IGN has an update to recent news that Silent Hill: Homecoming had become the latest game to feel the sting of the Australian government's ban hammer.

Included are details of game content which drew the attention of censors at the Office of Film and Literature Classification (OFLC):

...the OFLC cited several high impact scenes in the game, mostly focusing on drilling into and severing body parts. One scene in particular that was highlighted as a problem involved Alex (the main character) having a drill forced into his right eye socket, which caused a lot of blood to spray out. A couple of other scenes mentioned include one where Alex forces the drill up into an enemy's skull and another where Alex is cut in half by an enemy.

 

We haven't seen the Silent Hill scenes in question but based on the descriptions we find it hard to understand why the OFLC refused to permit them, considering the famous Resident Evil 4 chainsaw decapitations of Leon were passed without issue.

Atari, which is distributing SH: Homecoming in the Australian market, hopes to work with Konami to scale down the violence sufficiently to earn an MA15+, the most restrictive rating currently offered by the OFLC.

GameSpot reports that Konami's upcoming Silent Hill: Homecoming has fallen victim to Australia's notoriously ban-happy censors.

Silent Hill: Homecoming thus joins Dark Sector, Shellshock 2: Blood Trails, and Fallout 3 among the ranks of games which were refused classification (i.e. a rating) in 2008. Dark Sector and Fallout 3 managed to get back on board, however, after making edits.

From the GameSpot story:

An Atari spokesman (Atari is the local distributor for Konami titles) confirmed the game banning to GameSpot AU, saying that Australia's Classification Board found issue with the high impact of Silent Hill's violence. Examples used by the Board in its report include copious blood spray in the game, decapitations, partially dismembered corpses, numerous scenes of attacks, fights, torture, and death.

 

The spokesman said plans for Homecoming's Australian release are now "on the backburner until early next year" pending discussions with Konami to see if any changes can be made to accommodate Australia's classification regime.

Silent Hill: Homecoming is scheduled for North American release on September 30th.

vnunet reports that Konami has cancelled Japanese launch events surrounding the release of Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots:

The company said in a statement to Japanese media that it called off the events because it was concerned about the safety of the public. The cancellations follow a rampage by a knife-wielding man in Tokyo at the weekend in which seven people were killed...

 

One of the cancelled launch events had been scheduled for Tokyo's Akihabara district, where the stabbing took place on Sunday... [in the game] Players control a soldier armed with a knife and various other weapons who fights his way through a multitude of enemies by killing and disabling them in a variety of missions.

Launch events outside of Japan were not affected and the game is being released as scheduled in Japan and elsewhere.