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Left 4 Dead 2 Approved In Australia After Edits
Last month we discussed news that Valve's upcoming shooter Left 4 Dead 2 had been denied classification in Australia, which meant the game could not be legally sold there. Now, after a series of edits which removed "considerable amounts of gore from gameplay," Australia's classification board has given the game an MA15+ rating. Their new report (PDF) says, "No wound detail is shown and the implicitly dead bodies and blood splatter disappear as they touch the ground. ... The board notes that the game no longer contains depictions of decapitation, dismemberment, wound detail or piles of dead bodies lying about the environment." The unmodified version of the game may still be approved, pending a review that concludes on October 22nd.
I hate zombie movies. I love Left4Dead.
It's the panic that makes the game - you can't stand still for a second. If you don't keep watching your teammates, one of them will be picked off (and even one man down is a serious hindrance). It's a constant frenzy of trying to get to your teammates / the end of the level but being pulled, pushed, influenced, taken, steered and forced to make diversions. The zombie gore isn't *necessary* but the atmosphere is quite immersive. The sound of a big baddie scares the crap out of you and the atmosphere being like that means the panic sets in quicker.
There is nothing quite like seeing a horde of crazed zombies rushing towards you and you having to pick your options to take them out... barricade yourselves in? Set them on fire? Take potshots and hope to reduce their numbers? Full-out automatic fire? Concentrate on the big baddie about the corner? It's as much a tactical game as it is a FPS shooter - most kicks from public servers will be of people who *aren't* following the teamplan. But the gore is just a natural part of the atmosphere. If you remove it - still a good game, but no atmosphere.
The trouble is - Valve have a history of putting out really really awesome games. They do this by meticulously honing every single detail to perfection. By forcing them to change the game, our censors have forced us to play a game that isn't as good as Valve tried to make it.
The sheer fucking ARROGANCE of the concept of a ratings board playing a game and then banning it is what I find the most disgusting. I don't want to play a 95% version of L4D2 because some people in my country decided that, while THEY weren't harmed from playing it, would DEFINITELY cause harm to others who can't help themselves.
It's not just bloodthirst - purely from a gameplay perspective, to have a good FPS you NEED a good visual response to a hit in order to be able to move to the next target. It's all part of that large bag of things that make a FPS "feel" right, along with things like acceleration speed and jump height. If you get the little details wrong, everything feels wrong.
Though, even if it WAS pure bloodthirst that made me want the game left as-is, why would that mean anyone in the country stop me from playing whatever the fuck I want? Leave me the fuck alone.
Ayjay on Fedang