The Ozzies wouldn't want a bloody one, would they?
The Reservoir Dogs video game, which we covered at E3 2006, has been banned in Australia.
The problem stems from Australian censors still not having an 18+ age rating for video games, and seeing as the majority of the game is faithful to Quentin Tarrantino’s brutal and bloody film, the game can’t be rated as a 15+.
Rather bizarrely, you can stroll into a shop in Australia and buy the actual film, complete with ear lopping, cop killing and slow, bloody deaths with no problem at all as films have an 18+ classification bracket.
This oversight in video games rating has been raised as an issue before, but Australian government has been slow to do anything about it, claiming that the lack of an 18 rating is helping prevent minors gain access to violent games.
The game was due to be published by Atari in Australia and this is the second time Atari have run foul of the censors. Mark Ecko’s Getting up: Contents Under Pressure was banned earlier this year on the grounds that it promoted vandalism.
You can bet that the OFLC, (Office of Film and Literature Classification), the Australian censorship board, aren’t going to be too fussed about pushing for a higher rating category for Reservoir Dogs. If they feel a game about spray painting is too strong for the Ozzie public, you can bet a game about shooting your way out of a failed robbery is, in their eyes, even worse.
Oddly, games such as Far Cry, Quake 4, F.E.A.R. and even Grand Theft Auto have previously been sold in Australia, though GTA too eventually ran into trouble.
