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    The country of Australia is located on Earth's Southern Hemisphere.

    Australia set to finally get R18+ rating

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    Da_Madness

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    #1  Edited By Da_Madness

    While the states have been screwing around it's finally going to go to federal parlament!
     
    NEWS ARTICLE HERE

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    Mars_Cleric

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    #2  Edited By Mars_Cleric

    Just saw this on the news.

    It's about bloody time.

    Hopefully I'll be able to get my Mortal Kombat on now, but I'm not sure they will reclassify games that have been refused classification.

    ABC article

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    samfo

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    #3  Edited By samfo

    Hopefully now I won't get sent to prison for importing mortal kombat

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    captain_clayman

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    #5  Edited By captain_clayman

    fiiiiiiiinally shit.

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    probablytuna

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    #7  Edited By probablytuna

    It's been a good day for us all. Except probably the ACL.

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    Mars_Cleric

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    #8  Edited By Mars_Cleric

    @ShaggyPolarBear:

    I didn't want to risk getting games confiscated at customs. But I heard of loads of people order Mortal Kombat from New Zealand and nothing happened.

    Yeah, also thanks to Brendan O'Connor. Cheers mate.

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    Mars_Cleric

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    #9  Edited By Mars_Cleric

    @akiz_jack said:

    It's been a good day for us all. Except probably the ACL.

    maybe they're just annoyed because they want another Bible Adventures game

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    Mars_Cleric

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    #11  Edited By Mars_Cleric

    @ShaggyPolarBear:

    So should I still hide drugs in the box or...?

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    Da_Madness

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    #12  Edited By Da_Madness
    @Mars_Cleric: I'll get you a body board bag for that...
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    Captain_Insano

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    #13  Edited By Captain_Insano

    Hopefully NSW's resistance doesn't screw this up (although they're still willing to review it), either way the Federal govt. said they would circumvent this if needed. I'm glad someone in politics finally realised that this stupid issue should be resolved.

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    mnzy

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    #14  Edited By mnzy

    And Gears 3 will be uncut in Germany. The others were not even released.
    It's getting better, people!

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    mrfizzy

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    #15  Edited By mrfizzy

    @ShaggyPolarBear said:

    @Mars_Cleric: Yeah man I really think customs is more worried about other things than a RC video game. You'd be alright.

    OK this is just ridiculous, it was NEVER illegal for us to import the games, the law only said it was illegal for a retailer to sell them. Owning those games is not and never was illegal.

    As for the new laws, hurrah, about damn time. Now lets all move the hell onto to some more important political issues, not the least of which is the Internet "Filter"...

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    Mars_Cleric

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    #16  Edited By Mars_Cleric

    @mrfizzy:

    I never said it was illegal to own it, however it may be seized by customs if you try to import it.

    "Generally, you can import into Australia any film, computer game or publication that has been classified. However, material that has been classified RC (refused classification) cannot be imported into Australia.

    ...

    Material that is imported is subject to assessment by Customs. Material that is considered to be objectionable or has been refused classification is a restricted import and requires permission to be imported. These types of goods may be detained or seized by Customs."

    Information for importation from the Attorney-General's department website.

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    shiftymagician

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    #17  Edited By shiftymagician

    Thank fucking god.

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    TheUnsavedHero

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    #18  Edited By TheUnsavedHero

    Congrats. You Aussies should be pumped.

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    korolev

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    #19  Edited By korolev

    Great. Thanks. Now all that remains is to destroy the censorship board once and for all! Did you know that during the late 90's (Under the leadership of Prime Minister John Howard), our censorship board tried to ban any pornography that featured adult women with small breasts, for the reason, I kid you not, that they might look a little like children and a paedophile might derive some enjoyment out of watching it? Luckily, the public got wind of this and the censorship board (tactfully named the Classification Board, which doesn't give any hint towards its propensity to ban stuff) was embarrassed into reversing the decision - because, quite obviously, just because a woman has small breasts does not mean she is a child. But the fact that they tried is disgusting enough.

    There have been other nutty things our classification board has tried to do in the past: It's tried to ban "Lady Chatterley'sLover", a ridiculously tame romance novel from the UK because it depicted an affair. This was in the 19-freaking-70's. Any books that tried to make an argument for euthanasia, a touchy subject with the Australian Government, were also banned, and, get this, any media that tried to mention the ban was itself banned! That's right! Not only did our lovely classification board try to ban books it didn't like, it tried to ban anyone discussing the fact that it had banned books that it didn't like! That's some 1984 style crap right there!

    As the years go by and the old fogies die of old age or slip into senility, the classification board has become laxer with restrictions. It usually only bans really horrid stuff. Occasionally, it can ban relatively tame things like Mortal Kombat, which, frankly, is actually pretty tame and cartoonish by today's standards. On the other hand, due to the fact that it is understaffed and populated with ageing idiots who don't want to, or can't, play video games, some other games that should have been banned, have gotten through. I mean, Prototype, a game in which you eat and devour civilians for health and massacre soldiers was released over here in Australia - no problem at all. Yet a game like Fallout 3, with considerably less violence, was held up because the name of one of the drugs was Morphine (the Classification board had no problem with Fallout 3 containing slavery or cannibalism in it). A game like Condemned 2, in which you stove in hobo's faces with pipes in a very grisly fashion, was allowed here with no alterations, yet the Classification board threw an absolute fit over L4D2 and how the Zombies could lose limbs and how the zombie bodies would remain, despite the fact that L4D1 had the same corpse mechanics and persistent bodies.

    Why the schizophrenic, inconsistent nature of the bans? Here's the truth: As I've mentioned before, our classification boarddoesn't play games. What it does is it asks the publisher for a list of any potentially offensive content the game might contain within it, and a few videos of the "worst" stuff that the player is allowed to do. Clever publishers and clever developers tactfully describe the content or just leave it out of the sheet, and the Classification Board is none the wiser. Dumb publishers are actually honest and tell the Board what is in the game, and as a result, stuff gets banned sometimes.

    The Board is also sort of a wuss. It won't try to take down really big games - GTAIV has drug dealing, prostitution, cop-killing, car stealing and random civilian murdering - and it wasn't challenged, because it was afraid of the outcry. But a relatively smaller game like L4D2 earned the wrath of the classification board over zombie killing. Run cars over civilians? No problem! Cut a rotting zombie's head off (which you can do in many other games that have been released here with the Board's blessing), and suddenly we've crossed a line and the game must be modified?

    So, not only is our Classification Board unwanted, unneeded and a relic from a past age, it can't even do it's job properly. It's a joke, a harmful, malicious joke. No matter which side of the debate you are on, we should all see that it needs to be scrapped.

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    korolev

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    #20  Edited By korolev

    Another inconsistency: Our Classification board demanded that Valve change L4D2 because the melee weapons could dismember the zombies. Yet it had no problem with Dead Space 2, which also has plenty of dismembering of both zombies and human corpses, and was even more violent and graphic than L4D2. The reason? There was none: The Classification board didn't play Dead Space 2, and obviously EA were clever enough to leave out the dismembering. And Fallout 3 and Fallout New Vegas allows you to blow the limbs of civilians in slow-motion for god's sake, and the Classification's only problem with FO3 was the fact that the word Morphine was used!

    What is the difference between blowing off a Raider's Head with a Shotgun in V.A.T.S, and slicing off a zombie's head with a Katana in L4D2? Because I can't think of a difference! I suppose we should be very grateful that our stupid Board is inconsistent - otherwise they would have banned a lot more games.

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    jkuc316

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    #21  Edited By jkuc316

    I have a friend who's half-Aussie, maybe this'll be good for him.

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