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I have purchased a copy from Steam and it has all of the visual gore taken out.

I'd rather play the game as it was intended and not be at the whims of some politician who thinks all Australians should be treated like children when it comes to gaming.

How can I edit, crack, or hack this game into removing the censorship?

EDIT:

So far the solution by Nick T has the most success, but internet play does not work due to steam connection issues. Is there is some way around this (dedicated server?).

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4 Answers 4

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+100

This is probably an "at your own risk" thing, I doubt this would make VAC go after you, but who knows.

Originally posted by ArchAngel-au on the CyberGamer Australia forums

Enabling gore in the censored Aussie versions of the L4D2 demo is as easy as editing 1 character in 2 text files:

Change the app id 590 to 510 in these two files:

alt text alt text

Save them and run the left4dead2.exe executable directly (not through steam icon/games list). This should be located in a directory like C:\Program Files\Steam\steamapps\common\left 4 dead 2 demo, just like the first file above.

Your status will say that you're playing "Left 4 Dead Dedicated Server", but the L4D2 Demo will start and you'll be able to play with gore enabled (no more disappearing zombies, more blood, decapitations/dismemberment, splatter on the screen, etc.!)

You will also still be able to start lobbies, invite friends and join games in progress on servers.

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  • Does that work for the full game or just the demo?
    – Raven Dreamer
    Dec 3, 2010 at 6:08
  • It should, yeah.
    – user56
    Dec 3, 2010 at 6:30
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    It works only with the demo, not with the full game. Same thing happened to the German version and the appid hack didn't work. Besides, even it it worked, you would not be allowed playing with other Australian L4D2 owners in multiplayer, since it is, to Steam, a different game.
    – DrFish
    Dec 3, 2010 at 10:05
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    It does work with the full game. But the problem is that internet play then does not work as steam can not find the connection for some reason. Is there some workaround for this?
    – CRice
    Dec 6, 2010 at 0:19
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    @CRice: This change causes the game to appear as L4D1 Dedicated Server (as the article states) meaning you can only play online with people who have also used this "hack"... and it's unreliable at best. Here's hoping for an R18+ in Australia some day! :)
    – Matthew Iselin
    Dec 7, 2010 at 2:30
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When using Steam, the games you own get the regional specialities of the person who bought them. That means, if someone outside Australia buys them for you as a gift, you should get their version, not the Australian one.

Of course this doesn't really help you, as you already have the game on your account and you can't buy/redeem the same game twice on Steam. You could, however, create a new account.

IANAL and I have no idea how legal this is -- but it seems to be openly discussed everywhere and it probably falls under the case of "it is as if someone brought you a physical copy of his version."

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  • Steam knows where you are, see this, so it probably would just give you the appropriate regional variant of the game, as they are the "same".
    – Nick T
    Dec 3, 2010 at 16:45
  • Mmmmh, maybe. I know for sure that it does work for regional deals and games completely hidden in the owner's (not buyer's) region. Not sure about low violence, though. I do have a gift version of Borderlands that kinda looks low violence, although I'm not really good at identifying these things and I've got the graphics turned down to the minimum anyway.
    – Cort
    Dec 3, 2010 at 21:03
  • At any rate, you should probably not upvote this, then. It's not a real answer to the original question anyway and should probably be discussed on a new question dealing specifically with Steam's (or their publisher's) geolocking.
    – Cort
    Dec 3, 2010 at 21:04
  • I'm fairly convinced that my version of Borderlands is not the low violence one.
    – Cort
    Dec 23, 2010 at 0:48
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Since September 4, 2014, you can install the Left 4 Dead 2 - Uncensored DLC on Australian copies to unlock the censored content.

If you are outside of Australia and your copy of L4D2 is still censored, you can install the Left4Gore mod to restore the cut content.

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Change country and or buy a foreign copy.

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