Homefront: THQ runs afoul of Japanese Games rating board
Japan’s games ratings board, the Computer Entertainment Rating Organization (“CERO”) has laid the smack down on one of the key symbolic characters in the upcoming THQ guerrilla shoot em up, Homefront. Since Homefront is set in an occupied United States overrun by North Korean invaders, it was natural to expect North Korea’s dictator Kim Jong Il’s image to figure in many segments of the game. This goes against the guidelines set forth by CERO. CERO forbids the portrayal of existing people and/or countries in video games. This has prompted the distributor of Homefront in Japan, Spike, to scramble and get a Kim Jong Il-free version of the game for the Japanese release.
The changes are as follows: No Kim Jong-Il image in the opening cinematics, all mentions of Kim by name have been changed to “Northern Leader”, and all previous mentions of North Korea has been changed to “A Certain Country to the North”.
Other than these revisions, the game will be identical to the version released to the rest of the world.
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