You be the judge.

Australian Censored Version

Uncensored Version

They have basicly removed pretty much all traces of gibbing, blood splatter on the screen when you kill a zombie up close, the melee weapons don’t get blood on them, they removed a riot police infected, and finally the bodies disappear before they even hit the ground (which if I’m not mistaken did not happen in the original Left 4 Dead).

Also for those interested it is possible for the gamers of South Australia to possibly vote Michael Atkinson out of office to which he issued a challenge several months back.

That’s right you heard it right Aussie gamers. We will not be getting Left 4 Dead 2 in Australia as it has been refused classification by the Classifications Board this week.
The report on the game said it contained “”realistic, frenetic and unrelenting violence” and therefore was refused classification, as the current classification system Australia does not have an R18+ rating for computer games similar to that for movies.

Early reports the games’ success is going to be huge in Australia and the rest of the world.

It’s a shame really instead of gamers buying a game locally in Australia and spending their money here they’ll just resort to a) importing overseas, b) pirating the game or c) just not play it at all.

This issue has once again put into the limelight that Australia still does not have an R18+ rating and that the classification system is in much need of reform. This is not an old issue though as there has been attempts at introducing an R18+ rating for games in Australia with all Attorney Generals of each of the states agreeing, except for Michael Atkinson an attorney general from South Australia who voted against.

Currently he is the only one preventing a new rating system being implemented, according to him he is ‘protecting the children’ from being exposed to such material. But wait! I though it was up to the parents to monitor what their children are viewing, but then I guess it’s just easier to blame the developers when you find out your kid is playing a violent game instead of looking at the big fat red sticker on the game box.
Why raise your children when the government can do it for you?

I for one had strict parents who didn’t even let me watch movies or play games they considered were not suitable for me that was until I hit 15 which then I was allowed the freedom to watch/play most games and movies barring buying porn (but that’s what the internet is there for right?).
It’s not very hard to see what games your kids are playing as being a parent means you have absolute control, monitoring what content passes through your house hold and the simple act of reading the rating does help somewhat when you’re buying computer games for your kids hell I was asked to be accompanied by my dad back then when I tried to buy Fallout Tactics which had an MA15+ rating.

Anyway I’d say write polite complains to the Classification Board to protest their decision might help sway their decision but writing to or estimed Michael Atkinson would just result in typical political spin.

Electronic Arts(EA) the distributor for Australia is still working with the classification board to resolve this issue and it will be allowed to be sold in Australia in its pure undiluted form like F.E.A.R 2: Project Origin which had a similar story but having its’ ban lifted.
Instead of a gimped release in the case of Fallout 3.

Although I do enjoy living in Australia and enjoy its’ many freedoms, I have to say it is akin to living in a country town: nice to living in but not modern.

Edit: After a bit of digging around on the internet Atkinson apparently posted a letter to the editor for the Adelaide Advertiser about the very subject of video game censorship in Australia only to be later rebutted by a gentlemen of  57 years of age; Terry O’Shanassy. The rebuttal was done  in such a fashion that Atkinson very much got ‘owned’.

Source News.com.au

First you need to download a copy of SoftTH from the creator’s site here.

Download the latest release which is 1.08b during the time of writing.
After downloading you should end up with a zip file that resembles something like this.

Now place the files into the following directories:
In this case for Left 4 Dead.

Set 1:
SoftTH_hook.dll
SoftTH.cfg

Set 2:
d3d8.dll
d3d9.dll

The files from Set 1 go with the main game executable in:  steamapps > common > left 4 dead
While Set 2 files are to be placed into the ‘bin’ folder:  steamapps > common > left 4 dead > bin
The files if placed properly should look like the ones in the picture below.

Now grab a copy of my config file from here.
Copy, paste my configuration into the config file in your own directory.

You now need to set Left 4 Dead to actually run in your desired screen size.

1. Options > Video
2. Set Aspect Ratio to: Widescreen 16:9 (the game does not recognise the custom aspect ratio so it just puts it there)
3. Set your desired resolution.
4. Set Display Mode to Full Screen (This is important as Windows 7 does not seem to like windowed games being spread across many monitors)

With your settings set, restart the game it might start up and look weird but wait until it has gotten to the menus.

‘Alt-tab’ out and back in, it should fix it.

Now enjoy Left 4 Dead in triple monitor glory.

Just make sure your computer is up to scratch to be able to support three monitors.

The same steps can be applied to Team Fortress 2 to produce the same results.

Edit: I should have put this note in a while back.

Note: I do not guarantee that my config will work 100% with every setup as everyone’s hardware is different, so you may end up having to modify the config file so that it works with your setup.
This config file is designed to be compatible with three monitors that can display a native resolution of 1680×1050 only.
Anything else you must change the resolution settings in the config file to match your hardware otherwise this will not work.

Disclaimer: This information is provided as is and you may use it at your own risk.

Also don’t rip my tutorial if you post this anywhere make sure you give credit.

Update 5/04/2010: I’ve changed the SoftTH config file’s monitor detection to ‘auto’ this should alleviate the need to specify monitors as the hook will automatically detect them for you, though you will still need to run the main screen in the centre screen as per usual.

The results surprised me as it ran on high settings with 2xAA and 2xAF very well.
All the UI elements didn’t look messed up and everything rendered very nicely it was as if the game was made for multi-monitor setups.

The only thing that was messed up by the huge resolution was the main menu’s background.
Otherwise everything was sweet.
Here’s a test run jumped into a random game, in this case the finale of No Mercy.

I used the same config as my Team Fortress 2 attempt, which can be grabbed from here.