Australian AvP Ban Reversed 71
Earlier this month, we discussed news that Sega's new Aliens vs. Predator video game had been refused classification in Australia, effectively banning it. After a scathing response from the developer saying they wouldn't censor the game, and later news that the classification scheme may be updated to include an R18+ rating, it now seems that the Classification Board has seen fit to give the game a green light after all. Sega's Darren Macbeth told Kotaku, "We are particularly proud that the game will be released in its original entirety, with no content altered or removed whatsoever. This is a big win for Australian gamers. We applaud the Classification Review Board on making a decision that clearly considers the context of the game, and is in line with the modern expectations of reasonable Australians."
Re:A big win for gamers? (Score:3, Informative)
The original AvP (in terms of PC fpses, I mean) was a pretty poor effort, yes. It suffered from having no real storyline to its (shockingly short) campaigns, and from the Alien and Predator campaigns being frustrating exercises in jump puzzles and "find the one piece of wall that's textured slightly differently, meaning you can break it".
I thought that despite running on what was a crummy engine even by the standards of the time, AvP2 was a good bit better. They pulled together a very solid and atmospheric Marine campaign for it, even if the Alien and Predator campaigns were still total rubbish. It did a lot of stuff right, though; creeping through a darkened colony as a Marine, while watching for the telltale pings on your motion tracker was really quite scary.
The upcoming game does have some potential, therefore, even if the previews haven't exactly been ecstatic. But what I really want is the (much delayed, possibly vaporware) "Aliens: Colonial Marines" squad-based shooter that's allegedly in the pipeline. Take the B-movie fodder Predator out of the picture, confine the game to the marine perspective and really focus on making the experience terrifying and, with a decent technology base, you could have a very effective game indeed.
Re:We must protect the kids by letting them play t (Score:5, Informative)
From my understanding, the lack of an F18+ rating is entirely the fault of a single legislator.
Re:A big win for gamers? (Score:4, Informative)
AvP is one of the worst games I've had the displeasure of playing. Through dumb luck Australians have been able to avoid direct exposure to it, but now with its full scale release in Oz that utopia is gone.
Save your money. Get a better game.
There have been a number of AvP games now... And while I can certainly make a guess as to which one you're referring... You seem to think there's only one out there.
There was Alien vs Predator [wikipedia.org] on the Atari Jaguar [wikipedia.org] - which I never played.
Then there was Aliens versus Predator [wikipedia.org] - which was developed by Rebellion for the PC. This game was pretty rough for an FPS at the time... But you need to realize that it was not a standard FPS title. The game introduced different vision modes for the Predator and Alien, as well as the Alien's wall-climbing ability, which were all fairly revolutionary at the time. The storyline was pretty crap. The graphics were chunky. The campaigns were pretty short. But it still managed to deliver some real thrills in the Marine campaign.
Next up was Aliens versus Predator 2 [wikipedia.org] - again developed for the PC. This was a genuinely good game. The graphics were roughly on-par with other contemporary titles... The individual campaigns were much longer... And the storyline wove between the three campaigns nicely. I don't know that this title really did anything new and interesting - the vision modes and wall-climbing was already established... But it did everything better than the first PC game did. I had many hours of fun with this title.
And now we've got Aliens vs. Predator [wikipedia.org] on the way from SEGA for the PC. The visuals look as good as any other FPS I've seen recently. The visual modes look better than before, and they appear to have done a better job of capturing the brutality of the old movies. Ultimately I doubt if it'll be some epic feat of video game engineering... But it looks like it'll be a fun ride.
Re:So what about Left4Dead 2? (Score:1, Informative)
Okay so now we're on the topic of sex vs violence. Welcome to culture 101, where the differences in nations are made. In the US you can have ridiculously violent games, movies, and TV shows without any real issue. God forbid that you show a boobie or 3/4ths of your ass. Hop across the pond and sure, boobies are A-Okay but the violence is toned down usually.
So sure, Hot Coffee wasn't an issue in the UK. They don't have the same religious fundamentalists the US has to deal with. But that doesn't mean other things aren't censored or rights restricted that someone from another culture would object to.
Re:AvP franchise (Score:2, Informative)
Bear in mind this is the third PC iteration of Alien Vs Predator. The first was a good few years ago but (despite relatively primitive graphics by the standards of the day) was a superb FPS game. Piss scary and bastard hard in places too.
The sequel was a bit more mainstream, so not as hard but had a few innovations in too, such as the Alien game starting you out as a facehugger looking for an appropriate victim, then giving it the chestburster bit and so on.
Anyway, the first game came from the same dev house as this one, and I for one am really looking forward to it, not matter how fecking awful the movies one (although as somone else mentioned at least the sequel was appropriately violent :)
Re:We must protect the kids by letting them play t (Score:3, Informative)
You know that literature is another word for books, magazines, newspapers, comics and printed material. Kind of easier then saying books, magazines, newspapers, comics and printed material, Shiva knows that legal codes are long enough as they are.