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Australia thinks Digital Extremes took it to the Digital Extremes

By Chris Bennett, Tudor Carsten, Michael R. Coburn, Sarah Dale-Harris, Pablo Guzman, Danielle (Dani) Lemon, Chris Metcalfe and David Spratley

Australia's Office of Film and Literature Classification has banned the sale of Digital Extremes' Dark Sector in Australia. The Office was particularly concerned about the game's 'high-impact violence', which was particularly noticeable in some of the main character's finishing moves.

The Office observed that 'the finishing moves and most violent game play includes decapitation, dismemberment of limbs accompanied by large blood spurts, neck breaking spurts, neck breaking twists and exploded bodies with post-action twitching body parts. These moves are relatively easy to accomplish and once the player has mastered the moves and is able to get close to his foes, these violent moves can be executed.'

Digital Extremes is a Canadian company based in London Ontario, which appears to have been developing games for almost 15 years. Just last week the developer was one of two Ontario game developers awarded $500,000 by the Ontario Media Development Corporation to develop a prototype for a new game.

Dark Sector coverage here (Gamespot)

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Full post as published by Video Game Law Blog on February 16, 2008 (boomark / email).