I could probably write a thesis on why censorship of an R-rated game makes no sense, so i'm going to summerise it into a list of points.
1) Everything else in Australian has an R classification, from books (more comics then books), right through to music and movies, we know by this that its not the principle of "Violence is Bad" that the government hates, its the fact that they are pretty much spastics.
2) If anything, R movies should be banned rather than games, violence in a game context is much easier to notice, where as to days movies, it can be very difficult to tell whats fake and what isn't, this problem doesn't come up with games (unless your blind, in which case u cant play games or watch movies)
3) I think we can all agree that games have got about as violent as they are ever going to get, from slicing up people with the Lancer in Gears of War, to the head splattering glory of the new Saw game, both of these games see violence up the ass, as well as plenty others, another point is that both these games are violent towards what are clearly human characters, but Left 4 Dead 2 has been condemned by the Australian government as a gory splatter fest, calling the games violence "Heavy and Unrelenting", my answer to this is a big "WHO GIVES A SHI*", so the violence has been ramped up a bit from L4D1 to L4D2, it still looks basically the same, and occurs just as often, except for the pipe bomb explosions, and all they did was make it 50 times more awesome.
Although I think censorship in general makes no sense, it was the eventual violence trimming in L4D2 that prompted me to write this lengthy thread, i've experienced both the R rated and the MA version of the game, and the MA version is a complete and utter joke, after 1 day of trying the demo on steam i quickly got a refund on my pre-order, and am now in the stage of faking my way to a UK copy, email me at pudge_player1110@yahoo.com.au if you too want a guide on how to get a UK copy of the game via steam.
1) Everything else in Australian has an R classification, from books (more comics then books), right through to music and movies, we know by this that its not the principle of "Violence is Bad" that the government hates, its the fact that they are pretty much spastics.
2) If anything, R movies should be banned rather than games, violence in a game context is much easier to notice, where as to days movies, it can be very difficult to tell whats fake and what isn't, this problem doesn't come up with games (unless your blind, in which case u cant play games or watch movies)
3) I think we can all agree that games have got about as violent as they are ever going to get, from slicing up people with the Lancer in Gears of War, to the head splattering glory of the new Saw game, both of these games see violence up the ass, as well as plenty others, another point is that both these games are violent towards what are clearly human characters, but Left 4 Dead 2 has been condemned by the Australian government as a gory splatter fest, calling the games violence "Heavy and Unrelenting", my answer to this is a big "WHO GIVES A SHI*", so the violence has been ramped up a bit from L4D1 to L4D2, it still looks basically the same, and occurs just as often, except for the pipe bomb explosions, and all they did was make it 50 times more awesome.
Although I think censorship in general makes no sense, it was the eventual violence trimming in L4D2 that prompted me to write this lengthy thread, i've experienced both the R rated and the MA version of the game, and the MA version is a complete and utter joke, after 1 day of trying the demo on steam i quickly got a refund on my pre-order, and am now in the stage of faking my way to a UK copy, email me at pudge_player1110@yahoo.com.au if you too want a guide on how to get a UK copy of the game via steam.
