Recently we told you all about how Dead Space was getting bumped up from its Halloween release to a debut on October 24; well now EA has decided to push the release date forward again, and Dead Space will now hit store shelves on October 14. At this rate, the release date is going to slide forward so much that we’re going to discover that it actually came out in February 2003 and we all just missed it somehow. Still, getting a game this good-looking sooner than expected is always welcome.

Things aren’t perfect for Dead Space though, as we also learned today that three countries (Germany, Japan and China) have banned the title entirely. Germany and China I’m not all that surprised about but Japan, really? Isn’t that the country where all the really scary movies come from? Why on earth wouldn’t they want to release a survival horror game that draws heavily from their own elements of scariness? I guess in Japan tentacle porn is okay, but tentacles crushing human bones is just unacceptable.

Still, all us violence-and-fear-loving Americans can look forward to getting Dead Space a little sooner than expected. We’ll just have to play extra hard for all our international compatriots who are missing out on the experience.