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Australian Classification Board to review ratings on 12 games

The Classification Board will review the ratings given to 12 released video games after a request from the South Australian attorney-general.

Nic Healey Senior Editor / Australia
Nic Healey is a Senior Editor with CNET, based in the Australia office. His passions include bourbon, video games and boring strangers with photos of his cat.
Nic Healey
2 min read

The Australian Classification Board will review the ratings given to 12 video games already released in Australia after a request from the South Australian attorney-general.

Splinter Cell: Blacklist is one of the games pending review. (Credit: Ubisoft.)

The request for review was made by the attorney-general under advice from the Australia Council on Children and the Media (ACCM) after it was noted that all the games had received higher age ratings in some overseas territories.

All the games pending review are rated MA15+ in Australia, while the US Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) awarded them an MA17+, and the Pan European Game Information (PEGI) system awarded them an 18+ rating.

The Interactive Games and Entertainment Association (IGEA) was critical of the review, calling it "unwarranted" and "costly".

"Not only have these games already been examined against stringent guidelines, we also haven't heard of any formal complaints made by parents or adults who think the video games are wrongly classified. The review is an unwarranted and costly exercise to satisfy a vocal yet unrepresentative minority," said IGEA CEO Ron Curry.

The Classification Board will meet on 18-19 November and 2, 4 and 5 December to "consider the applications".

The games pending review are:

  • Alien Rage

  • Borderlands 2 Expansion Packs

  • Company of Heroes 2

  • Deadly Premonition: The Director's Cut

  • Deadpool

  • Fuse

  • Gears of War: Judgment

  • God Mode

  • Killer is Dead

  • Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Blacklist

  • The Walking Dead: 400 Days

  • The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct

The results of the review, along with detailed reasons for any decisions made by the Board, will be posted on the Australian Classification Board website.