Australian censors have wielded the ban hammer for the fourth time this year, prohibiting horror game Silent Hill: Homecoming from hitting retail shelves.

Homecoming was refused classification by The Classification Board last week, presumably for excessive violence, and follows similar verdicts for Fallout 3, Shellshock 2: Blood Trails and Dark Sector. Fallout 3's rating has since been changed to MA15+ after developers Bethesda made edits to the drug content in the game.

Homecoming, which was due for release on PC, PS3 and Xbox 360 in November, is the sixth installment in the popular Silent Hill survival horror series published by Konami and features a soldier who returns from war to search for his missing brother. It is distributed in Australia by Atari, who last had classification difficulties with the controversial Marc Ecko's Getting Up, which was banned in Australia for promoting and instructing players how to graffiti.

Censorship ministers in March agreed to canvas public opinion on the proposed introduction of a long overdue R18+ classification for games, but are still working on the mechanisms to let Australians have their say. No doubt the latest ban will prompt another flood of protest letters from outraged gamers to the Classification Board and Australia's attorneys-general.

Australia is the only developed democracy in the world to not have an R18+ classification for video games.