OFLC Watch - Ticket To Ride, Crazy Mouse, and Darwinia+ rated

3 quick updates to the Australian classification website tonight - with some interesting tidbits!

Crazy Mouse - the first XBLA game to come from China, has now been rated. Though announced, there has yet to be any media of the game outside of some small pieces of artwork viewable on Ultizen games website. Hopefully more information will be released soon.

Darwinia+, which first showed up on the ESRB website and was then officially announced later on Introversion's website, has now shown up on the OFLC - so it's making the rounds.

Lastly, the popular board game Ticket To Ride has been rated by the OFLC. The most interesting piece about this though - is that the OFLC announced the developer of the game - Next Level Games! Next Level is best known for their work with Nintendo on the Super Mario Strikers games on Gamecube and Wii. The rumormonger Surfer Girl early last month proclaimed that Next Level Games' next project WAS "a downloadable affair for the 360" - and once again she's right!

Source: The OFLC website

OFLC Update: Unannounced game "Zombie Wranglers" shows up

The Australian Classification website has had a late night update with a new entry - Zombie Wranglers, with all the details seen above. While not officially announced for the Xbox 360 - the Author for the rating is Sierra Online. All previous entries by Sierra Online have been for Xbox Live Arcade titles - Including Aces of the Galaxy, Assault Heroes 2, and Carcassone.

So we have a name and a publisher, so who is the developer? Doing a quick Google finds... well, very little shows up. What does show up is a small website called DOOM3D Poop Art. The site itself has 'closed down' but before that, it was a gathering place for Wisconsin indie game developers, gathering together to discuss their games. Though they've since moved onto a new website there are a few puzzle pieces to be found.

Noticeably this topic discussing the name of the group, which mentions the game in passing. It appears that that the game was a student project at one point - but also features some help from the current Wisconsin developer Frozen Codebase - known for their XBLA game Screwjumper last year.

One could put both together and determine that it is Frozen Codebase which is now developing the game - their website does specify they have more than one team working on games - however they previously worked with THQ for publishing Screwjumper, while it appears Sierra is doing so for Zombie Wranglers. Admittedly things didn't go so well with THQ, and Sierra's such a nice publisher. We're not jumping to conclusions just yet!

Until it's announced, or it starts showing up on the USK and ESRB, who knows what the game is. Hopefully it's not going to hide in the shadows until two weeks before release like things have been lately.

Source: OFLC - ZOMBIE WRANGLERS

Bionic Commando gets its M rating (of sorts)

Ben Judd has got what he thought for Bionic Commando Rearmed - an M rating.

However it's only been rated on the Australian Classification website, and in Australia we have a different rating system - No T rating at all, instead we have an M (Recommended for 15+) or MA (Restricted for 15+). So Rearmed has settled itself between Super Contra and Metal Slug 3, and not the MA15+ rating games like Marathon and DOOM despite - in todays world - having some pretty pissy gore by todays standards.

Ratings differ all the time. Take Street Fighter for example - All recent Street Figher II's have been rated PG, yet all previous SFII, IIIs and more were rated M. Heck, the Plug & Play SFII was rated G!

Source: OFLC

OFLC Rumor Update: XBLA to get Gin Rummy, Sea Life Safari?

OFLC watch appeared to be uneventful this month - but it looks like we may have overlooked some very possible upcoming games for Xbox Live Arcade service!

Two games have popped up on the classification website - Sea Life Safari and Gin Rummy. Though they do sound a little like simple PC games - it's the Authors of these classifications which raises our eyebrows - Sierra On-line.

Looking up previous classifications which have been published by Sierra On-line, we find that all of them are Sierra XBLA titles - Carcassone, Boogie Bunnies, and upcoming Assault Heroes 2, Aces of the Galaxy and Lost Cities!

Sea Life Safari is currently available for the PC through the WildTangent game network, and is in essence a Pokemon Snap styled game underwater, where you take pictures of fish and other wildlife. There is a PC demo you can download here, or watch this video:


Playing the demos shows two things - 1. It has some sort of Achievement system already in place for the PC users, and 2. It's made by Wanako games, creators of Assault Heroes and 3D Ultra Mini Golf on XBLA! Sounds like all we need is an official confirmation.

Gin Rummy is a popular card game played usually with two players - but can be played with 4 cooperatively! You can read up more on the rules at this Wikipedia page. If this is an XBLA game, Sierra might be betting on the popularity of other games like Uno and Texas Hold 'em and add to the card playing pile!

Both are situated at "Rumor" though considering the evidence, we can assume these are Unannounced. Let's hope we here more soon!

Source: Gin Rummy OFLC Rating, Sea Life Safari OFLC rating

Elements of Destruction preview at Team Xbox!

Team Xbox have added a new preview of THQ's upcoming Elements of Destruction game for the XBLA, including a new video!

In THQ’s upcoming XBLA title Elements of Destruction, you play the role of the brilliant scientist turned mad scientist, and you need to unleash fury in the form of lightning strikes, earthquakes and tornadoes. At first, there’s not much resistance to Herbert’s offensive efforts, but in time the company starts to defend itself better and try to chip away at Herbert’s critical energy supply that enables him to forge his attacks.

You can check out the entire preview and the video here.

In other EOD news, the game has been rated across the board - It's just been rated by the USK, ESRB and OFLC.

Source: Team Xbox

OFLC / ESRB Update: More confirmation for Mr. Driller Online

Namco's Mr. Driller has shown itself up on the OFLC rating website for the XBLA! A few weeks ago it also showed up on the German USK rating site, now we have a second confirmation!

Mr. Driller Online should be the second non-emulated production by Namco Bandai on the XBLA, and the first title since Pac-Man CE. And Pac-Man CE was fantastic, so this should be on everyones radar too.

On the ESRB front, Boku Sudoku and Assault Heroes 2 have also been rated.

Source: OFLC Mr. Driller Rating, ESRB Website

OFLC Update: Aces of the Galaxy rated

Sierra's upcoming XBLA tile Aces of the Galaxy has just been rated by the OFLC, with a PG rating. Usually this means it may be near competion, or will be showing up on Test kits for Preview Purposes, so we should hear more soon.

Source: OFLC Classification for Aces of the Galaxy