As far as I know, you can´t drag bodies anymore, no, read that complaint quite often...


More SMT: Strange Journey-Fun: Since my goddamn game is still not here (3 Weeks now) I ordered another one from the Netherlands...should´ve done that from the start...I could just drive over there, that store is just an hour away...BUT I didn´t know about it until now because I´m kind of an idiot apparently...njech.

It's weird not to be able to move bodies, but it doesn't bother me much. The co-op is a blast to play as well. I'm gonna try and get my Fallout 3 working again, but at this point that might be wishful thinking.

You're never getting that game, Oxblood.

A little off topit but Im curious. Doesnt Germany edit lots of games if they dont just ban then all out? Can you just drive over to the Netherlands and buy one of these edited or banned games and bring it back? If you do could you get in trouble for it? Would they confiscate the game and possibly fine you for owning "controlled goods"? Kind of like Cuban cigars here in the states.

I don't think so Dimnos. Unless a police officer pulls you over and sees a bunch of copies of "Rape, Maim, Kill" or something.

RMK, the infamous spinoff of MDK.

:lol

Banning is not so much of a problem. The only things that get banned are extremely violent games or games that have Swastikas in them. Examples of banned games would be the old and new Wolfenstein-Games, Dead Rising (I´m still allowed to own it, just couldn´t buy it anymore or show it publicly), the first Condemned and so on.

Our rating-guys basically have a problem with violence against humans and sometimes they don´t even care at all it seems. God of war 3 for example was released without any cuts or modifications, it´s just rated 18 and that´s it.

Our real problem here are some old farts who call themself politicians who never tire of blaming Video Games for all kinds of violence. Everytime there is someone running amok - Videogames, no doubt. It´s really really annoying. Sad fact: We had quite some cases of some kid running amok here over the last few years. Why? Because they were completely messed up losers no one cared about. That´s what drove them over the edge, everyone knows that but admitting it would be admitting that our politicians have to do something in terms of families and education and that´s WAY too expensive no sir, no money for helping the messed up.

Luckily most important politicians don´t give a shit because they know the Videogame-industry is too important by now to piss it off and that the whole affair is just plain bullshit anyway. But it´s still a popular way to draw attention away from real problems like stupid parents, insufficiently effective schools and other stuff in this country.

Of course, those who criticise Videogames and blame them for all kinds of stuff never touched or even saw a videogame. A special problem is a single guy, a...what´s the word in english...he´s a professor for criminology I think and he neeeever tires of honking around like a fucking elk when it comes to Videogames in connection to violence. Kinda like our version of Jack Thompson, only that no one shut the stupid bastard up yet.

In short: Our problem is not so much the censoring of videogames, even though that CAN be problematic every now and then, it is the defamation of millions of people with a harmless hobby, the discrimination of videogamers and the deliberate misinformation of the public by these liars and politicians who either use the whole topic to avert attention from their own mistakes or simply because they actually believe in all that bullshit. How I´d love to see them replaced by efficient people, that would be so wonderful.

Interesting fact: Most of the time, these people seem to be part of the CSU (christly social union), the bavarian branch of the christian-democrats who are about as convervative as you can get in germany. Egh...bavarians, you don´t understand what the hell they´re saying, they ruin our politics (not that other politicians were a lot better though), they´re way too extreme with their CSU-guys...what the fuck do we need ´em for anyway...

Not that I´ve ever been to Bavaria but if they can be prejudiced against my hobby and by that against me, I can afford not to like them too.

Oh and as a final statement: I HATE politics, it destroys so much with it´s scheming and all the lies and what´s worse, people believe all those lies. It´s like a fucking circus everytime there´s an election here. People "promise the blue from the skies", as we say here and still, a lot of people actually believe all this and go vote for the idiots. It´s true for all parties here, sure and not voting is a dangerous thing to do because it strengthens the brown guys but still: I won´t be able to vote for ANY major party while keeping a clean conscience...

Sorry, I got side tracked but maybe it´s interesting to know for you guys how things are handled over here.

Oh by the way, Strange Journey simply wasn´t released in europe, just a money-thing for Atlus, the strong religious themes never posed any problem here.

Edit (15:30h here): Hey, Dr. Boogie, guess what? Strange Journey just got here. The order from the Netherlands that is...talk about flying Dutchmen...2 Days, that´s a good time...

So in short its not a crime to own a copy of the new Wolfenstein with swastikas? Just selling it is?

Just finished Splinter Cell Conviction. It was very enjoyable, but also quite hard towards the end. Gonna start playing King Of Fighters 98 again :)

As far as I know it would be against the law to buy one now that it has been banned. It always takes a while untile they get around to ban it. Selling it here in germany is not allowed no. The german version of the new Wolfenstein was modified, they removed the swastikas (or Hakenkreuz, as it is called here) and modified the names and some of the WW2-Posters in the game...the Nazis are the "Wolfpack" in the german version :lol

Funny thing is, they apparently forgot ONE swastika in one level and they had to pull ALL the games from the shelves and as far as I know the didn´t re-release it...strange things can happen here, indeed.

To finally answer your question: You could get problems if customs cought a german importing banned games but you can still get them here and there. Just owning them won´t get you in much trouble though, especially not if they have nothing to do with the whole nazi-stuff (which is sick since all you do in those games is KILL nazis, i can´t count the legions of germans I killed in the 20 years of my videogaming career :lol). To be honest, I don´t know the specific laws concerning these things, nor do I care about them a lot. I play what I want to play and in 9 of 10 cases, the fact that I live in germany won´t stop me from doing that.

By the way, another interesting censoring was "the Darkness", a great game most of you will know. There they changed the heart-eating to soul-eating which is less bloody but WAY more horrifying if you ask me...still, it´s censorship and I don´t do censorship :|

oh well if i get caught by mexican customs caring something ilegal i just roll out cash and nothing happend is there a video of ths soul eating?

also funny fact the japanesse version of god of war 3 has a z rating wich is kinda like the adults only us rating however the sex scene is censored :/

The Darkness rocked, but yer. It was gory.

Darkness was a cool game.

Played a little bit of army of two: 40th day. I remember darkvare saying there's pretty much no story which is true. Its fun though playing co-op. The upgrade menu seems a little bit clunky though and the loading time sssssuuuuuucccccckkkkkkssssss.

Yeah, you could try bribing our guys but I don´t think that would work outside of eastern europe maybe :\.

I couldn´t find a Video of it but here´s a picture.

Basically, ALL the heart-eating gore was removed and all you get is that black shade-ball-thingy you see in the middle of the screen. Lame, eh?

I think the Darkness is one of the worst versions to own in german. Just for fun, here´s what was cut or changed (there´s a very handy german site that keeps track of these things so you know what they took out)

-No bloody impacts of shots when hitting a target
-No damage textures
-No blood marks on the floor or walls (game becomes eerily "clean" by that)
-No Blood effects on darkling kills
-No burning enemies
-No begging or crying enemies on the floor
-No ragdoll effects on corpses (they love taking that out for some reason)
-No impaling via Tentacle (enemies just fall over and can´t be impaled)
-No heart-eating
-7 execution-moves removed, rest lacks blood-effects
-Cutscenes have no gore or blood, some are censored I think (think of the drill-sequence, no blood)
-2 Bonus Comic unlockables were removed because of swastikas (instead of just censoring the symbols)

Can it get any worse I ask you? I don´t think so. But then again this is one of the worst examples, that´s how they handled these games in the 90s, mostly PC-Shooters got that intensive treatment.


Thankfully, nudity is not that much of a problem here, germany´s arch enemy seems to be violence in general...

why would they take away the rag doll thing?
also i'm pretty sure i own both comics that were removed

"Shooting someone is sick already, but doing...anything else to the corpse is outright evil". Sounds stupid, but that´s the reason behind it.

The people behind those censorings as well as the people who lead the "killergame"-debate as it is actually called can´t see the difference between a human being and pixels that form the illusion of a human being on a screen. To them, it´s almost the same thing.
More than once, FPS-Games were called murder-simulations and other nonesense. Someone actually tried to convince the public that playing Counterstrike can turn you into a deadly marksman because...well, you were practicing under SUCH realistic circumstances and blah blah blah..

I think you can see where this is headed. I´ve killed millions of beings on the screen but does that help me aim a real gun or teach me how to handle the recoil? No, because I´ve never fired or held a real gun AND I´m fucking afraid of guns in general :lol

http://www.healthunit.com/sectionLis...?sectionID=378

A sex education game made by the british govt. Fucking hilarious though. The villain is a Luchador with a penis for an arm that shoots sperm. Its for Mature Young audiences so prob NSFW.

:lol AAAWWWWRRRRHHHH RIGHT IN THE FACE

is kinda nasty for an educational game and having seen countless luchadores i haven't seen many with pennis for an arm

I never got why people don't understand this point. Just because people think it's fun to blow up a car in a VIDEOGAME does not make them psychotic, emotionless monsters. Bad parenting makes people psychotic, emotionless monsters.

I've shot a gun and been shot at and I don't think those people played many videogames. Unless Atari and Colecovision leads to psychotic episodes in which people think random pedestrians are all trying to steal their drugs or something. I love how politicians and the media demonize anything that they do not understand unless it's an iPod or something. They go insane for fucking Apple.

I just looked at the German version of The Darkness and I think it could be more damaging to children. If you shoot something and it doesn't react and just falls over, doesn't that create a sort of immoral void where your actions in the videogame have no repercussion? If they don't scream or bleed, it just makes it seem like they are even more soulless dummies. I dunno. Food for thought I guess. Maybe they should ban guns? That would keep kids from getting them.

Of course, but it´s not as expensive to blame some kind of medium instead of trying to improve the way kids are brought up these days.

Interesting. I think most politicians here, at least the older ones don´t even know what an iPhone is, they got their secretary people to take care of the non-bullshit-talking things :lol


Now that IS an interesting thought. When I think about how I reacted to gore or blood back then...hm...not sure though...which 14 year old boy doesn´t like to watch Braindead for example. A movie I can´t watch anymore because the gore makes my almost 30 year old self sick, it went from awesome to disgusting over the years.

Banning guns and making them totally unavailable to civilians could certainly help since even over here every case of someone running amok in the past years (all schoolkids by the way, no grownups) had guns involved. Mostly Handguns, some Hunting rifles...the parents either had guns or the kids were in a shooting club (right word?) which has a lot of tradition over here...something I can´t understand and I´d ban it right away if I could. Thankfully, it would not be as hard as it would be in the States but even here there´s a strong gun-lobby, only that it consists of hunters and gun-club-members since those are the only civilan people who can own guns...

That reminds me of something I always wanted to ask an american...I know it´s not as hard to own a gun in the states, sure. But...how much does a simple handgun cost? Something common maybe. Always wanted to know that.

If you know where to look, you can get an assault rifle for around 400$. I'm not joking. Handguns should never be allowed in a civilized society, as they only have one purpose, which is killing people. No one goes hunting with a desert eagle for fucks sake. Rifles and Shotguns should be allowed in limited circumstances for hunting and protection of places like convenience stores. I hope that people will get civilized in America sooner or later though.

Children and guns do not ever mix well, which is why any sane parent should not keep a gun in their home. Maybe if children got beaten up like they used to and actually had to fight for things, they would know better than to use a weapon. When people know what violence can cause, they tend not to use it. A kid in my city was arrested for shooting another boy in the face because he didn't want to fight him, man to man. It's horrible.

I jumped back into retro-gaming today.


1. Primal Rage

2. Earthworm Jim

Both played on my model 1 Sega Genesis. 20+ years and still kickin.

Interesting, thanks for the info...

Actually, the thought that some convenience store owner has a gun under his counter is pretty absurd when I try to imagine something like that over here...but our convenience stores aren´t open at night, so the situation is a little different anyways.

And now: What am I playing right now ;)

SMT: Strange Journey is awesome, great pacing, good gameplay, not too hard yet. The music´s pretty forgettable though.
Also I downloaded Sword of Fargoal for my Ipod. Never played it back in the day on the C64 but hell, it´s really good, same goes for the PC-Port. A great roguelike.
Still playing Just Cause 2 and Way of the Samurai 3 and both are still quite entertaining. Resonance of Fate...not as much. Not bad but very tedious.