With roughly a month before its release, Eidos Interactive’s upcoming adaption of the 1992 film Reservoir Dogs has been effectively banned from The Land Down Under.

The Office of Film and Literature Classification has refused to give the game a rating, claiming the graphic violence in the game places it outside the realm of “MA15+,” the government’s most mature classification.
Since Oz stores aren’t permitted to sell unrated games, and Atari has announced it has no intention to release an edited version, it looks like Reservoir Dogs will be sitting with the likes of Manhunt, Grand Theft Auto III, and Leisure Suit Larry at the “banned Down Under” party.

In a release from the Ratings Board, the game’s depictions of gangland interrogation are cited as a principal reason for the ban, namely the “‘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.’”

Curiously, the board voiced no objections to the humiliating dye-job slapped onto the Harvey Keitel model.