Prepare the ban hammer. If you’ve been playing video games for more than five minutes, you know they have a tendency to be moral outrage magnets. If you can name it, games have been blamed for it, so it’s not too shocking that game bans have followed in force. For the children, I suppose, though I’m not sure how many children are picking up the Witcher or Command and Conquer.

Game bans brought down by someone somewhere in the world are so numerous it would be impossible to cover them all. Here are 19 high and lowlights. Prepare to be outraged for the opposite reason. 

Outlast 2 banned in Australia for about two days 

Outlast 2 is pretty grisly. There’s no denying it. There are skinned people on sticks, piles of dead babies and, every so often, a giant 9ft woman plunges a pick axe into your crotch and you watch the blood spew out from a first person perspective. Lovely. This, apparently along with inclusion of ‘implied sexual violence’ tipped the Australian Ratings Board over the edge, prompting it to refuse even handing out the highest R18 level of ratings.

However it turns out that developer Red Barrels actually sent the wrong footage in for classification. Along with the code was a video that didn’t represent the final product. Once this mistake was cleared up, Australia was free to wander the death filled cornfields. Phew. 

Getting Up banned in Australia for glorifying street art

Apparently some countries can’t handle a little rampant vandalism these days. Over in Australia, Marc Ecko’s Getting Up: Contents Under Pressure was refused classification (opens in new tab) (i.e. the censors wouldn’t give it a rating, which is a ban in every way but spelling) based on the idea that it glorified graffiti. And it did, since its entire premise is that a youth from a bad part of town uses the power of street art to take down rival gangs and the corrupt mayor who used an anti-graffiti campaign to cover up the fact that he murdered Trane’s father.

As you can probably guess from that description, the plot was a bit silly and kind of outside the realm of believability. Still, Australian censors thought that this game would act as a gateway to the righteous world of tagging, so it was never rated.

Command & Conquer: Generals banned in China for destroying China

Command & Conquer: Generals did not do well in China, for the same reason that kneecapping Lady Liberty would likely flop in the US. Not only does the game’s China campaign open on the nuclear obliteration of Beijing (good start!), but the player is directly involved in the destruction of Chinese landmarks like the Hong Kong Convention Center and the Three Gorges Dam. What, was the Great Wall too far away?

Not only did the government of China promptly bring down the ban hammer (which they’ve done to games for less), but even Chinese gamers who went to the trouble of pirating the title weren’t pleased with it (opens in new tab). Mostly because you have the option of bombing Tiananmen Square into rubble. Can you say cultural insensitivity?

Fallout 3 banned in Australia for encouraging drug use

You’d think in a dystopian wasteland where danger lurks around every corner and pain is a constant companion, you could get away with taking a few much-needed hits of Vitamin M. Not so, say censors in Australia, who briefly refused classification for Fallout 3 due to the player character’s use of morphine. Don’t remember that part? That’s because the developers changed the game entirely to account for these complaints, taking morphine out for every region and replacing it with Med-X. Which has the exact same effects, of course.

The full report (opens in new tab) goes into more detail on how the game’s use of “chems” pushed it over the hill into ban town because they were just too darn much like real drugs. Ultimately the ban was lifted when the chem system was scaled back and ‘morphine’ was changed to Med-X. Good thing too, or we’d all want to be like the Lone Wanderer and hang with Sister M. I mean, who wouldn’t want that guy’s life?

Witcher 2 banned in Australia for using sex as a prize

In its day, Witcher 2 was refused a rating in the land down under for going down under. Haaaaa, not sorry. Specifically, the issue was a scene where sex is used as a reward for Geralt completing a quest, which he can choose whether or not to accept. Chances are this refers to a mission given to him by a succubus, and that’s kind of their M.O., but whatever. Message received, sex as a reward for actions is bad.

At least, if he accepts it. Witcher 2 was eventually released after the scene was altered so that Geralt rejects the offer by default. Bewilderingly, everything else about the scene remains the same. I get the objection behind a reward-lay (romantic interaction doesn’t follow a three-steps-and-profit scheme), but when the reward is still totally a thing and the main character just refuses to take it? I mean, I guess we know he’s a good guy, or something?

Battlefield 3 banned in Iran for inciting international terror

Back in November 2011, the sale of Battlefield 3 was banned in Iran. It was all thanks to a scene where American soldiers lay siege to Tehran and the Grand Bazaar. The announcement was followed by raids on game shops to nab all existing copies, while a petition bearing the signatures of 5,000 Iranians accused the game of drumming up fear of Iran in the international community. Not unexpected, since the relationship between the US and Iran is famously sticky anyway.

There’s one wrinkle, though: Battlefield 3 was never officially released in Iran. Publisher EA has no resellers in the country, so all copies available when the ban came down were pirated. Is a “shot yourself in the foot” joke crass here?

Dead Rising 3 banned in Germany for having human-like enemies

Germany wins the blue ribbon for Europe’s most intense game restrictions. While changing a human to a zombie (opens in new tab) can get a game to pass muster in the likes of the UK or France, it’ll have no such luck in Deutschland. Given that Dead Rising is all about zombies, it’s no surprise that this series has seen repeated bans in Germany. Dead Rising 3 is the latest victim, expunged from the Xbox One launch line-up in this country.

This pretty-goddamn-violent zombie thrasher is considered tolerable in many places, since your main target are fantasy legions of undead monsters. However, Germany’s Bundeprfstelle fr jugendgefhrende Medien (the gaming police) places heavy restrictions on games where you kill any human or “human-like” enemies, so zombies qualify. Then again, Gears of War 3 was deemed acceptable without edits, so I can’t pretend to understand the logic.

Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 and Medal of Honor: Warfighter banned in Pakistan for smearing the nation’s image

Two for the price of one here. In January 2013, the government of Pakistan banned Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 and Medal of Honor: Warfighter in one fell swoop, saying they “show the country in a very poor light.” Since both of these military shooters essentially equate Pakistan with terrorism, I’d say that’s a fair comment.

They probably should have tried to convince the country’s game retailers to accept the ban, though, or at least told them about it. On the day of the ban, the owner of Islamabad’s biggest game store claimed to have not even heard about it, and another anonymous shop-owner said (opens in new tab) “The nationalists and the religious ones don’t like [these games] but I’m not going to stop selling them.” Nothing yells louder than green it seems.

Mass Effect banned in Singapore for lesbianism

Finally, a game that wasn’t banned over political outrage. Just lesbian sex! Wait, is that better, or worse? Either way, back in 2007 Singapore banned the first Mass Effect because it contains an optional scene of lady Shepard and Liara T’soni gettin’ bizzah. While in many places this was met with newscaster pearl-clutching and adolescent fist-pumps, the ladies’ “kissing and caressing” translated to “gratuitous sex” in Singapore, which barred it from release.

Not that the ban lasted long. Originally, it went through because the nation didn’t have a proper video game rating system, making it harder to judge degrees of debauchery. However, when the ban shockingly resulted in backlash, officials used the country’s movie rating system instead, dubbing Mass Effect an M18 and lifting the ban only a few days after setting it. Now the people of Singapore can enjoy softcore lady-on-lady action to their heart’s content. Freedom.

God of War 2 banned in Saudi Arabia for sexual themes

If Iran and Pakistan’s examples are any indication, our gaming brethren in the Middle East sure know their way around a game ban. Saudi Arabian gamers are no exception, because even in the face of strict content restrictions and fines for playing banned titles, many manage to sneak prohibited games anyway. One good example is God of War 2, which was banned for sexual content (and possibly the use of the word God in the title) upon release. However, it’s still very much available for players who know where to look.

Satisfied as the nation’s moralizers were with the decision, gamers weren’t pleased, and they weren’t deterred either. Speaking to Kotaku (opens in new tab) about ways of circumventing the ban, Saudi Arabian user Alaa A explained that retailers still sell black market copies of the game, just packaged and shrink-wrapped as something else. Congratulations, Alaa, you deserve a go at that fantastical debauchery.

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The post 19 games banned across the world, and why they got the axe appeared first on Game News.

Why? I’ve already said it: I own you. Battlefield’s dogtag system is one of the few ways to keep a permanent record of the enemies that you’ve taken down in a multiplayer game. Not only do you get to cycle through the tags you’ve collected, occasionally laughing at the Gamertag / PSN ID / Origin ID that someone has chosen for themselves (seriously, were there 3 other players called ‘xxJuStIcE_Lrdxx’, so you went for xxJuStIcE_Lrdxx4’. Individuality FTW, right?), but you also recall memories of a specific session. In other words: you remember how you got the tag.

One of my favourite tag steals was in Bad Company 2 (opens in new tab), Arica Harbour map. It was a game of Rush, I was defending the second phase (in the town) and I got picked off by the same camping asshole four times, as he sat in the rocks on the hillside, not helping his team win. I was furious. I was determined to claim his tag. So I spent ages sneaking around the bottom edge of town, keeping away from conflict, getting myself in a position to strike. Asshole Recon was being kept alive by a Medic, who I dispatched quietly before finally claiming my nemesis’ dogtag and the tag of his asshole friend, also camping in the same rocks. Triple dogtag get.

That’s the only time I killed this guy. He outscored me 4-1. But he never got my tag, and I claimed his, gloriously. It’s something I’ll remember long after he’s forgotten that match. While it’s no real achievement on my behalf, it’s a memory I still have from a game that gave me many happy hours of multiplayer carnage. It’s a lasting token of enjoyment from a moment of superiority. That’s the essence of the dogtag system.

Other online shooters, like Call of Duty, simply don’t offer that kind of recall. They’re impersonal experiences that ask you to constantly kill as you try to fill up a near-infinite XP progression system. To me, its just meaningless grind and other players are digital meat–they may as well be smart AI bots who occasionally fling blood-curdling racist / homophobic slurs at you. When you’re playing online the idea is that you’re pitting your skills either directly against (or in cooperation with) other human players. But you rarely get the sense of that, unless you’re in squads with real friends. Until, that is, you outsmart an opponent in Battlefield and get close enough to claim his or her ‘tags. If you’re really lucky, you’ll make them mad enough to seek revenge and that’s when the very human micro-battles begin. They come back for you, they seek you out on the battlefield. Can you think of any other in-game reward that triggers such strong human emotions? They’re few and far between.

In more recent iterations of Battlefield, DICE has added extra details to the dogtag system. You can add specialist tags to indicate where your skills and interests lie (are you a headshot expert, a tank killer, a provider of endless ammo?), and in BF4 that personalisation is even deeper. There’s even a more elaborate animation that sees you aggressively ripping the tag off your enemy’s neck as you end their life with a blade. I hope you’ll forgive me for skimming over the moral implications of this one–it’s just a game, and that’s definitely a separate editorial.

The Beta also shows off the ability to indicate what country you’re from, and there are loads more ‘skill’ tags to unlock too. The more information you choose to share only increases my desire to claim your tag. I want to know how you play, where you’re from, and if you’re better at Battlefield than me. Taking any dogtag is enjoyable… taking one from a player significantly higher ranked than you is a rare thrill.

While I’m no fan of the new knife counter-kill system, which allows you to counter a knife kill with the simple tap of a button, I can appreciate the added dimension it brings to dogtag collecting. If you don’t hit a player completely by surprise (essentially, from behind–so no random melee charging in BF4, folks), you could lose your tag to them. You feel stupid, clumsy. You may even lose the game by giving your life away cheaply at a key moment, instead of just hosing your enemy with a burst of carbine fire. Moreover, you have to really want to collect a player’s tag. Counter-kills have made it even more personal.

So keep your special golden guns and bizarre new character outfits–the only in-game collectable I really want is hanging around your neck, and somewhere out there I’m waiting to claim it. Again… only if you’re playing Battlefield.

You know that crazed dogtag collector at parties who talks too much? Drink in hand, way too enthusiastic, ponderously well-educated in topics no one in their right mind should know about? Loud? Well, that guy’s occasionally us. GR Editorials is a semi-regular feature where we share our informed insights on the news at hand. Sharp, funny, and finger-on-the-pulse, it’s the information you need to know even when you don’t know you need it.

The post Why Battlefields dogtags are the most satisfying rewards in video games appeared first on Game News.

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Battlefield 3’s and Battlelog’s servers are suffering outages following Distributed Denial of Service attacks. The Battlefield 3 status site says PC servers are currently “stressed” while console ones are up and running, although this has yet to be confirmed on the game’s social channels and official forums, where the following sticky message still reads:

“The current Battlefield 3 outages are a result of activity that appears to be aimed at overwhelming our back-end infrastructure. We are working on a variety of solutions to address this problem and are focused on resolution as quickly as possible. We appreciate your patience and support.

“Moving forward, we will provide the most up to date information to the community here. We are incredibly disappointed by these activities and the impact they are having on all of our ability to enjoy BF3, thank you for your patience as we work to resolve these issues.”

In light of the ongoing problems, DICE has postponed a Battlefield 3 double XP event previously planned for May 9-13 until a later date.

The post Battlefield 3 servers hit by DDoS attack appeared first on Game News.

Addressing EA’s weak start on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, Gibeau said that EA “made a couple of mistakes in how we built our technology,” explicitly noting such defining current-gen features as high-definition graphics and online platforms. He went on to note that for the upcoming generation, EA’s technology approach can be seen in the the Frostbite development engine, which powers such games as Battlefield 3 and Need for Speed: Most Wanted.

EA is currently prepping three to five new intellectual properties for release on the new hardware within 24 months of their launch. Additional information on these titles was not provided.

For more on what’s currently known about Sony’s and Microsoft’s next consoles, check out GamesRadar’s PS4 and Next Xbox breakdown.

The post Next-gen consoles coming in about a years time – EA boss appeared first on Game News.

The full list:

1. Diablo III
2. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3
3. Mass Effect 3
4. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
5. Skylanders
6. Battlefield 3
7. Max Payne 3
8. Assassin’s Creed Revelations
9. Mario & Sonic At The London 2012 Olympic Games
10. Saints Row: The Third

Keep in mind there’s a bunch of things this list doesn’t factor in, such as Collectors Editions, Game of the Year re-releases, and digital downloads. Still, when Australian gamers are reaching backwards for their next gaming fix, it’s either an interesting indictment on their tastes, or on the standard of games released in 2012. What’s your take?

The post Australias best sellers of 2012 come from 2011 appeared first on Game News.

Modern Warfare 3 versus Battlefield 3. It’s the new fanboy war du jour. Both games have their supporters, and both sides will go at the opposing game’s throat like a rabid vampire wolverine at the mere mention of its title. And frankly, now that both games are out, that needs to stop.

So having respectively reviewed MW3 and BF3, Charlie Barratt and I have decided to finish the argument once and for all. We’ve played through both games. We’ve discussed each game’s strengths and flaws at length for several days. And now, in conference with Mr. Barratt, I have produced this feature summing up our collective feelings. You’ll find no apologist arguments here. You’ll find no excuses. You’ll just find the experiences comparatively celebrated and lambasted as they deserve, warts and all. Want to know what we concluded? Read on.

Campaign

Modern Warfare 3

A fast drum beat is exciting. An even faster drum beat is technically impressive. But when a drum beat becomes even faster than that, it turns into one long droning note. Modern Warfare 3, although consistently exhilarating, falls somewhat towards the end of that scale at times. How you feel about that will come down to how you feel about big, glossy, summer action movies. This game knows that its audience wants fast thrills delivered at an insane rate – thus, the pacing of nearly every level is now utterly relentless. Billions of easy-to-kill enemies pour onto the screen from every corner. You usually don’t go for more than two seconds at a time without killing someone, and when you do, it’s only because a stupendously large – often stunningly-realised – set-piece is exploding around you. Every level basically plays like the most frantically full-on part of the last level of any of other game, so frenetically so that at times it actually feels more like an old-school Doom or a Serious Sam than the recent CoDs.

It might be somewhat moronic, but at least it’s gleefully moronic, smashing you so hard and so fast in the face with the adrenaline hammer that you’re too constantly wired to stop to think or care about anything outside of what you’re currently doing. It’s still CoD of course, but it’s a super-charged Turbo Edition. That said, the level design now frequently has a rather different, improved feel, the barely-disguised tunnels of previous games now replaced by many more multi-leveled optional routes and opportunities for flanking. It’s actually somewhat less of a shooting gallery than CoD has been lately, even threatening to feel more like a free-flowing FPS at times. It’s like eating a giant bag of candyfloss in one sitting. An exciting, desperately giddy pleasure at the time, but not terribly nourishing long-term and liable to make you feel a bit woozy afterwards. And it’s doubtful you’ll want to go back and do it again. It’s vacuously exciting, and if that does it for you then you’ll have a great time. Though don’t expect to remember much bar the stand-out set-pieces in any great detail by the end.

Battlefield 3

Where Modern Warfare 3’s campaign gameplay is gleefully moronic, Battlefield 3’s is just moronic. Futilely trying way too hard to emulate well-known Call of Duty tropes which its rival has, ironically, evolved away from slightly in its latest entry, the combination of insanely rigid scripting, clairvoyant, overly aggressive AI and a total disregard for the player’s involvement make Battlefield 3’s campaign an utterly indefensible misery. Managing that rare balance of being both boring and infuriating at the same time, it’s a master-class in hackneyed linearity and non-interactive pseudo-drama.

It has a couple of stand-out moments that feel like its own. The North-by-Northwest-inspired plane attack towards the end is rather good, as are the semi-free-roaming tank bit and the obligatory night-vision sniping section. But overall, Battlefield 3’s campaign is a big pile of potentially cool ideas bludgeoned to death by disregard of player input and a whole load of sloppy, buggy, bargain bin execution. Imagine being forced to do a Rubik’s Cube underwater with oven gloves on, while being repeatedly shouted at and punched in the face, and stopped and tied up every time it looked like you might be getting somewhere rewarding. That’s basically Battlefield 3’s campaign. It’s bad. Don’t play it.

WINNER: Modern Warfare 3

Multiplayer

Modern Warfare 3

Like most things in MW3, multiplayer is essentially a highly-focused distillation of everything that has previously proved successful for the series. It’s fast, it’s punchy, it’s instantly gratifying on a second-by-second basis. And from the time we’ve put in so far, it seems one of the tightest, slickest iterations yet. Our favourite improvement? The ability to set up streak rewards for support play rather than just the simple hunt for a high K/D ratio. Not only does this finally acknowledge and reward players below the 1337est of the 1337, it also shifts the emphasis of CoD’s multiplayer away from simple brute aggression and will (hopefully) pave the way for a more thoughtful overall game in the future. Similarly, the rather excellent game analysis feature of the Call of Duty Elite service could help casual player just as much as hardcore Prestige-whore.

On top of that addition, the total line-up of game modes is now a rather excellent package, turning CoD’s core shooting mechanics into an eclectic spread of quirky, radically different themed experiences. New addition Kill Confirmed is rather a fast and frantic hoot, and the Private Match pre-sets for custom games like Infection and One in the Chamber really emphasise MW3’s predilection for witty, arcadey fun over the more serious multiplayer offerings of old. That said, the core shooting really has not evolved, so don’t expect anything particularly fresh in that area, despite the multitudinous forms it now comes in.

Battlefield 3

Make no mistake about it. In terms of depth, intelligence, camaraderie, emergent, minute-to-minute variety and the sheer, gratifying sense of the importance of your actions, Battlefield 3 is miles ahead of any other multiplayer shooter on the market. There’s a reason that BF was a resolutely MP game for years. Its multiplayer is so vast, so full of content, so packed with things to do, tactics to master, and dynamic, organic, purely player-driven spectacle that it really is a full-sized game in its own right. It’s what you really buy when you pick up a box with the word Battlefield on the front. Everything else is just window dressing.

The best way to describe BF3 multiplayer is as an ecosystem. With more possible weapon and equipment variations within each of its four classes than many shooters have within their entireties, the actions available to a player and the differences each can make to the evolving shape of an overall battle are boggling in scope. Make the right shot in the right place, kill or repair the right tank, airlift or resuscitate the right guy, and you can tip the whole war. Snipers attack and defend ground troops. Ground troops support and maintain each other and their vehicles. Ground vehicles bully the hell out of enemy objectives, while air vehicles survey and reshape the whole warzone from above (including taking out those snipers). Battlefield fights are long, drawn out, and as intensive on the brain as they are on the trigger finger. What they never are though, is anything less than thrilling, unpredictable, and deeply, deeply satisfying on an epic scale few games ever match.

WINNER: Battlefield 3

Next: Who’s best at co-op, looks and innovation?

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The post Modern Warfare 3 vs Battlefield 3: The final verdict appeared first on Game News.

As demonstrated, the BF3 simulator utilizes a motion tracking paintball gun, moving floors, big-ass screens, and physical feedback to create a gaming environment so lifelike it may or have may not tricked its trained military tester.

Incredible, right? Unfortunately, the entire rig would likely set you back about a few years pay, and that’s assuming you’d have the technical know-how and space to put it together in your living room. So for everyone one else without a production budget and a crew of experts, you’ll have to make do with a big TV, a cheap treadmill, and a partner who’s willing to jab you with a broom handle every time you get shot in-game. We wouldn’t recommend this set-up, we’re just saying there are options.

Oct 26, 2011

The post Ultimate Battlefield 3 Simulator exposed in Making-Of video appeared first on Game News.

In case you’re confused, the opening is a flash forward where your character escapes police custody because he has a train full of terrorists to catch. After shooting up the train (simultaneously teaching players FPS controls) and nearly saving the day, he’s caught and we can only assume a screen pops up right after that saying “36 hours earlier,” or something like that. Look for our review soon, as our normally very timely review schedule has been thrown off somewhat due to unforeseen circumstances.

Oct 25, 2011

The post Celebrate Battlefield 3s release by watching the first mission in action appeared first on Game News.

Part of the reason EA’s Battlefield 3 media blitz has been so intense is because the game is coming out only 11 days before Activision’s Modern Warfare 3. While Modern Warfare will almost certainly outsell its competition, Battlefield 3 is hoping to gain a larger share of the realistic combat shooter market. Because of this EA and Activision have been dueling with promotions, for example when one offered timed exclusivity for Xbox 360 DLC the other decided to give timed exclusivity to PS3. We expect it’s only a matter of time before Activision sends us a treaser featuring an even better rapper/producer/entrepreneur’s song over fresh gameplay footage.

Sep 23, 2011

The post Battlefield 3 video features Jay-Z and a new militaristic interpretation of the song 99 Problems appeared first on Game News.

Above: What a GameStop pre-order gets you

If you want more than that – and you probably do – simply pre-ordering isn’t enough. It’s all about where you pre-order. GameStop, Amazon, Best Buy and EA’s own Origin download service each have “exclusive” content to offer on top of the Karkand DLC, with the most lavish offerings coming from Origin. Opt for EA’s download service, and you’ll get exclusive open beta access this September, as well as an in-game 870 combat shotgun and a beret. You’ll also get the Physical Warfare pack, which grants access to the Type 88 light machine gun (with a trusty bipod for stability), the KS sniper rifle flash suppressor for sneaking, armor-piercing flechette ammo and the semiautomatic DAO-12 “Shooting” Shotgun (we may have made its nickname up ourselves).

GameStop’s offerings are the next-most-generous, with pre-orders netting the Physical Warfare pack (but no beta access). PowerUp Rewards members also get a free Battlefield 3 digital strategy guide from Prima. Meanwhile, Best Buy pre-orders include The SPECACT Kit, which includes eight multiplayer weapons and uniform skins, one for each class (so nobody gets their feelings hurt).

Amazon orders get a pack of five exclusive multiplayer dog tags. This is the worst one.

If you don’t pre-order from GameStop or Origin, don’t worry; the Physical Warfare pack will be given to all players, for free (opens in new tab), sometime later this year.

Above: The multiplayer skins from Best Buy

Battlefield 3 isn’t coming out until Oct. 25, so you’ll have plenty of time to decide who to give your money to. And while EA says that, right now, the game has 10 times the number of pre-orders that Battlefield 2 did when it was three months from launch, there’s no real limit to the number of copies that can be sold.

Aug 4, 2011

The post Battlefield 3 pre-order bonuses detailed in epic detail appeared first on Game News.