The Pan European Games Information (PEGI) age rating system has given Half Life 2 an R(18+) rating.This means that minors are unable to purchase the game in numerous countries like Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Greece, Italy, Norway, Spain, Sweden, and the UK. What’s really interesting about this is how the game fares in Australia. The Australian Office of Film & Literature Classification (OFLC) has yet to classify Half Life 2, but if the board follows suit from their European counterparts, it’ll mean that one of this years highly anticipated titles is banned outright from sales here. Currently, Australia has no R rating for games, so game titles need to meet the highest rating available (MA 15+) or they will be refused classification.
Keep your eyes peeled at the OFLC website to see if Half Life 2 gets rated. If there’s one game that WILL force the issue of our lousy games classification system up for serious discussion, it’s definately Half Life 2!
Personally I don’t see any reason why HL2 would be banned in Australia. The OFLC passed Doom 3 unmolested.
But then nothing would surprise me in this wacked out country. I mean we relected Howard again. :roll:
It’s called Steam Sean, or import it from America - it’s how people got GTA3 when it was taken off shelves. And it won’t happen. They’d have to have a really good reason to ban it and “realistic looking gore” isn’t one of them. ( it’s not like Gordon gets it on with Alyx or anything , right? )
You’ve got ISDN right? Maybe if you know someone that’s already got the files for preload you can get it zipped up and burnt to DVD and copy it to your PC. I’ve got 512/128 ADSL* and grabbed the Silver steam package so I’m all set to go.
*It’s an Aus thing - stop laughing you darn people with your 6MB connections.
Huh? The EU ratings have usually been lower than the US counterparts. I wonder what elements of the game they think requires a 18+ rating. I wonder if they really think the rating will keep the game out of the hands of minors. With an awaited title like HL2, every fps gamer over the age of 7 is going to get it for sure. :)
This whole thing pre-supposes that the Euro PEGI ratings are directly euqivalent to the the Aus OFLC ratings and that the censors will have the same interpretation of the material as their Euro counterparts. Unless there’s sexual material, I don’t think it will be a problem.
I’m not advocating the Steam method, but just as an FYI, you can order it over Steam now, and it will slowly start downloading it now while you are connected. Depending on how long you are online, you might get it all before it’s released, and then it just decrypts itself (Supposedly) and you can start playing.
Some joints, when they ban a game in another country, look at your Credit Card address and ban you that way. MLB.com does this for blacked out games in the U.S. So if you are in Australia you can watch our baseball over the Internet Live, but if you are in the States, you can’t. Unless you have a credit card from another country.
