Blitz: The League BANNED
Ron Mexico is sure to be heartbroken over this sad news today. Midway’s underachieving story-driven football game “Blitz: The League” for everyone’s favorite console has been BANNED in Australia. Apparently, the Australian ratings board refuses to classify Blitz due to the rampant drug use during games. In a statement about the game, officials said (and I quote):
“In the course of the game, the player may access what are purported to be both legal and illegal performance-enhancing drugs for the members of the team. Choosing to use these drugs (by selecting from a menu) will have both negative and positive effects on team-members, for example, by improving their speed while making them more susceptible to injury. Each drug has different characteristics. Fake urine samples may also be acquired for avoiding positive drug tests. While the game-player can choose not to use the drugs, in the Board’s majority view there is an incentive to use them. By using them judiciously, the player can improve the performance of the football team (while managing the negative effects) and have a better chance of winning games, thereby winning bets and climbing the league table”
So basically, having the option to use drugs for performance boosts is enough to ban the game. Midway shouldn’t feel bad, however. After all, they are hardly the first developer to have their game banned in the land down under — Rockstar, for example, has had… well, they’ve had just about everything of theirs banned in Australia.
What Midway should be worried about, and be ashamed of, is how the could let a piece of junk like Blitz get out of Beta Testing without addressing the broken game play. But that is neither here or there.
Midway, Blitz, Blitz: The League, Australia, banned
