Things have been quiet on the ban front for a while. The OFLC hasn’t decided to step up and do some bizarre banning for a while now. Well it must be coming up to mid year bonus time over there because they’ve just whipped out their ban hammer and conked RPG game Risen hard on the noggin.

But what for?

Well you know how in Fable 2 you can sex with women (and men, regardless of your gender let me mention) and by sex I mean click on the bed and listen to some humorous oohs and ahs? Well Risen has the exact same thing and that’s a banning.

You can also smoke a herb called Brugleweed or Wood Reefer that has a ‘relaxing effect on users. This herb can be bought and sold as well. Apparently both the sex and drug use are based on incentives and so for that reason it’s a big ole bannin’ from the OFLC.

Never mind that in Fable 2 you actually need to get a whole bunch of people steaming drunk by supplying them with alcohol to get an achievement, or have a ménage a trios for another achievement.

Or taking Morphine in Velvet Assassin giving you super bullet time styled powers to kill Nazi’s. Or drinking alcohol in Fallout 3 to improve your strength and stamina briefly.

Hey dude, wanna buy some brugleweed, its like totally chronic

The specific problem is that the OFLC will not allow under any circumstances, “sexual activity and drug use related to incentives or rewards.” It’s just that their not particularly clear on what an incentive and a reward isn’t, the rule has so many loopholes it looks like the slutiest dress at the Oscars.

It wouldn't be so bad if they were just doing they're job, but the clear fact is they aren't even doing that much. If they were doing their job we wouldn't have one version of GTA IV on Xbox 360 and PS3 with all the graphic hooker sex and extreme violence removed and a PC version available on the same shelves in the same stores with all the content left in and the same rating on the cover. Not to mention the fact downloading The Lost and Damned on the 360 gives you access to all the previously edited out material. I'm surprised Rockstar haven't sued the OFLC to recoup the costs of creating an edited version of the game.

Of course we wouldn’t have this problem if we had an R rating for video games. As an added bonus we would stop being the laughing stock of the English speaking world and retailers would actually profit from the sale of banned or edited games instead of money lost over seas by people importing these games rather than waiting for an inept and inconsistent OFLC to make some changes to policy, or for one single damn Attorney General to just retire.

We can live and dream.

In the mean time chances are good you’ll get an edited version of Risen sometime in the future in which Brugleweed suddenly becomes Tobacco, which of course somehow makes it totally fine.

I need to lie down now, possibly after a drink.