Singapore's MDA Reverses Mass Effect Ban

The Singapore Media Development Authority has reversed its recently-announced decision to ban Microsoft's upcoming Mass Effect due to the optional same-sex love scene between a human woman and an alien female that appears in the game. The regional Straits Times newspaper, which reported the ban initially, now says the MDA has decided to allow the futuristic RPG to be released with an M18 rating. Singapore thus far has been the only nation to take issue with Mass Effect's content, though the country reportedly banned God of War II for nudity in one of its scenes, and The Darkness, for excessive violence and "religious expletives." The decision comes following a statement by the Board of Film Censors that it will use the ratings system to "enable highly anticipated games to be launched in Singapore" for the time being until it launches its own ratings system, anticipated in January of 2008. Continued the statement, "This will allow such games to enter the market with immediacy and give the industry and members of the public a better understanding of the benefits of the proposed games classification system."