the text is showing, there’s also an image of a crying Koala. Bless.
South Park: The Stick of Truth — the offensive bits [Player Attack]
Additional reporting by Luke Plunkett.
Comments
45 responses to “Did Obsidian Just ‘Punk’ The Australian Classification Board?”
God damnit classification board…why you so stupid.
Good on ’em, but I’ll still be importing.
I’m hoping the import version has the text option in it too. Might be funnier than the animated option.
Yep I’ve all but given up on local anything these days, if the prices weren’t enough to drive consumers anywhere else the constantly stupid censorship decisions by the board have.
Well when I got my US version of SRIV I didn’t suddenly want to go probing everyone, and I have a feeling that this game will have the same affect on me – but I digress, US version it is then.
This stuff has happened before. In fact, it even happened to the South Park movie. They were forced to change a scene and the title, but they changed it to something worse. Same thing happened in Family Guy. They had a joke, was refused to use that joke, then made an even worse joke and got by.
Some people just re-submitted it. I forget which game but it was re-submitted without changes and passed here in Australia. There was even a movie that was rated R for the violence, and they just re-submitted it like 12 times until it was approved, probably because they got so used to watching the violent scenes that they didn’t appear so bad.
First I’d heard about this, nice way to circumvent the censors I suppose, but more importantly I now know to import.
I’m pissed because another game got RC’d, but the crying Koala is the icing on the cake for me. That’s so good.
but I can still watch those scenes in the episodes over and over?
I’ve got to say, the way they censored it sort of makes me want to get the censored version. Sounds funnier and ‘customized’ to Australian audiences. Fact it’s to cover our backward ratings is annoying, sure, but sounds like we’re getting something unique in the process that’s not just watered down like most censored stuff. Nicely done, Obsidian.
I have zero interest in this game but I applaud Obsidian for this. Bravo, guys, I’m glad someone can stand up to our ridiculous excuse for a rating system.
+1
Well you know its not the classification boards fault, we’ll the examiner anyway. It will be whoever is in charge of the act or manual or whatever that the examiner has to adhere too, which is why changing it and making it worse in a specific way works. The examiner doesn’t care personally, they are just doing their job.
The anal probe in Saints Row IV from what I understand was banned because it was “not justified by context”. If that’s the case here then surely this has been classified incorrectly? The alien anal probe was episode one for South Park. I know Cartman is supposed to be a “9 year old” but this is rediculous. Well done to Obsidian for the response though.
LOL.
The crying koala was a damn nice touch.
I know I should be frothing, but I just don’t consider rape, on any gender or orifice, to really be something that needs to be in a game, let alone in a comedy. Rape isn’t funny. It just isn’t. And no, before people start the inevitable ‘But murder is?’ there is a huge difference between the two and on the survivors. When we take rape as an actual, happening often crime and deal with it, then they might be equal, but as things are now, mocking rape is really punching lower on the food chain. I’ve had too many friends who the police wouldn’t even talk to because if it is just ‘he said, she said’ there is no case. You walk into a police station having been shot/stabbed/whatever, they will take you seriously. Not so rape victims. Of EITHER gender. Not even going into the ‘haha you deserve it!’ of prison rape.
I think that censorship is pretty wrong, but I can really understand this getting more than ’18 only’. This is no better than the rapelay game of a few years back.
Agreed.
But i was OK with the saints row version of the joke.
Congratulations on being ‘that guy’ @mistwolf.
I’m pretty sure its inside the South Park canon contextually, why should the developers have to change anything when they design their games specifically for a “mature” audience? We can show all that stuff here on tv with an MA rating, why should we censor an R18 video game?
Over reaction much?
Your right about their being a huge difference between rape survivor and murder survivors because if you survived murder you were no longer Murdered..
It’s an anal probe. Doctors shove their fingers up your ass is that rape?
It’s a legit medical procedure and the anal probe is a running joke because a lot of rednecks claim it happens to them. I’m sure you’d like to believe its because they were raped or something but that’s you shoving it down their throats.
You like that crazy black woman who thinks white paper is racist.
The survivors of murder?
“While only a minority objects to the abortion scene, the aliens are highlighted again as a problem.”
Dammit, Tony Abbot!
How does one get a job on the Classification Board?
They only look at applicants who are “special”
P.S. “Special” means retarded.
The interviewers forcibly probe your rectum with a dildo-shaped probe with violent force over and over….until they think your ready to join the board, it may take years…… 😉
It… does sound worse. That’s another problem I find with these bodies attempting to rate things they seem to have no understanding of. I remember when Irreversible was banned without a screening because of a rape scene that completely demonized the act but was somehow interpreted differently.
I agree. The anal probe joke is running somewhat thin – I reckon I’ll get a much bigger laugh out of this blatant pisstake than I would have out of the actual scene.
I kind of wish I hadn’t read this article – knowing the context, and then seeing Obsidian’s response, would have been comedic gold. This move has Stone / Parker written all over it.
Should have been a reply to @D.C.
Animated child rape.
Wow comedy gold!
/sarcasm
Can be shown on tv under an MA rating.
/not sarcasm
I’m actually really surprised that this isn’t getting more attention.
It honestly sickens me that I know some sick fuck is probably gonna jerk it watching this.
http://imageshack.com/a/img707/4956/e4av.jpg
I’ve never understood this line of thinking. So what if some sick fuck is jerking off to it? Banning it here aint gonna do squat – that sick fuck will still find something to jerk off to. It’s such a moronic train of thought, why even go there – you’ll do ya head in for absolutely no reason.
So fucking sick of the babysitting that’s going on these days – people need to take some responsibility for their actions – instead of blaming everyone else. I’m an adult ffs i don’t need other people telling me what is and isn’t good for me to watch – i can make my own decisions thank you very much. And for all the “won’t somebody think of the children” aspect parents should be monitoring what they get up to. Lets face it if they are 10 – 15 yrs old and they want to watch this stuff they’ll find a way – 99% sure it’ll be plastered all over the internet a day after release.
So do you make the decision to watch child rape?
Implying this should even be released with this scene?
For the record CP is buried so far deep in the internet that most popular “gross out” websites wont show it.
In no way is this legally or otherwise described as sexual rape of a minor. Mostly because any reasonable person (inlcuding a moron in a hurry) understands it is for NON purient interests and also for NON REAL characters that bear little resemblance to actual humans.
If you are of the mind that you equate these images and this particular episode and scene in the game with indecent images , or as you so wrongly classify it – CP, then you really need to have a good long hard look at your self and why you might consider these images affecting you in a purient manner.
I wonder if they linked to the scene on the internet. A video of it. Whether it’d be allowed?
‘The following section of the game was refused classification. Click here to watch it on youtube”
Classification Board, the biggest slap in the face of freedom of speech cause: think of the children!
a *SPOILER ALERT* in the title would have been great. Now I will expect this scene and will be thinking about how I could also be watching the other one if only the ratings system was not out of alignment with TV and Movies.
STOP ‘CLASSIFYING’ SHIT!!! Just sell it to us already! Ignore the backwards law and just sell it to us without being put through the government censors.
Uhh… pretty sure that’s illegal if you want to sell physical copies in Australia.
And it will continue to be until someone takes a stand. The government isn’t going to magically change it because a couple of blogs make a bad comment about it. We need *real* action.
Just ignoring the law to ‘take a stand’ isn’t going to do anything either. Plus, I don’t think it’s in the developers’ interests to not be able to sell their game in the country and lose out on all the revenue just because 5 minutes of the game was removed.
Seriously, to all the people complaining, who really gives a shit if a little bit of it got changed? Do you really need to see an anal probing that much that you’re going to get worked up over stuff like this? Just play the game and enjoy it.
Cartman gets anal probed in Season 1 Episode 1 ffs.
Butters gets even more violently probed in a much later season.
Despite being from the US (yes I know it’s weird to be on the AU site leave me alone >_>) I’m actually tempted on getting this version over the non-censored one XD
Tis okay, being from the US is probably making you weird enough 😉
What would actually be funny is that since Australia is a drop in the ocean of actual sales for any gaming product (26mill people only) that these actual ‘censored’ copies will be sought out as rare copies world wide and We will buy from Overseas to get the uncensored ones whereas the opposite will happen, just to get a ‘semi-unique’ version.
Now that’s weird!