Reservoir Dogs ban explained

By Ellie Gibson Published 28 June, 2006

By Australia's ratings board.

Australia's Office of Film and Literature Classification has released a statement explaining why forthcoming movie tie-in Reservoir Dogs has been refused a rating - and thereby banned from sale.

According to the statement, "The Classification Board made this decision on the basis that Reservoir Dogs contains frequent depictions of violence that have a high impact."

Specific instances mentioned include a level where "Players (participlants in a bank heist) can literally blow the heads off hostages and police as well as execute hostages at point blank range with a gunshot to the head."

Other examples given include the option for players to use "A series of so-called signature torture moves... Such as repeated pistol whipping the side of the head with blood spray evident, burning the eyes of a hostage with a cigar until they scream and die", and "cutting the fingers off a hostage with blood bursts as the victim screams in pain".

The OFLC also objected to the fact that "In lieu of taking a hostage, the player can opt for a more violent scenario where a slow motion shootout occurs, accentuating the violence."

Reservoir Dogs has been granted Refused Classification status, which means the game joins the likes of Manhunt, NARC and Grand Theft Auto III as a title which cannot be sold in Australia.

The move has prompted more calls for a review of Australia's ratings system, which currently allows for a maximum rating of "MA15+" for videogames. Some gamers argue that an 18 rating, like the one which is applied to films, should be introduced.

There's good news for violence-loving Europeans though - the game is still due out here on PC, PS2 and Xbox this autumn.

Picture of Ellie.

About Ellie Gibson

Since joining Eurogamer in the mid 2000s, Ellie has written about subjects as diverse as the fall of Gizmondo, the rise of Hollyoaks actresses in Red Alert games and the noise a bear makes under NSFW circumstances.

Read more articles from Ellie by visiting the Ellie Gibson archive page.

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Comments (33) Latest comment 6 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • towser #1 6 years ago

    Ooooh this sounds good. Cant wait for this!

    the devs must be rubbing their hands at all the free publicity.

  • asphaltcowboy #2 6 years ago

    Sounds good? Have you seen the video? It's abominable!

  • jellyhead #3 6 years ago

    Sounds a bit gimmicky maybe the aussies should be grateful they can't play it.
    The reviews should be good reads at least. :)

  • Teeth #4 6 years ago

    Yep, can't blame them for upholding their rules; it's the rules themselves that are at fault.

  • itamae #5 6 years ago

    Yeah, signature torture moves. That's exactly what we need in our videogames. :-/

    In my opinion a worldwide ban would be in order.

  • Tiger_Walts #6 6 years ago

    Best marketing ploy ever. Who cares if you lose the Aussie market when you get millions of kiddies slavering for your product.

  • Cabelo #7 6 years ago

    Sounds bloody torturous.


    Do I win a prize?

  • Scurrminator #8 6 years ago

    in the videos it shows blonde cutting off an ear so yes you do don't worry ;)

  • assassinx22 #9 6 years ago

    nothing but good fun the family can enjoy

  • prettyboytim #10 6 years ago

    Sounds a bit fucking sick to me.

    /no thanks!

  • InfiniteFury #11 6 years ago

    Sounds fucking brilliant - best advert I've ever seen

  • nickthegun #12 6 years ago

    YAY! I LOVE VIOLENCE!!!!!!!!

    My mrs constantly tells me off for smacking up corpses to see what the rag doll physics will do.....

  • Glitch #13 6 years ago

    itamae how about you stfu?

    world wide ban? you must be a pathetic fucker to even seriously consider that.

    Dont like it, dont buy it!

    its 18+ so what is the big issue? How about the world bans PORN? no? because you probably jack off to it 24/7.

    Scared kids might play it? Tell the adults not to sell/buy it for them.

    On a more serious note! I cant wait to torture people!! maybe I might learn from the game and go try out some moves on the local kids! More free press for the game wo0t.

  • Scurrminator #14 6 years ago

    Link to Gamespot vid page it's the second one down.
    It's on xbox, PS2 and PC

  • smoison #15 6 years ago

    Wow, all of that made it sound excellent. Torture= WiCkEd

    Thank you Aussies for showing the rest of us what games we should look out for.


    And to itamae, I think we should ban football, but who ever listens to us...

  • jack_klugman #16 6 years ago

    And to itamae, I think we should ban football, but who ever listens to us...

    Seconded. Motion carries.

  • I_Have_The_Power #17 6 years ago

    Is that the video that people are saying looks bad?!?

    I think it looks ok, apart from the fact it looks a little bit gung-ho and why, oh why did they have to include "bullet-time"...

    I like the way the swat teams and police react to you with hostages and the way they enter the scene looks great. There's a nice bit (in that videolink Scurrminator posted) where 2 guys gate-vault to get into an area to attack you.

    It seems that the devs kept the soundtrack faithful as well, wth the only ingame music you hear coming in over radios. Its like that bit in the movie (not the ingame one the real one ;P) when Blonde leaves the warehouse and it fades down and when he enters it again it fades back up. I liked that.

    I really think it has potential

  • neuroniky #18 6 years ago

    @Glitch: that's exactly the kind of post that makes me go mad. Somebody express an opinion and you tell him to shut the f**k up, following the post with a lot of insults andthings you probably thought were funny. If you can't follow the rule of a board, if you can't express yourself in a civil and well mannered way, if you can't act on a board just like you'd in a real life CIVIL discussion, please stay away from this board. Oh, and if you have passed your 18th birthday, well, it's time to grow up, and act like a man, not just like a 15 year old pissed-off-I-rule-the-world adolescent.

    @itamae: I second that. There are some limits that should not be passed by videogames, in my opinion. One thing is GTA, with its humourous take at the gangster/drugdealer/gangsta lifestyle (it depends on which game you're playing :D), which is violent, for sure, but has many major limits in depicting violence (not to mention the fact the game is, as I said, pretty much making fun of itself), another is depicting torture, death for the sake of showing death, being realistically violent to the point it makes you feel sick and so on. Manhunt fell into this category, and I think it was really a game that should have not been made. This one seems to fall in the same category... and the sad thing is that the Quentin Tarantino cult movie it takes inspiration from was a masterpiece just because of the LACK of violence, verbal violence and narrative parts being the most violent in movie, with blood on screen, for sure, but suggested violence always off screen (like in the infamous ear scene).
    I don't think anybody on this board would turn on their Dvd player to watch a flick which depict torture, hostage killing, and so on as its central theme. So why we should accept a game on the same subjects?

  • SeesThroughAll #19 6 years ago

    There you go... make a game more violent than GTA and Mortal Kombat together, attract press attention, make it as controversial as possible... instant sales!

  • Triggerhappytel #20 6 years ago

    With violent games like GTA, The Godfather and Mortal Kombat so incredibly mainstream, isn't it about time the Aussie licencing board introduced an '18' certificate?!

    I wonder if Urban Chaos: Riot Response was released over there. That's got lots of gore and very bad language. Or Cold Winter, which is probably the most violent game I've ever played (again, with lots of bad language).

  • gizmo #21 6 years ago

    Wow, now I'm really looking forward to being a pensioner with generations of kids brought up on this shite. Disgrace, absolutely no need for it.

    /cue venomous attacks by legions of 'tard kids

  • Freek #22 6 years ago

    Wich ofcourse isn't the reality of the situation. Games are played by adults and thus a large portion of them are aimed at adults. There's probaly a good argument to make that the majority of MS and Sonys buiseness is directed at that old cliché of the 18 to 34 year old male.

  • Scurrminator #23 6 years ago

    Not this again...
    Yes, the Office of film and literature (something like that) does not have an 18 rating for games. I think the problem is in the dept's title, so stuck in the past.
    But then they have PAL machines, so import away - they did so with GTA and that lot.
    Some of the comments here are funny, the voilence in this is no different to any other 'mature' rated game.

  • Scurrminator #24 6 years ago

    I have that on DVD, turned it off after 5 minutes due to the fact it wasn't in the proper ratio - credits were off screen - what a sloppy disc.

  • djchump #25 6 years ago

    hehe - I like the way everyone's saying this game is really violent, but Gamespot has said you can play through the game without firing a single shot or killing anyone :-)

  • neuroniky #26 6 years ago

    @blackdog: Ichi the Killer is a fine example of a movie that crosses the border of bad taste, basing the whole story on pointless violence and torture depiction and that, while I can understand it could have a place in this world, I would like it to stay as far as possible from myself. Everybody has the right to see whatever they want... but I still think that it would be a better world if things like Ichi the Killer, Rotten.com and so on would have never been born.

  • neuroniky #27 6 years ago

    @blackdog: yes, it is over the top. But... maybe a little bit TOO over the top?

    Rotten is definitely worst, I agree with you, but it's the next logical step for some (too much, unfortunately) people...

    Edit: oh, and I want to add one thing: comparing the two was unfair, I have to recognize, since Ichi is sick but at least in a humourous way, while rotten is something that should be studied by sociologists and psychologists to understand why it simply exists imho...
    Edited by 1 at 28/06/06 @ 15:27

  • Creedy #28 6 years ago

    So should the movie Hostel have a world wide ban?
    That movie is all about torture!

  • Scurrminator #29 6 years ago

    Quentin produced it, it's not his film - think it was by someone called Eli Roth.
    He liked the look of the script so financed it; or some of it.
    The film is shit, but in no way Quentin's fault i don't think - his name was just on it to sell it really!

  • gaselite #30 6 years ago

    As an Australian, this whole situation shits me. Sure, this game sounds like it should be rated 18+, but the fact that we don't have an R18+ rating here is a fucking travesty. Not to mention the fact the standards are different. an 18+ game in England like Condemned which I picked up in London just gets rated MA15+ here usually, what a fucking pointless rating system, when you think about it. Sigh.

    As for the game itself, it doesn't sound great, and it sounds as though it's going to do the movie a major disservice (although the fact that you can apparently finish the game without killing anyone is interesting), but the point is, no matter how shit the game, I as an adult Australian should be able to play it if we want to. The fact that I and many others can't just because the government is too conservative to get its shit together is a fucking disgrace. It's almost enough to make you move to bloody New Zealand... almost.

    Incidentally, while the game does sound quite violent, keep in mind text does have a certain way of making scenes in games sound a lot more graphic than they really are. You could make GTA3 sound a lot worse than it really is with a bit of poetic license. The way they claimed bullet time 'accentuated the violence' is a bit suss. Ah well.
    Edited by 2 at 28/06/06 @ 17:34

  • littlemo #31 6 years ago

    The OFLC has the most arbitrary system EVER.

    How is Manhunt, which also got banned, any worse than Splinter Cell?? - So you strangle someone with a plastic bag, SC you slit their throat... it's still killing, it's still graphic...

    Marc Echo's Getting Up got banned for glorifying graffiti... guess JSRF wasn't cool enough to earn the same ban then...

    And the reasons for banning this game defy logic, how on earth did they pass THE PHANTOM, which was marketed on the basis of it's VIOLENT torture...

    Slo-Motion kills were a concern?? - Why didn't they ban MAX PAYNE??

    And yet you should see the filth they let people watch on TV in Australia... this has nothing to do with ratings and everything to do with a poorly enforced system.
    Edited by 1 at 28/06/06 @ 22:27

  • NegativeZero #32 6 years ago

    Grand Theft Auto III, in all flavours, can be and is sold in stores here. They retracted the ban on it when the game was re-submitted with something-or-other (I don't really care for the games so I don't know the specifics) was removed. Saying it can't be sold here is just incorrect.

  • neuroniky #33 6 years ago

    @littlemo: how is manhunt different from Splinter Cell?

    How is it different... let me see...
    In Splinter Cell you don't go around killing people in the most gruesome way you can imagine. No heads cut off, no baseball bats to make the head of your enemies explode with piece of brain and cranium flying all around, no plastic bag assassination where you see your victim trying to catch breath thru their nose, no punctured eyes and so on. Every single killing animation in Splinter Cell is blood free, and there are no broken bones sounds, no manic laughters, no realistic cries of pain and panic. Splinter Cell has a "fake" violence, like most Hollywood movies, while Manhunt has a realistic depiction of violence.
    In addition to this Splinter Cell doesn't reward you for killing people in the most difficult way by showing you a more gruesome scene. Splinter Cell doesn't glorify killing, which is everything behind the idea and the concept of Manhunt. I despise this concept, I think that if I could rule this type of game out of this world, I would do. Call me a censor, but that's my opinion.

    And, but this is another matter entirely, Splinter Cell does not suck.