Every year at E3 there's a crop of games that you look at and think "Well, that's not coming to Australia." This year, before the show has even started, I think I've seen two.
Both were on show at Sony's big stadium filling press event. First, there's God of War: Ascension, which ups the fatalities to new heights of detailed violence.
Love or hate the game, its visceral combat is an essential part of the premise. In the demo, Kratos cust his way through hordes of beast-men, slices up a giant tentacled beasty, and magics some broken shit back to gether again. Right before he dives into the salty maw of the aforementioned beasty, though, he tussles with a large, elephant-headed monster.
It dies, of course, but in one hell of a way. Kratos stabs the things skull repeatedly, before gruesomely slicing it open to reveal the pink, glistening brain. It's a little... intense. A good presentation to the classification board should see it get through, though.
A lot more challenging, I think, will be getting The Last of Us through. This intense post-apocaplyptic game of survival sees a man and young girl tracking through a ruined cityscape. In our demo, we got to see quite a lot of action, and to call the combat intense is bit of an understatement. Part of the game's premise is that you're not going to get scads of ammo; in the demo, there are just six bullets fired, and each shot is loud, nasty, and violent.
Especially the skull-shattering shotgun blast that ends the demo. I swear, the folks in the front row must have been wiping brain matter of their suits.
More problematic, however, is the young girl, who swears like a sailor, kills people to help you out, and, t must be said, is generally awesome. But the combination of a minor with extreme violence could very well raise more than a few red flags. Getting this one through will require quite a bit of finesse.
I hope someone can do it, though, because it's looking pretty epic.
