Australia's ratings board, the OFLC, has denied PS3/360 title Dark Sector a classification, effectively banning it in much the same way Manhunt 2 was banned in the UK.
The OFLC apparently felt that the action of Dark Sector, in which you play as a covert operative infected with a "brutal bio-weapon that twists its victims into mindless killing machines," was so violent that it "exceeds strong and as such cannot be accomplished in a MA15+ classification."
The Board went on to describe *Dark Sector *as "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."
Providing examples at what it considered to be just too over-the-top for classification, the OFLC described a scene in which the protagonist, Hayden, lops off an enemy's arm with a glaive, resulting in a lot of blood, a lot of screaming, and a lot of rolling around in agony. In other words, pretty much what you'd expect from someone who's arm just got cut off.
The Board also seems to find fault with the fact that moves that result in decapitation, dismemberment, broken necks, and/or "exploding bodies with post-action twitching body parts" are "relatively easy to accomplish." So at least we know the controls don't get in the way of the gameplay.
AFA Interactive, the game's Australian distributor, called the situation "a pretty substantial, but temporary, set-back."
The problem is less that Dark Sector is a gore-fest and more that Australia currently lacks a rating that's geared solely towards mature players. Not wanting a 15-year-old to gleefully hack off limbs and watch as bodies bleed out is perhaps understandable, but not having a rating for games aimed at those of us who are (theoretically) long past the ability to be scarred by such images isn't.
