The Australian Federal Government has announced its support for a much needed adult games classification, R18+ rating, in Australia. A decision is expected to be made at the meeting of the countries attorneys general.

A recent Galaxy survey has found strong support for the classification, counting for 80 percent of the people surveyed favoring the classification. If passed, the classification will open the market to a lot more mature rated and uncensored titles.

Brendan O’Connor, the Home Affairs Minister, said an adults-only classification would protect Australian minors from exposure to violent or inappropriate content. “We need a better classification system to protect our teenagers from accessing certain information, and we need a similar arrangement like film because both forms of entertainment are converging,” he said.

The problem with the countries current rating system; games that are “borderline” mature are getting banned, or are being censored to meet the countries requirements, which has Australian consumers upset.

“Right now games that are borderline at best are often pushed into the lower category so that they can be sold in this country,” said Colin Jacobs, Electronic Frontiers Australia.

Alien vs. Predator has received an amazing amount of press, because of the overwhelming amount of violence throughout the game. However, Rebellion, it’s developer, have refused to edit AvP for any country, including Australia. In a recent interview, Rebellion Studios’ Martin Kennedy and Alex Moore openly spoke about Alien vs. Predator being banned.

“It’s just red-tape standing in the way. There’s no logical reason why Australia couldn’t have an 18 rating. People who want the game will get [it] imported, it’s not going to hurt us. If anything it’s been a bit of decent publicity,” Kennedy said. “We’re not going to water down the game for countries that can’t treat adults like adults,” added Moore.

Moore even to compared Australia’s government to the past situations within Germany, in where Germany went on a banning spree. “Germany’s always one of those places that we’ve known it was going to be difficult because the first one [game] got banned in Germany as well,” Moore continued. Alien vs. Predator is due out early this year.

When in a convosation, Australia is a topic that every developer hates to talk about — mainly because their games, if violent, get banned within a split scond in Australia. But, not Rebellion. Because Australia’s Classification Review Board has reversed their decision to ban Aliens vs. Predator in Australia, with no content to be changed or removed.

Being developed by Rebellion Games, the game was original ruled as to violent due to “various types of violence, including explicit decapitation and dismemberment, as well as locational damage, such as stabbing through the chest, mouth, throat, or eyes.”

However, following the announcement of the ban, Rebellion made a statement claiming it would not release a “sanitized or cut-down version for territories where adults are not considered by their governments to be able to make their own entertainment choices.” Rebellion is developing Aliens vs. Predator for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC.

When Australia threatened to ban Fallout 3, because of  drug references in-game, Bethesda Softworks was quick to react and remove them. But, that is not going to be the case with Velvet Assassin.

When viewing the demo version of Velvet Assassin last week, Patrick from MTV’s Multiplayer Blog noticed that the main character uses morphine as an in-game power-up to slow down gameplay and perform deadly attacks.

“It’s a well known fact that morphine was widely used as a pain killer for wounded operatives and soldiers on all sides of the war. Not only does it fit the realism of the game, but it also plays an integral role in the actual gameplay experience. Use of morphine in the game is not meant to condone drug abuse, but to reflect the realistic nature of the game and true to life historical factors,”explained Aubrey Norris, SouthPeak product marketing manager.

“Additionally, the spirit of the game centers on players experiencing the life of a British operative behind enemy lines through Violette’s memories. In order to provide players with the most realistic and visceral experiences, Replay Studios has gone to great lengths to adhere to the facts history has provided. These reasons are why we decided to include and keep morphine in ‘Velvet Assassin.’”

After Australia banned such  games as Manhunt 2 and Dark Sector, it caused fear by SEGA that they would also be banning their game, MadWorld. But, that doesn’t seem to be the case because they have allowed the game into the country.

Today, we learned that the sale of Platinum Games ultra bloody MadWorld will be allowed into Australia.

This is great news for the publisher of the game, SEGA, because they feared that they wouldn’t be able to sell the game in the country, or worst they would have the developer censor the game.

But, talking on that note, this news does come with some bad because SEGA didn’t give any details on if the game would be censored in the country.

Rockstar has revealed that Australian gamers will getting the chance of play there upcoming street racing game, Midnight Club: LA, early. They will be taking an an exclusive pre-release demo of Midnight Club Los Angeles featuring the MCLA Saleen 302E to the locations listed below:

30th August – Shadow Wars (Manning Bar Sydney University)

13th-14th September – Auto Salon (Newcastle Entertainment Centre)

25th-28th September – Royal Melbourne Show (Royal Melbourne Showgrounds Epsom Road, Ascot Vale)

4th-5th October – Auto Salon (Melbourne Exhibition Centre Southbank)

According to Gamer Chip, a modified version of Fallout 3 will be hitting in Australia later this year. This news comes after OFLC refused the classification of the game, which made it seem very doubtable it would ever see the light of in the day down under. There’s still no official word from Bethesda Games, but in the article Gamer Chip did say something about retailers EB Games now accepting pre-orders for the title. They go on to state some more information about the game saying in their article that “EB Games and GAME representatives, Australia will be receiving the game, albeit in a modified format.”

[Thanks 2 PALGN]

We have some good news and some bad news, the good news is there’s no bad news. According to a report made by PALGN , the OFLC has re-classified Dark Sector and it looks like the game will be hitting stores in australia very soon. The game will be coming in a new version, this upcoming version will feature no decapitation and "toned down … limb severing on humans [only]", which according to the OFLC classification database was still strong enough to earn an MA15+ and a warning against ‘Strong Violence’.

So, maybe there was a little bad news after all………….

The game was originally considered by the OFLC to be too strong for our shores, as a "violent and sometimes gruesome game with a sinister storyline and ominous outcome. The violence and aggression inflicted upon the protagonist is of a high level, naturalistic and not stylised at all."

Discuss: Do you think Dark Sector deserved a MA15+ rating in the first place.