Today, for the first time on this blog, I don't intend to fuck around and will tell you what's what without any moral (or verbal) constraining.
Behold this.
The background:
The name of the game is No More Heroes. The creator's name is Suda 51. The developer company's name is Grasshopper. Suda 51 previously released Killer 7, the game which has been placed on my extremely short personal list of the best games of all times (along titles like Silent Hill 2, Resident Evil 2, Portal, Half-Life and Another World). I wanted to buy Wii for this very game. The European version (and the Japanese one, as far as I know) got censored.
"Toned down" as they neatly put it. To quote James Rolfe:
"WHAT WERE THEY THINKING?!?"
When I look at Germany, the nexus of all the gaming censorship in Europe, I honestly feel sorry for its game-playing population. The green blood. The soldiers in Half-Life replaced with weird-looking green robots. All these banned games. Why? Are they scared of their young ones growing up to start another World War or something? When I look at Japan, the confusion becomes even greater - I've never been there, so I don't know all that much about their mentality; but why on Earth do they censor THEIR OWN GODDAMN GAMES, only to release them in other countries in their original version? Finally, why oh why does Nintendo want to be a toy company? The Gamecube was a little bit childish, yes, but it had Resident Evil exclusives, it had Eternal Darkness, there were lots of games not really intended for small kids. With Wii, everything’s for kids. Even the Umbrella Chronicles is as simplified as possible, degraded to a mere rail-shooter, which is less than the Gun Survivor series...
This post in entirely devoted to censorship and here are the four things I’ve got to say about it. In a word: IT’S FUCKING BAD!
The first point:
First of all, let's establish one thing. Is the scene you saw a realistic depiction of violence? Nuh-uh. So why on earth would that be harmful? Is this something which would encourage us to do violence? Just go ahead and ask yourself what kind of a sick, deranged retard you would have to be to believe that if you hurt somebody his blood would burst all over the place like that? (and while we're at it, can you imagine anyone stand before you and fucking talk to you after you've just chopped his hands off? realism, anyone?)
The second point:
Speaking of the retards, the violence (realistic or otherwise) in video games has little to do with the real world. This is my opinion, I've listened to some psychologists who deal with games, read some of their articles and believe me, I'm not the only person who thinks so. Now I don't want to delve deep into the video-games violence issue, although these two problems are closely related, what I will say, however, is this: if someone thinks that by censoring or banning things he will protect his children from harm, he is plainly wrong. And dumb. And ignorant. The world is a bullshit place, and one can belie them for only so long, before they grow up and see for themselves.
The third point:
If the aim of your game is killing people, you should show it. It's as simple as that. More than that – you should make it entertaining, unless you just don't care about the money people would give you for it. Remove the gore and the fun will drop. Remove the gore for just some regions of the world, and the fun will disappear altogether, replaced with bitter jealousy of all the U.S. gamers who get to play, let's say, No More Heroes, in all its red glory.
The final point:
Games like No More Heroes are works of art. The blood is just another artistic element added for a greater effect. It's like the blood in Kill Bill, the cursing in Pulp Fiction or Eminem's lyrics or the body deformations in Tom and Jerry cartoons. You can like it or not, but for heaven's sake, don't change it. Just how would "The Scream" by Edward Munch look like if I removed the black color and replaced it with pink simply because I found it too gloomy?
I don't intend ordering NTSC Wii from U.S.A. just for this game. If Ninten-dada wants its wii-wii console just for infants, let them. If they don't want to believe there are gamers who are actually more than 20 years old, let them. If they care more about their children-friendly image than the actual fucking MONEY, let them.
It’s their choice.
I just wish the fuckers drowned in diapers.
2 comments:
It's sad but true. I honestly think that countries like Germany and Australia can feel a little bit totalitarian when they are forced to play games chopped like that. But well, I should hate Germans in every aspect of their lives but... but hey ! they can drive as fast they can on their Autobahns (or whatever it should be written)I would be fucking pissed off, but on the other side I would download some kind of patch. but I'm 'only PC player' so I don't know if it is possible on consoles... I could go on and on but let's move on shall we?
It is so relative, isn't it EXramp ? :D
Relative indeed ;-D
I wasn't not sure if the Australian version got chopped up as well - I've read some forum posts and I guess it did. It's funny how no one seems to make fuss about it there.
And no, we cannot download gore unlockers or anything like that. There is some downloadable content, but nothing of this sort. You can't have everything I guess - in this case - No More Heroes. Damn them all to hell.
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