Left 4 Dead 2 quality suffers as result of Australian censorship
Edited game receives poor reviews down under
The censored version of Left 4 Dead 2 released in Australia after the country's ratings board refused it classification has been slated by users.
According to a review by IGN, the game has been "butchered" in order to remove elements such as wound detail, decapitations and dead bodies.
The resulting game is a "hollow shell of a game," according to the review, that "isn't worth the plastic the disc is printed on."
Developer Valve endured a lengthy process of submissions to get the game released in Australia, but its appeal was refused last month by the Classification Review Board.
"It was the Review Board’s opinion that there was insufficient delineation between the depiction of general zombie figures and the human figures, as opposed to the clearly fictional ‘infected’ characters," it concluded.
In Australia, the maximum age rating for a game is 15+ and games that don't meet that criteria are refused classification.