There are a few reasons why you may not want to be a gamer living in Germany.
The sometimes strict censorship of video game violence, for example, is sure to upset those
of you who enjoy seeing your enemies exploding to pieces.
However, once upon a time, German gamers were faced with something a bit more bizarre when
it comes to video game censorship and I'm talking about... the robots.
You see, one way that the industry decided to tackle Germany's problem with video game
violence was to turn all of the characters into non-human robots instead.
Due to this, there are many examples from the 90s and 00s of games having a special
German version created that are extremely different to the rest of the world... and
much more mechanical in nature.
Take Soldier of Fortune 2, for example, which is a popular FPS from back in 2002.
As you can see from the gameplay, there's no shortage of that red stuff, with you being
able to target any of the enemies' body parts and obliterate them to pieces.
Back in 2002, Soldier of Fortune's gameplay was groundbreaking and there was absolutely
no chance that it would be allowed to be released in Germany in its original form.
And so, for the German release, the devs completely changed the game and not only turned every
single human character into a robot, but also replaced the story with a new one, where the
game now takes place in a parallel universe where mankind was completely wiped out by
machines.
The game of course plays and feels very different with all humans now turned to machines.
Also, this means that there's no more of that high tech violence system, with the robots
instead blowing up when defeated.
Another game released in Germany with humans turned to robots is Carmageddon, the graphic
vehicle combat game from 1997.
One big part of the title was the ability to mow down pedestrians during races for points.
Over in Germany though...
German games turning characters into robots though, goes back even further than the 90s,
with one of the first cases happening in Contra from way back in 1988.
This one however, ended up affecting all European regions and it even led to the title being
given a new name... Probotector.
As you can see on the cover art, the game is now based around futuristic robots instead.
These changes affected all humans in the game and then went on to also be made to all of
the Contra sequels for a whooping 9 years.
One of the later games even decided to make the same changes to a wolf-like playable character,
showing that this treatment wasn't exclusive to humans.
This is similar to Turok: Dinosaur Hunter, which made changes to all of its Demon enemies,
which, whilst humanoid looking in nature, aren't actually human
Turok does also contain many proper human enemies though, such as human poachers, soldiers
and sergeants.
Naturally, these were censored in Germany the same... by turning them into some sort
of robot.
Now there are many more examples of German games with similar sort of changes, but the
last for today will be a rather infamous case from 2003's Command & Conquer: Generals.
The real time strategy game was actually originally released completely uncensored in Germany
and with only a 16+ rating.
However, shortly after release the game was then indexed by the German government, meaning
that it was unable to be sold openly and had to be hidden out of view of children by, for
example, hiding it under counters.
This would, of course, heavily affect sales and so out of nowhere the devs had to create
a new version of their game for the German market.
Thus, a little while later came a version that had many changes made to it, to remove
anything that could potentially cause issues... one of the most popular forms of editing being,
yet again, turning all humans into machines.
Dozens of art assets had to be altered and it really gives a different impression than
the original.
Other changes include the removal of all civilians, changing anthrax to acid, the removal of elements
that were related to real life and even a mission being completely cut from the game.
There were many other changes made to the German version and perhaps one day Censored
Gaming could make a full in-depth video going into these.
Here, for example, is one of the other ways that Command & Conquer: Generals handled human
characters, with the bombers on the left being replaced by bombs on wheels.
Thankfully for German gamers though, it's now been a long time since this sort of thing
has happened and, in fact, the country has actually got a lot more relaxed in recent
years, with them allowing games like Mortal Kombat X completely uncensored.
However, with so many classics from the past being affected, including Valve's Half Life
which is commonly regarded as one of the most influential games of all time, these are memories
that still to this day must unfortunately linger on.
Until next time, thank you for watching.