After years of being deprived of mature games, Australian gamers are celebrating today the release of the R18+ title in their continent.
Under the new Australian Classification Board guidelines which came into effect on 2013’s new year’s eve, Ninja Gaiden 3: Razor’s Edge for Wii U was allowed into the Australian market as an Adults Only title due to the "High impact bloody violence" it features.
Prior to the new classification guidelines, Australia had no rating for Adults Only games and their R17+ rating was much stricter than the NC17 employed in Europe and North America. As a result, several high profile games were refused classification by the Australian Classification Board. This meant that those games were effectively banned in the continent as Australian stores are prohibited by low from selling unclassified media.
Some of the most prominent titles that has been banned in Australia in the last few years include Manhunt, Dark Sector, Mortal Kombat, Postal, Postal 2, Reservoir Dogs, Syndicate, The Witcher 2, Shellshock 2: Blood Trails, Silent Hill: Homecoming and Soldier of Fortune: Payback.
Even a tame game such as "Marc Ecko's Getting Up: Contents Under Pressure" was banned after Australian Federal Attorney-General Philip Ruddock contested its glorification of graffiti. Anyway, this belongs to the past now. Hopefully, it won’t happen again.