"felt like a sneak peek" and provided some marketing for Stick of Truth. Censorship Shortly before the game's release, Ubisoft announced that it would voluntarily censor seven scenes, calling it a "market decision made by Ubisoft EMEA" and not a response to input from censors. PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 versions were affected in European territories, the Middle East, Africa, and Russia, while the Microsoft Windows version remained uncensored. The censorship affected all formats in Australia, Singapore, Hong Kong, Germany, Austria, and Taiwan. The North American release was the only version that was uncensored on all formats. The German version was specifically censored because of the use of Nazi and Hitler-related imagery, including swastikas and Nazi salutes, which are illegal in that country. A spokesman for the European video game content rating system Pan European Game Information (PEGI) confirmed that the uncensored version had been submitted and approved for release with an 18 rating, meaning the game would be acceptable for people over eighteen years of age. Ubisoft resubmitted the censored version without input from PEGI; this version was passed with an 18-rating. The scenes Ubisoft removed depict anal probing by aliens and the player-character performing an abortion. In their place, the game displays a still image of a statue holding its face in its hand, with an explicit description of events depicted in the scene. In Australia, the same scenes were removed because the Australian Classification Board refused to rate the game for release due to the depiction of sexual violencespecifically the child player-character being subjected to anal probing and the interactive abortion scene. Like the European version, these scenes were replaced with a placeholder card with an explanation of what was removed on a background image of a koala crying. Discussing the situation, Stone said he had been told changes were required for the game to be released and that he and Parker inserted the placeholder images so the censorship would not be hidden. He called the censorship a double standard that the pair resisted, and said he felt it did not ruin the game and the cards allowed them to mock the changes. A post-release user-created game modification was released for the Microsoft Windows version that disabled the censorship. Reception Critical response South Park: The Stick of Truth received positive reviews from critics. Aggregating review website Metacritic provides a score of 85 out of 100 from 48