An artist's depiction of what Australian gamers can expect from Left 4 Dead 2
Left 4 Dead 2 has been approved for release in Australia by the OFLC after removing much of the gore present in the original submission, according to Edge.com.
The OFLC let the game through with an MA 15+ rating after fairly significant editing, with the quote in Edge’s article saying that it has removed “depictions of decapitation, dismemberment, wound detail and piles of dead bodies lying about the environment.” The items that cause such effects, which include chain saws and fire axes, remain in the game as usable weapons.
Non-Australian gamers who fear that the worldwide release will be similarly bowderlized don’t need to worry. According to G4 (who themselves are cribbing from a variety of sources), only the Australian release will be censored in such a fashion, so everyone else can hack the rabid undead into bloody giblets to their heart’s content. In fact, even this bit of censorship is technically up in the air at this point. Valve’s appeal to have the gorier version of L4D2 will come under review on October 22, and if it goes through a free patch will be released to add the juicy parts back in (unless we’re talking about the XBox 360 version, maybe–see the G4 article).
The reasons behind Valve’s blasé response to this whole mess–the one I unprofessionally used to say that Valve didn’t have a backbone in my last post on this issue–becomes more understandable considering that the company predicts that the title will be the “fastest-selling product in the company’s history,” based on pre-orders.
Play No Evil 