I ordered through Impulse from Australia and started downloading it now. (not a beta-tester either)

My understanding is that everything through Australia has to go through some crazy level of ratings board stuff before it can go on sale.

and with the latest election debacle that isn't going to change anytime soon

Yeah, its a bit of a joke, the aussie classifications board... Been pissing quite a few of us off. The last guy who had the job even resigned saying he was afraid of gamers terrorising him and that theyre more dangerous than biker gangs while at the same time refusing to acknowlege that adults even play them by denying an R rating....

edit: pretty sure germany are in the same boat too

I pre-ordered it, and only have a order number, but im still happy im getting it SOMETIME THIS MONTH (now not only a saying )

Seriously, i was like "Is this some kind of joke?" To the poor guy at EB when i rang. Oh well. According to the time on the forum, the game will be out and playable tommorow around EDIT: 3 hours ago (assuming midnight release) and if not, hopefully my pre-order goes through so i can load it.

On the Australian classification board topic, Do any of you guys play L4D2 "no gore" version? It still got like an MA15+ rating,  but there are no persistant bodies, no blood, no damage to the zombies, its crazy how they butchered the game. I bought the US version over the US steam site , so no problems for me though. Germany has it pretty bad as well, when it comes to blood. I hear they had to recolour the blood green for L4D2 to get through.

At least it will be in stores in Austrailia,  I have been told by a number of stores in NZ that it will not be released at all .  Apparently Impulse/online ordering is the only way to buy the game here.

Yepp. Here in good old Germany every game that includes Nazi emblems or swastikas in general is banned. So most World War II games have to find some sort of solution or have a seperate German version. The Heart of Iron series e.g. always uses the old German Empire flag (three horizontal stripes - black-white-red) instead of the infamous Nazi flag.

But after some kids - that apparently also had Counter Strike or something like that on their PCs - went beserk at school over the past few years the whole "violence in games" thing is very much a concern here. At least for some or more politicians in every major party. One or two would even like to put every game "on the index" (i.e. games cannot be sold openly or be advertised and can only be sold to people of age) that includes kllling somebody. Thus also e.g. World of Warcraft ... which on the bright side would probably increase at least the fun of playing this particular game. *evil grin*