It was banned, and now it's not. House of the Dead: Overkill - Extended Cut gets an MA15+ rating.
Like many gamers, we were more than a little miffed over last month's decision to refuse classification to House of the Dead: Overkill's Extended Cut edition. After all, it's almost impossible for the new game to be any worse the old, which was not refused classification.
Well, now it seems wiser heads have prevailed, and the game's cleared the approval process with an MA15+ rating and the warning ‘strong horror violence, strong course [sic] language’. And yes, that's straight from Sega's release*. We assume they mean 'coarse' language, though who knows - maybe the game has had every use of the word fuck replaced with the passages from training manuals.
Which could only make the game even more surreal, now that we think about it. In fact, we'd play the Incentivised Training out of that game!
“It is with great pleasure that we announce the success of our appeal. We are proud to confirm that the game will be released in Australia in its original entirety, with no content altered or removed in any way. We were confident of successfully appealing the Board’s original decision to refuse classification and appreciate that the Classification Review Board has made a decision that complies with the current guidelines and framework” said Darren Macbeth, Managing Director SEGA Australia, in the release.
*See? Mistakes do happen!
Issue: 137 | June, 2012