Fallout 3 Edited Version To Hit Australian Shelves

UgLyPuNk contributes this excerpt from Internode Games Network, which might interest Australian readers in particular: "Just last week, we told you that Fallout 3 had been resubmitted to the Classifications Board, in the hope that it would be deemed suitable for Australian audiences. While the Classifications Board can take between a few days and a few weeks to hand down their decision — it seems that the edits made to the Bethesda Softworks title have been successful, with the second edition of the game granted a new MA15+ rating this afternoon. We don't yet have the details of the decision, but are currently finding out just what was changed in the game in order to secure the new rating — and release in this country."

Comments

nannies

[Plantain]

All in game characters have been replaced with nannies trying to feed you the Australian bottle of ignorance.

Re:nannies

[fostware]

Actually, I can understand their point of view...

What I can't understand is why they don't just allow the R18+ (like movies) and be done with it.

They still have the power to refuse classification if it's featuring illegal or seriously freaky shit.

European versions of FO1 and FO2

[Enderandrew]

The European versions of FO1 and FO2 were edited/censored to remove the ability to kill children. I'm not necessarily a proponent of censorship, but it wasn't like the game was really missing anything.

The Bethesda games (Arena, Daggerfall, Morrowind, Oblivion) don't feature kids because you can kill anyone in game.

I wonder how this was handled with FO3.

Re:European versions of FO1 and FO2

[Loibisch]

That wasn't all that was cut out. In the uncensored version if you were blasting some enemy from short distance you would get a lot of splatter effects (from bullets spraying out their backside). This was cut from the German release and critical hits were as bloodless as non-critical hits (as far as I can remember).

Re:European versions of FO1 and FO2

[Zaphenath]

There was an interview with Todd Howard I saw where he says that there are children in the game, but you can't kill them. I guess that is for the best because do we really need FOX News plastering images of children exploding into bloody pieces on TV? Us videogamers have a bad enough rap as it is, what with our penchant for "cop killer simulators"...

Re:European versions of FO1 and FO2

[Spatial]

Fuck 'em. You say that like they'll actually take it into account, but pandering to those retards isn't going to do us any good. They'll always find something to moan about because it's some new kind of media, they're always 'bad'. The truth doesn't matter to them. Meanwhile, we'll be stuck with our kid-friendly happy touchy feely games even though gamers have an average age of 35 god damn years old.

Killing children was never an objective in the game, if you did it people hated you. They hunted you down and killed you. It added to the game's "shit happens and it happens bad" atmosphere; children die in movies all the time because it's emotionally powerful. Nobody would complain if it were any other medium but a computer game.

post-apocalyptic RPGs

[nomadic]

I'd rather see Wasteland 2. It's been 20 years, don't we get a sequel yet??

Re:post-apocalyptic RPGs

[Yvan256]

Nope. All the NPCs died from nuclear radiation.

The edition is actually in the title

[Yvan256]

Since Australians are upside-down, they had to change the title to "Climbout 3".

Which broke several quests and caused problems

[Moraelin]

The European versions of FO1 and FO2 were edited/censored to remove the ability to kill children. I'm not necessarily a proponent of censorship, but it wasn't like the game was really missing anything.

I've played both the US version and the censored German version, and the censored problem had a few more problems. They hadn't only removed the ability to kill children, they had removed all children from the game outright.

Which now caused a few quests to be broken. E.g., you couldn't find the kid in the well, because there was no kid.

Some things were removed so brutally that it caused even more bugginess than the game had anyway. E.g., at the vault in the north-east, the kid with the doll was missing, but his idle chat would keep happening, because the game script thought he's still there.

Some of the alternate ways to solve other stuff also got broken in the process. E.g., once you got to the next town, now you couldn't have that kid's wrench.

So I'm not saying it was necessarily fatal, but saying that it's not really missing anything... is a bit mis-leading too, IMHO.

Re:Purchase? Pirate!

[Creepy]

not necessarily pirate - mod it with files from other countries like I've done with many European games that have been edited for US markets by major publishers.

Re:Purchase? Pirate!

[illumin8]

Then again, social responsibility may encourage them to boycott the australian release, causing the game to have horrible sales in australia, but phenomenal sales everywhere else in the world... that might make the publisher put some pressure on the classification board, and get them to change their policies.

Better yet, the publisher should just refuse to release in a country that wants to censor content. Then when enough bootleg copies flood the market from overseas the ratings board might realize how ridiculous it is trying to protect their children from little 1s and 0s floating around on the internet...