Australia vs Aliens vs Predator
posted Saturday Dec 19, 2009 by Scott Ertz
A few weeks ago we told you about Alien vs Predator being banned in Australia. Although ridiculous, not a terribly shocking story considering the string of games that have recently met similar fates (Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, Left 4 Dead 2). Here is where the story gets interesting: Australia's Ratings Board has retracted their ruling.
Why is this such a big deal, you may ask. The reason is this is the first time since F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origins that this has happened. Here is their explanation for the retraction:
The violence is fantastical in nature and justified by the context of the game, set in a futuristic science-fiction world, inhabited by aliens and predators. This context serves to lessen its impact. The more contentious violence is randomly generated and is not dependent on player selection of specific moves.
Now, I have seen a lot of gameplay for the game, and it is pretty gruesome. In fact, anyone who knows anything about the Predator knows what to expect in the game. But it's too unrealistic to be a problem, even though you are the "bad guy" doing the killing. As opposed to L4D2 where you are the good guy protecting yourself from imaginary monsters, but that one was too realistic to leave in its original context.
What this all ends up doing is proving to anyone with half a brain that the ratings board is screwed up and the whole thing needs to be scrapped and tried again. It is the only way to ensure there is no leftover holdout of crazy.
