Chinatown Wars OK for Australia
Grand Theft Auto coming to the Nintendo DS with an MA15+ rating.
Despite our worries, Rockstar’s Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars for the Nintendo DS will be available in Australia. It popped up on the Classification Board’s website overnight with an MA15+ rating, the highest available to a game in Australia.
What makes the decision even more stunning is that, earlier this week, Chinatown Wars earned the dubious honour of being the first Nintendo DS game to get an R rating in the UK. Ignoring, for a moment, the usual GTA-related concerns over sex and violence, the game’s focus on drug-dealing minigames was tipped to make the game run afoul of the Australian classification system, as well (especially considering proscribed drug use was the reason for Fallout 3 initially being refused classification in Australia).
Of course, Chinatown Wars is still a few months from release – plenty of time for someone to take offence and start the horrible chain of events that we’ve seen with Rockstar games in the past. Both Grand Theft Auto III and Manhunt made it onto Australian shelves with an MA15+ rating before they were labelled Refused Classification and pulled (in Manhunt’s case, it was banned a year after release).
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Supporting our habits:
Fresh confabulation