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Bethesda's vice president of PR and marketing Peter Hines wants the world to know that Australian gamers aren't being ripped off by the removal of specific drug references from their version of Fallout 3. Speaking with Edge, Hines confessed that Fallout 3 in Australia will be "identical to both the U.K. and North American versions in every way, on every platform." They will be identical, it turns out, in that Bethesda has decided to edit out the use of real-world drugs in all territories.

"An issue was raised concerning references to real-world, proscribed drugs in the game, and we subsequently removed those references and replaced them with fictional names," Hines told Edge, no doubt referring to the rating denial by the Australian Office of Film and Literature Classification. The Bethesda exec continued, "To avoid confusion among people in different territories, we decided to make those substitutions in all versions of the game, in all territories"

So what do you think? Will the substitution of fictitious narcotics improve the game's already unique atmosphere, or is this just a case of unfair censorship? Would the discrepancies between the Australian and U.S. versions of the game really be an issue, or should games be tailored to suit each region's sensitivities? Sound off in our comments section.