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SEGA Australia has confirmed that House of the Dead: Overkill – Extended Cuthas been refused classification in Australia.
The PS3 game was set to launch on 27th October for the Playstation Move, and featured all seven scenarios from the original House of the Dead: Overkill game as well as two new ones.
The Australian Classification Boardslapped the game with a ‘Refused Classification’ rating yesterday afternoon, and SEGA has indicated that it does not think the decision is a fair appraisal of the game.
SEGA Australia’s press release states: "SEGA Australia are determined to appeal the decision immediately and hope to have the classification overturned without making any changes or amends to thefinal game."
Darren MacBeth, managing director of SEGA Australia, indicated that he thought the decision was indicative of the current inconsistencies in the Australian videogame classification system.
He said: "There arefar worse titles currently available in the marketplace which involve more than shooting down mutantsin humorous circumstances. We will do everything we can to prove that House of the Dead: Overkill is worthy of an MA15+ rating in Australia."
The inconsistency in this case is the original Wii game being classified successfully at MA15+ in December of 2008, so presumably the bulk of the Extended Cut nearly identical content sporting higher resolution graphics, and only 2 of the 9 levels being genuinely new.
This classification comes while the Attorneys-General have reached an in-principle agreement to introduce an R18+ category for videogames in Australia. While they have asserted that the new system won’t be more leanient than the current one in terms of which games become available for sale, it is certainly worth speculating as to whether a later classification submission might have seen House of the Dead: Overkill – Extended Cut fair differently.
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