Silent Hill: Homecoming Un-banned in Australia

In September, GamePolitics reported that Silent Hill: Homecoming had been refused classification (i.e., banned) by Australia's Office of Film and Literature Classification.

However, as we've seen with other game bans, OFLC censorcrats move in mysterious ways. GameSpot Australia is now reporting that the OFLC has revised its earlier refusal to classify Silent Hill: Homecoming and the game has been approved for sale:

At the time of the ban last year, an Atari spokesperson (Atari is the local distributor of the Konami game) confirmed to GameSpot AU that the board's grievances were with the game's high-impact violence, copious blood spray, decapitations, partial corpse dismemberment, and depictions of torture.

 

The spokesperson also indicated that the distributor's intention was to resubmit the game "early next year," after discussing the feasibility of making edits to the game for the region. An Atari spokesperson was unavailable at time of print today to confirm what, if any, changes have been made to the Australian version of the game to pass Aussie censors.

UPDATE: Games.on.net has details of edits made by Konami to get Silent Hill: Homecoming past OFLC censors:

Several depictions of violence have been edited or removed altogether from the game. This includes the removal of many finishing moves that contained high level violence, as well as explicit scenes of torture using a power drill.

The more impactful scenes are 'cut scenes' consisting of non-interactive action sequences depicting pivotal plot sequences that expand on the storyline of the game.

Torture consists of implied cutting and drilling using power tools. Much of this violence is depicted during 'cut scenes'. The most extreme examples of this violence are obscured, which mitigates the impact of the violence.