Blizzard's much-anticipated RTS, Starcraft II, has been slapped with an Adults Only rating in Korea - where the franchise is particularly popular.
The rating will have come as a surprise to Blizzard, considering the same Korean Games Rating Board stamped earlier versions of the game submitted last year with a '15' rating. The board now seems to have taken a stricter view on the title, condemning the game's level of violence, foul language and depiction of drug use, according to The Korea Times (via Kotaku).
Blizzard has 30 days to appeal the ruling, although a rep has said the publishing giant is undecided on the action it'll take. "We have nothing to say at this point. We are discussing our official position on the matter as well as what would be the right reaction," they said.
The Starcraft II beta is currently running. The full game will be released in US in both a standard edition and a limited-release Collector's Edition packed with exclusive bonus materials, for $59.99 and $99.99 respectively. No UK details have been confirmed.
Just on the Collectors Edition of Star Craft 2, I can confirm that this is getting a release here, or at least in Ireland. GameStop are taking pre-orders for it with a large notice in store explaining the they have VERY LIMITED STOCK of the Collectors Edition. It comes a book of art work, a 2Gb USB memory stick with the original Star Craft game and its expansion pack on it, and it comes with something else I think too, can't recall, was in the store two days ago. Anyway, my pre-order is in so looking forward to getting it.
It will definitely be better then the CRAP EA offered up for C&C 4!!
this is actually quite interesting - apparently marines using stim packs depicts drug use and the zerg death animations are too bloody - resulting in the highest rating of Adult.
Just on a side note, GTA IV is rated as 'mature'.
Could this be something related to Kespa who won't be able to run SC2 tournaments as they do with BW making them lots of $$$.... I am sure Blizzard will probably offer a dumb down version in terms of animation for Korea. Starcraft 2 needs to be a success in Korea if it fails everywhere else...
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