14 DAY TRIAL // Australian Left 4 Dead fans specifically and videogame enthusiasts all over the world should be happy to hear that, in some form or another, Left 4 Dead 2 will be outed in the Land Down Under on the official release date. A modified version of the game has been approved by the Classification Board, which needs to put a rating on all videogame content launched in the country.
The board has issued a document revealing the changes that have been made by Valve. It states that “No wound detail is shown and the implicitly dead bodies and blood splatter disappear as they touch the ground,” adding that “The game no longer contains pictures of decapitation, dismemberment, wound detail or piles of bodies lying about the environment.”
The changes seem rather unimportant, considering that gory depictions of infected death are not at the core of the experience that Left 4 Dead 2 is set to offer. Sure, they add some spice to the title, but taking them out does not modify the game in any fundamental way.
Electronic Arts and Valve are not prepared to give up on the original version yet. Cameron Jenkins, a spokesperson for Electronic Arts, told News.com, an Australian site, that “We are waiting until we get the results back from the resubmitted full version, just in case it gets classified after working with the OFLC, we would much prefer to release that one.”
It would not make much sense for the Board to actually approve the unmodified version of Left 4 Dead 2 after initially rejecting it and offering an MA 15+ rating for a modified version, but it could happen and then Electronic Arts would not have to modify the game, saving itself some money and offering players the experience as it was originally intended. And to think that all of this could have been avoided if movies and videogames had been analyzed equally when it comes to ratings.