The Mortal Kombat (banned in AUS)

Joined
Apr 27, 2011
Messages
12
So.
Anyone here happen to be Australian, and very aggravated that it had been announced that Australia wouldn't be seeing the new version of Mortal Kombat? And if they decide to let it in, pretty sure it will be dulled a bit (less gore etc) to allow it, since AUS doesn't have an R game rating yet so all those good games can't come here.

Now there's the obvious, but illegal solutions, like:
A] Download a ROM and a PS3 emulator
B] Import it from either NewZealand or England, since they're both reigon 4 I think.
C] Find some computer shop that can chip PS3s to make them regon-free, then buy an american copy.
or, the more expensive option:
D] Buy both an american PS3 and copy of Mortal Kombat...

All-in-all it just sucks that the Australian games authorities, whoever that is, doesn't allow an R rating for games here. If they did, Things like GTA: SanAndreas wouldn't have been recalled.

Comments?
 
Michael Atkinson's gone now, thank god, so we might see some action on this in the not-too-distant future.

Still baffles me that a government can call itself democratic while giving obscure political like that dickhole the power to veto federal legislation.
 
Yeah its shit, I'm surprised we still dont have an R rating for games out here. Weren't people pushing for it? Its both shit and inconsistent, some games that are terribly violent and filled with sex get by no worries (The Witcher for example) and then other games get censored in retarded ways (Ninja Gaiden couldn't have decapitations on ninjas, only the monsters).
 
Are Australian PS3s magically not region-free like other ones or something?
 
LuminaryJanitor
Mm. I can't wait.

Tudz
Yeah Ninja Gaiden is the one I was bitching about to people before the Mortal Kombat. And how stupid, to think that people who want these games won't get them anyway, from other countries, the only thing they're currently achieving is making our economy worse 'cuz we all have to import games instead of buying them here and supporting local distributors.

Trombe
Yes, as if by magic, a PS3 purchased in Australia is locked to region 4 for games and blue-ray disks, but plays dvds, cds, ps1 games etc from any region. Not sure if this's in all cases or just a modification they made to the slimline, or knowing Sony, could have even been a firmware update, might not be factory standard.
 
The Ninja Gaiden case is the perfect example of how idiotic our Classification Board is, since Ninja Gaiden II was left uncensored and was ridiculously violent and bloody.
 
Plague_Injected
Is it that they're only interested in banning popular games?
I mean, in saying that, a console is never launched with anything but sports or racing games, and companies like Sony and Nintendo never promote themselves in advertising campaigns with war or fighting games... sometimes, but rarely, is it more that they want mainstream gaming to become more dull in an attempt to make the general public less violent or something?
 
Most games that cop the Aussie banhammer are lesser-known titles like Shellshock 2 and that abysmal Soldier of Fortune Payback. L4D2, Fallout 3 and MK are really the only big titles that have earned the wrath of the Classification Board. AVP and FEAR 2 were also banned originally but were allowed in on appeal.
 
Plague_Infected
I'm pretty confident it'll be allowed then. You might say demand for Mortal Kombat is pretty high no?
 
IIRC, the FEAR 2 that you guys got was without the bloods and gores right?

I guess they might allow MK with reduced blood and gores too. Thought its never quite the same especially for MK titles, lol.

I guess it would be good for you guys if future gen of console goes digitally distributed like Steam. All you need to do is get a friend outside to "gift" it to you. Thats what I do with PC games that are region restricted, or games that cost cheaper in US.
 
I guess it would be good for you guys if future gen of console goes digitally distributed like Steam. All you need to do is get a friend outside to "gift" it to you. Thats what I do with PC games that are region restricted, or games that cost cheaper in US.

I really need to get some friends from the US. ;)
 
IIRC, the FEAR 2 that you guys got was without the bloods and gores right?

I guess they might allow MK with reduced blood and gores too. Thought its never quite the same especially for MK titles, lol.

I guess it would be good for you guys if future gen of console goes digitally distributed like Steam. All you need to do is get a friend outside to "gift" it to you. Thats what I do with PC games that are region restricted, or games that cost cheaper in US.

The L4D2 we got was cut. FEAR 2 was admitted in its original form.

The censorship of L4D2 was obscenely overboard though and was far less violent than even the first Left 4 Dead.
 
IIRC, the FEAR 2 that you guys got was without the bloods and gores right?

I guess they might allow MK with reduced blood and gores too. Thought its never quite the same especially for MK titles, lol.

I guess it would be good for you guys if future gen of console goes digitally distributed like Steam. All you need to do is get a friend outside to "gift" it to you. Thats what I do with PC games that are region restricted, or games that cost cheaper in US.

Curiously, what's the cap of a typical australian internet account?
 
About 20GB/month. Speed is probably 1500kbps.

Its gotten better the past few months. My family used to pay close to $100/month for 20GB, now we're paying the same price for 1TB a month as of the start of this year. Speed, I'm not sure, but I have downloaded stuff at up to about 2.4MB/s, its rare to get a server that you can download that fast from out here though (mostly downloading from nVidia, MS and a couple of EA mirrors give me that sort of speed). Steam mirrors are a fucking joke, several games I've been stuck downloading at around 10kB/s for several hours on end.
 
Not too bad then. One of my clanmates is from australia and he often wouldn't be able to play with us near the end of each month coz he was hitting his cap. I doubt he would have had the bandwidth to spare for steam.
 
Why is it that some games get cut while others are let in when they all seem to have high gore?

And while we're off topic, was the MK released as a PC game as well?
 
Man mortal kombat is a hard game to play. Its hard to combo and juggle, but if I put some extra time into it I think I can fair well. I am mostly a street fighter player, and the combos and timings are different. Hmm, not sure but here in america I like to imort Japanese games. Their good and play here, it used to be region locked before, in the ps2 days but you could of chipped it. I would just import from a country close and play the game. What happens if you get caught playing the game? How does being banned from a country mean?
 
Why is it that some games get cut while others are let in when they all seem to have high gore?

And while we're off topic, was the MK released as a PC game as well?

Nothing for PC has been announced for MK although apparently Boon did hint at the possibility.

The question about the gore is simply inconsistency from the Classification Board. Fallout 3 was a very gory and violent game but it got the banhammer because "morphene" was mentioned. Saints Row 1 and 2 attracted no attention from the CB despite being able to use explicit substances throughout the game. FEAR 2 was originally banned and L4D2's uncut version is still banned, yet both games were no more violent or graphic than Fallout 3, AVP, God of War 3 or Black Ops. GTA4 features all kinds of drug references, sex, drug running, "violence against authorities" (which was why Valve had to cut out the Riot Police zombie from the Aussie L4D2) and other simulations of crime, yet the only thing the CB got upset about was blood-stained clothing. Red Dead Redemption features post-mortem mutilation of animals, yet Valve had to remove corpses from L4D2 completely.

The MK ban is very indicative of a dated system, but regardless of inconsistencies there is no way MK could or should fit under the current MA15+ maximum rating in its current form. It's definitely an adults-only title.
 
Not too bad then. One of my clanmates is from australia and he often wouldn't be able to play with us near the end of each month coz he was hitting his cap. I doubt he would have had the bandwidth to spare for steam.

Yeah, it was bad until recently. Up until basically 2011, the standard plans were sort of 5 to 10GB, with anything over about 15-20GB costing a prohibitively large amount. When I was living on campus at uni I used to get charged, not shitting you, $17 per GB plus a yearly connection fee. I never used to buy off steam because I'd have to take into account that by the time I paid for the extra bandwidth to actually download the game it cost far more than walking into a retail store. Which was why it was (and still is) a joke that Steam doesn't have a working and simple method to turn off automatic updates. More than once I got fucked over because a game downloaded a large update after I'd explicitly turned off the option and didn't notice it downloading in the background.

Its still on the expensive side, but not nearly as bad as it was.
 
Nothing for PC has been announced for MK although apparently Boon did hint at the possibility.

The question about the gore is simply inconsistency from the Classification Board. Fallout 3 was a very gory and violent game but it got the banhammer because "morphene" was mentioned. Saints Row 1 and 2 attracted no attention from the CB despite being able to use explicit substances throughout the game. FEAR 2 was originally banned and L4D2's uncut version is still banned, yet both games were no more violent or graphic than Fallout 3, AVP, God of War 3 or Black Ops. GTA4 features all kinds of drug references, sex, drug running, "violence against authorities" (which was why Valve had to cut out the Riot Police zombie from the Aussie L4D2) and other simulations of crime, yet the only thing the CB got upset about was blood-stained clothing. Red Dead Redemption features post-mortem mutilation of animals, yet Valve had to remove corpses from L4D2 completely.

The MK ban is very indicative of a dated system, but regardless of inconsistencies there is no way MK could or should fit under the current MA15+ maximum rating in its current form. It's definitely an adults-only title.

So all that's stopping it is them basically just choosing what games should be allowed... there doesn't seem to be any adhering to any criteria or anything does there?
 
Basically.

The Left 4 Dead 2 example is the best indicator of how bad and unreliable the system is. The high level of gore wasn't the only thing the CB got its knickers in a twist over - it refused classification because of being able to set NPCs (i.e. zombies) on fire, corpse stay, blood spray, violence against humans and violence against authority figures (the "Riot Cop Zombie", which is missing from the censored version). How many other games are currently on our shelves that have all of those in there?

What did we get in its place? A bloodless, goreless, Riot Copless L4D2 with fire-retardant zombies that evaporated immediately upon death, usually before they even hit the ground.

Compare this to Mortal Kombat, where its fatalities are so far beyond the limits of good taste that it is impossible to argue for having the MA15+.
 
Compare this to Mortal Kombat, where its fatalities are so far beyond the limits of good taste that it is impossible to argue for having the MA15+.

I was following right up until this bit. I'm either tired or there's a key grammatical error preventing my understanding...
Are you saying that MK shouldn't be allowed into a Country as an MA15+ game, they need to allow an R rating and let it in under that;
or
MK shouldn't be allowed into the country period;
or
MK should be censored like the game you just mentioned and released here as an MA15+ game???
 
I was following right up until this bit. I'm either tired or there's a key grammatical error preventing my understanding...
Are you saying that MK shouldn't be allowed into a Country as an MA15+ game, they need to allow an R rating and let it in under that;
or
MK shouldn't be allowed into the country period;
or
MK should be censored like the game you just mentioned and released here as an MA15+ game???

Sorry mate. I think MK should be admitted as it is under an R18+ rating. It shouldn't be shoehorned into MA15+ and it definitely shouldn't be censored to fit MA15+.
 
We need a R18+ rating here for games, if R18+ exists for movies, why not for games? I just don't understand the OFCL sometimes.

I heard that this game is on the prohibited list in customs, anybody trying to import this game from overseas will incur a fine.
 
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