"Dead Space" on German, Japanese, and Chinese Shelves

If anyone has seen the trailer, gameplay footage, or read the comic for the upcoming EA release of Dead Space knows that calling it gory might be the understatement of the year. One of their gameplay video blogs that is on the official site for the game is even titled, "Strategic Dismemberment" where it shows you that in order to defeat the mutated aliens you go up against you have to literally shoot their arms and legs off till they cannot move.

I have been excited about the prospect of the game since I heard the concept for the game, also that it remains grounded in the real, in the only way that a game that takes place in space shooting mutated dead corpses can, by having the protagonist be a normal guy (an engineer to be exact). This "every-man" aspect when applied in the Survival Horror genre always amps up the fear factor, as seen in the Silent Hill series.

But it seems that Germany, China, and Japan are either going to give it the dreaded version of the American "A-O", standing for Adults-Only where most retailers don't even carry it, or just not allow it to be sold at all. I can understand China, which heavily regulates the media it allows its citizens to view is at the top of the list, but I was more surprised by Japan's move to grant it the "Z" rating, which games like Grand Theft Auto and Assasin's Creed have received. Japanese developer Capcom even experienced a flap from Germany when releasing Dead Rising, but that didn't lead to the outright ban of the game.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out, I can only hope that the hardwork that all involved at EA will pay off as I do have high expectations from what I have seen of the game.