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Grand Theft Auto Still Banned Down Under
SicariusMan sent us a CNN story that talks about australia upholding the ban on GTA3. It's been
mentioned here before, but
its interesting that its gonna stick. GTA3 really is perhaps the best PS2 game out in recent memory.
I'm having a PS2 resurgance of late, beating Klonoa2, MGS2, Baldur's Gate: Dark
Alliance, and getting hooked on Jak and Daxter and Frequency. And
GTA3 is easily among the best of PS2 games. Sorry .au! At least
they probably won't ban FFX!
Am I to understand that stealing cars is illegal in Australia? How... weird.
-- If no truths are spoken then no lies can hide --
This is what we like to see. .au has seen the draconian legislation that the US and the EU have started trying to bring about and want to join in the party?
:)
Governments protecting us from playing things that are naughty.
Thought police strike again. Anyone think that
Well, as long as you can still buy pr0n, I guess that's ok
I believe that I can clear this up. Any single video game can integrate itself into a countrys culture. Perhaps the Aussie authoritys are worried that this will cause people to drive on the "wrong" side of the road
I remember from the earlier article that Australia was concerned about being able to hire prostitutes. Do your thing and then beat them up for the money.
It's probably a good thing they didn't realise you can wander around, beat someone up for their money, kill the paramedic when he arrives, steal the ambulance and then mow down prostitutes by the dozen. All in the privacy of your own home!
Consider this from the CNN article (And I've seen it before):
The OFLC was firm on the point that the game would not allowed in Australia, saying "if you have already purchased a game you will need to contact your retailer about return procedures."
Are people who purchased the game before the ban now expected to return it? Exactly how many Aussies are going to return what is essentially a collector's item in their country?
STOP MISUSING APOSTROPHES, YOU MORONS!!!
I mean isn't Australia just a big island full of convicts? Funny how now they seem to be so strict. I wonder if someone gets arrested for having that game, are they going to ship them to the UK?
~ now you know
Ture the gamplay and replay value are pretty damn good, even a descent storyline. But, copkilling games and those with other criminal content will always attract publicity and bans. Remember "Postal". It was the same thing, at the time it had great graphics and a high replay value (especially the marching band level). Anyway, don't think for a second that this will be a negitive for the game publisher, its just an added plus to help sell the game in the US and UK. Hey, I played through GTA, Max Payne, and Spycraft. I can't say that I'm a better person for playing them. I would never want my child to come in contact with that shit just for someone else's entertainment.
"Get them before they get....
On a serious note, I lived in Australia (Newtown, NSW) in 1992 for about 7 months. When watching TV, I started to notice you really didn't see violence but man 'o man did you see breasts! While I was there, the movie "Ten" w/ Bo Derek was shown on their equivilent of NBC. In America, they cut out all the nudity scenes. In Australia, they actually had more than the original movie had! Special Director's Cut for Australia. What a great country! Great beer, beautiful women and those cool, lickable toads.
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
I found that GTA and GTA2, while not as graphically pleasing as GTA3 looks to be, were a wonderful addition to my skill set. Not only do I now know how to go on a "Kiiiiillll FRENZY!", but I also know how to hotwire most major makes of car, from the unimposing Ford Fiesta, to the ever-popular Tank!
These sorts of skills are very important to an aspiring criminal mastermind, such as me. And why work so hard for a Cisco or MSCE certification? They cost so much more! For only $49.95 (before tax), you too can learn the same skill sets I now have.
I'm just wondering if GTA3, with all it's new-fangled '3D' graphics is really worth the investment in my future. I mean, I already know how to highjack cars and kill random people. Do I really need to know how to interact with the mob? Please help me decide slashdot!
Okay, what you have is a society whose government has decided that it doesn't want video games that make carjacking and other violent mayhem seem like a fun idea.
From a moral standpoint, that's actually kind of healthy.
Where it starts to get iffy is when this sort of ban is actually symptomatic of a bigger problem, in which the government is trying to make their entire population goosestep and a commercial ban on violent games is only one such restriction imposed, in parallel with other restrictions like clampdowns on information or restricted free political speech.
For instance, if the US were to ban counterstrike servers that didn't automatically put bots on the terrorist team, I'd be pretty freaked out. And you can bet this is something that will come further down the line if Ashcroft et al. don't get their powers checked.
But I've never heard of Australia being a society with a reputation of doing this sort of thing to its population. Now, I'm not saying that this isn't happening there per se, I may just be ignorant of it, and an Aussie contribution on this issue would definitely be valuable.
But what I'm thinking is that we shouldn't necessarily be taking this in the same vein as if a North American government were imposing such a restriction. You might disagree, but I think that the censorship is only a problem when it comes close to stifling dissent against the powers that be, as opposed to just trying to promote a little bit of morality and decency. Yes, I know that the line is easily blurred, but is it blurred here?
Just my two cents.
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Bleah! Heh heh heh... BLEAH BLEAH!!! Ha ha ha ha...
The article says that the maker of the game is trying to make a new version of the game for distribution in Australia in Jan 2002.
How are they gonna pull that off??? Remove the guns, prostituts, organized crime, etc.... what are you left with??? Crazy Taxi????
"We should all (I mean, the Western World) boycott Australia for all the censorship and banning."
Now, should I make a comment about how the (stereo)typical American that knows nothing about the rest of the world, or point out that Australia is generally considered as part of the west, at least in a political sense?
"I mean, how many millions of dollars do we leave there through tourism? If we stopped going, then they would feel a drop in their income."
Do you really think that international tourism hasn't dropped already? This little thing happened, something to do with planes. About 3 months ago. You may have heard about it on the TV.
Besides, tourism may be a large industry, but it's hardly the be all and end all. And since September 11, domestic tourism has grown quite a bit...
"And of course, we should also stop going to the theatres or renting movies like Cocodrile Dundee."
We? The USA collective again?
Believe me, as an Australia, I would love nothing more then for people like you to stop watching bullshit like Crocodile Dundee. That movie shows less about the 'average' Australian as a old west movie does about the 'average' American.
While i'm at it: I have never seen a koala. I have never seen a crocodile. I have could probably count the amount of times I've seen a kangaroo with one hand.
Yes, videogame censorship sucks. But this won't stick anyway. It hasn't before, and it won't now. The censoring of TV, movies, and games is getting overhauled now. GTA will probably get a harsh rating under the new system. Whatever. I'd prefer to have to download a copy of some game off the internet to having a government body like the FBI installing spyware and destroying my privacy.
All well, you've read all this now. Go back to thinking that everyone in Australia is like that pathetic Crocodile Hunter show. I guess your fantasies are more fun then the real world.
Assuming you live where your whois records say, you aren't qualified to comment on other nation's beer output, I'm afraid ;-)
"don't fall into the fallacy of believing that Perl can solve social problems. Maybe Perl 6 can, but that's a ways off"
Offer to buy the UK version for them and mail that. The game has not been banned in the UK, the UK version is PAL and thus compatable with most Aussie TVs and the regional encoding system (for PS2 games) is set so that the UK and Australia are the same region, so people in Australia can play the UK version without problem.
Of course, if you live in the UK then its less hassle. Or New Zealand -- I understand that many Aussies are importing from NZ.
STOP MISUSING APOSTROPHES, YOU MORONS!!!
Yes, you can pick up a prostitute. Yes, you can kill (and rob) her or anyone else. Yes, if you push R2-R2-L1-R2-Left-Down-Right-Up-Left-Down-Right-Up you'll get every weapon possible, including a rocket launcher you can use to take down the police helicopter(s) that will eventually arrive. Yes, you can light people on fire with a flamethrower. Yes, when the national guard comes it is possible to steal their tank and drive around the city crushing things.
.AU here; this game was pulled from stores in America too and it's only back now because they've been forced to tone it down a bit.
By the fact that the game is selling, it's pretty clear that people WANT to play this kind of game. The government is supposedly there to serve the people (according to Jefferson, governments are created to protect our inalienable rights). How does taking something away serve them? The few people who are unable to tell a game from reality, and who go on GTA-style killing sprees in the real world as a result of this game, are probably lunatics anyway who would've eventually snapped anyway. Why shouldn't I (and my reality-and-games distinguishing friends) be allowed to play this game now?
A side note, however: Lets not just focus on
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The way to see by faith is to shut the eye of reason. --Ben Franklin
Re: open-endedness. Why not ban the Sims too? I mean, I can wall people in in my bathroom and chuckle gleefully over their cries for help as they slowly starve to death.
Or pause the game when a Sim is swimming, remove the ladder from the pool and then watch as they tire and drown.
Seems to me that this sort of mayhem is much more within the reach of the average consumer (vs. obtaining rocket-propelled grenades and high-powered sniper rifles).
I wish I had a kryptonite cross, because then you could keep Dracula and Superman away.