Left 4 Dead 2 Appeal Unsuccessful
Valve to issue heavily edited version to satisfy Australian censors
It appears that Australian fans of Valve's critically acclaimed Left 4 Dead survival horror franchise will have to miss out on much of the blood n' guts that the rest of us have been eagerly anticipating in its latest installment, Left 4 Dead 2. On October 22, 2009, Australia's Classification Review Board unanimously upheld an earlier decision of its ratings board to refuse classification to the unedited version of Left 4 Dead 2, citing its frequent and often gratuitous violence. As a result of this decision, unedited versions of the game will not be available for sale in Australia. Gamers down under will instead have to settle for a toned down version of Left 4 Dead 2 that does not contain "depictions of decapitation, dismemberment, wound detail, or piles of dead bodies lying about the environment" and which has received an MA 15+ rating by Australian censors. Yawn.
Coverage from Gamespot.com here