Video games and censorship go
together like Wolfenstein and Nazi killing or… Wolfenstein and indiscriminate
bad guy killing, if you’re from Germany. Censors around the world have tampered with and changed many elements of games throughout the years, from Earthbound
on the SNES, to the infamous scene in Modern Warfare 2, to something as simple
as Left 4 Dead’s zombie dismemberment.
For us adult gamers, unless we’re
talking about Manhunt, it’s quite hard to get too graphic. However, we have to remember the underlying root of
censorship, which is to protect younger players from experiencing inappropriate
content. We could sit here and argue the flaws of censorship, how a lot of the
controversy is overblown and unwarranted. Instead, we’re going to look into how some sneaky
developers skirted around said censors and made the best of their situation.
Some crafty creators actually got very clever
with their alternatives, even going as far back as the first Mortal Kombat,
locking all its nasty parts behind a special code. Similarly, you’ve got black
and white filters, removal of certain symbols and the clever idea to change the
in-game item of morphine to a more stylish Med-X. Some developers are just too
smart for their own good.
