14 DAY TRIAL // The Office of Film and Literature Classification has made a lot of victims till now and I'm talking about games that were banned in Australia. Titles like Blitz: The League, BMX XXX, Manhunt, Reservoir Dogs and 50 Cent: Bullet Proof are some of the media products banned by the OFLC.
According to the organization, Soldier of Fortune: Pay Back is much too violent for the Australian public and the local retailers are not allowed to sell the shooter. The game was released on the PC, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and it comes natural that the OFLC banned the latest SOF title, considering that they don't use the R18+ rating for gaming products. Australia and Singapore are some of the few countries that don't use such ratings, the last of them reviewing their system right now.
Since the rating is not applied, things get pretty simple: if the game includes too much violent content and sexual themes it will simply be banned from all retailers. However, one should take into consideration the fact that the latest studies have shown that the Australian gamer is a 28-year old man and more than half of the local gamers are past 18.
In the case of Soldier of Fortune: Pay Back, the board claimed that "successfully shooting an opponent results in the depiction of blood spray". That may not seem like novelty, for any gamer who's played a shooter till now, but the OFLC were strict enough to ban the game anyway. While playing the latest SOF, you'll also be able to shoot the limbs of your enemies and watch them dismembered or witness "large amounts of blood spray" according to the official censorship board.
Activision, the title's publisher has yet to comment on this case, but they might be used to the Australian rating system already, considering the large number of games already banned on the continent.