HL2 may be banned from Australia due to inadequate rating system

[Force Flow]

After all this time, Australian gamers, like the rest of us, have endured everything associated with Half-Life 2…the lengthy development cycle, delays, code thefts and so on. Now, they might not be able to play it when it comes out. Hopefully this doesn’t turn out to be the case, we feel for our Australian brothers. 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

~From HardOCP

http://www.sumea.com.au/snews.asp?ne...lated=Industry

[trelarah]

Oh that's definitely not good! I feel for them (Austrailia). Though, you know all that means is that a lot of the gamers will just download it online, or buy it out of country and have it shipped in.

Hopefully it doesn't have to go down like that though.

[bigandy]

And if I remember correctly, they also banned one of the GTA titles. Poor Aussie gamers .

[roomwithamoose]

Originally Posted by bigandy And if I remember correctly, they also banned one of the GTA titles. Poor Aussie gamers .

I wouldn't doubt it. GTA: San Andreas should be banned here!

[Jaggannath]

Nah, they didn't actually ban GTA in the end, they just up-rated it to R
The cops wanted it banned... a policeman in Sydney said that when GTA I first came out car boosting went up 7%

And believe me, no-one who wants to play will miss out on playing HL:2... we'll find a way, we always do

[bigandy]

Thanks for correcting me on the GTA situation.

I'm sure you gamers down under will find ways to get the game, but it makes for more of a hassle.

[kram 2.0]

It would be awfully hard to enforce it as all the downloading and stuff would probably be done from Steam though...dunno if they're going to put up the ban if they know enforcing it is a virtual impossibility. Either way, I really feel sorry for you fellow Aussies.

kram

[Paranormal]

With Steam, Australian gamers should be able to just pre-load Half-Life 2 and play it the day it comes out.

[comquter]

sometimes i wish i could drive (for real) like i do in GTA... that'd be fun. SA is much more... lifelike, with things such is eating. but its still unrealistic as in NOBODY has unlocked doors (rather than everybody), and you can't just walk into a parked car and go. I love the game though
kicks ass.

[bigandy]

Originally Posted by comquter sometimes i wish i could drive (for real) like i do in GTA... that'd be fun. SA is much more... lifelike, with things such is eating. but its still unrealistic as in NOBODY has unlocked doors (rather than everybody), and you can't just walk into a parked car and go. I love the game though kicks ass.

You sure you have the right thread?

[gameguy747]

Yeah that would suck if hl2 was banned from australia... I'd move to a diff country

[Yuanji]

how can you ban something downloadable on the internet legitly?

[Jaggannath]

Easily
Interestingly, it's like radar scanners/jammers in your car. It's not illegal to possess, but illegal to use.
They'd do a similar thing