Developer: Headstrong Games
Publisher: SEGA
Release Date: 19 February 2009

House of the Dead: Overkill is the fifth game in Sega’s House of the Dead series, designed specifically for the Nintendo Wii’s controls. It is set before the events of the first game, taking place in the town of Bayou City. In his first mission, Agent G teams up with Detective Washington as the two of them fight the plague of mutants and find who is responsible. The game can be played in three different modes, and these modes add to the challenge of the game.

This game was brought to our attention by an article published by the Sydney Morning Herald on August 22, 2009. It explains how a father of his 16-year-old son purchased the game for him, only to return it to the store as it had inappropriate content that he felt should not have been viewed by his son. Reading the article, we agree that it should not have been classified MA15+.

The content in the game is also explained in the article. There are 189 instances where the F-word is used, as well as strong sexual content depicted in the game’s “unspeakable” ending where one of the protagonists is seen climbing into his mother soon after she is killed. Despite all this, the Classification Board failed to add “coarse language” and “strong sexual themes” to the consumer advice warning. The board may not had the time to play the game right through to the end to notice the sexual theme, but a few minutes of playing must have occurred to them that there would be bad language.

Overkill is yet another classic example of a game being shoehorned into the MA15+ category, and as mentioned above, it should have been refused classification. Instead, this type of game is made available to children as young as 15. If an R18+ category existed for video games in Australia, then not only would this game get such a rating, but children would be also protected from games that would be harmful to them. Help us to introduce one.