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King of Fighters Censored for Stateside Release
Coreyh writes "The just-released King of Fighters 2000/2001 game compilation for the PlayStation 2 has been censored.
The content removed from the 2D fighter includes blood, guns, and Mai's 'bouncing.' Apparently SNK Japan is a bit cautious about the USA's acceptance of content. I wish SNK USA had more control over this sort of thing. The content changed seems very mild to me.
King of Fighters 2003 has also had a limited Jamma PCB release for arcades around the world this week. Here is a trailer of the opening and gameplay. It has tagging and interesting new characters along with old favorites."
Noooooooo!!
It's playmore that's rlsing them, not SNK since SNK is out of business. So blame them. But oh well. Makes you wonder though with all the other crap that's released (i.e., silent hill 3). Probably those bastard MOM's with nothing else to do.
Ever played Capcom vs. SNK II? Ever wonder why SNK didn't bother hiring people who could speak English? Listen to Guile, Rolento, or Ken, and you'll see why!
That's just plain stupid. Maybe I'll have to watch house of 1000 corpses while playing it then...
The brutal killographys will contaminate our precious bodily fluids... They flourinate the water! It's a conspiracy!
Save me from the violent 2d fighter...
Sounds like Mortal Kombat's controversy all over again... well maybe not that wide-spread.
The big question is will anyone care? The whole KoF series has been recycling sprites for years and is looking increasingly dated. I'm not sure how much longer Eolith/Playmore can milk the series without an overhaul.
Ita erat quando hic adveni.
This must be a marketing ploy. Now I must have an uncensored version of this game, and this is the first time I've ever heard of it.
In vietnam the soldiers where not allowed to write swearwords ie fuck on the side of their planes but they where allowed to napalm villages and spray AgentOrange all over them and (fsk the enviro)
is there something fundamentally wrong with the USA when they think that showing dead people that they just killed on TV or watching the pornography of laser guided bombs hitting their targets killing REAL people live on TV is acceptable ? yet you are freaking out abou a fucking video game ?
seriously, whatever you are doing to try and improve your culture/outlook, its not working
Actually, Mai's bouncing is reduced even in the arcades since KOF 2000. She still bounces during her moves but her standing/walking animation (in which the bounce is MOST obvious) is removed. Obviously they weren't willing to make 2 animations for everything, but it is her walking/standing animation have makes her bounce seem most obvious.
Interestingly, if the Neo Geo machine is set to the Japan locality, the bouncing will return. So it's not removed from the game as such, but rather "swtiched off" when the machine is set to English.
You must not have children, then?
Don't these policy makers understand human psychology? If they watched Bowling for Columbine, they'd see or understand that it's not violent video games that cause violence among young adults. It's the constant barrage of fear-mongering in the media. People become violent out of fear, not through the influence of violent media. I think that is an important point to consider. Banning or censoring violent video games doesnt solve any problem other than imposing restrictions of free-speech and the right to choose. It's a slippery slope, much similiar to the case of Canada's levy on digital media. Michael Moore really delves deep into the mystery of why Americans are more violent than the rest of the world, and its not because of violent video games or violent movies.
Oftentimes in american culture there's this strange phenomenon where any amount of killing, gore, and disemboweling is perfectly fine.
But you show one breast and soon the censors come jumping in. Pretty strange.
On the other hand, we don't want atrocities like the fighting game "Battle Raper" from Japan (Where else?)
Intolerance for ambiguity is the mark of the authoritarian personality.
...why pirated versions (from other countries and without stupid censorship) are so popular.
Piracy is competition. A competition that hopefully make censorship disappear (somewhen).
For those who want to play the original versions, all the KOF games are perfectly emulated in MAME and several other emulators such as Nebula or Kawaks.
Really sad that these games will be censored. Especially about Mai Shiranui's bouncing!
Apparently SNK Japan is a bit cautious about the USA's acceptance of content.
;)
Huh? Isn't "Blood, guns and boobs" the premise of 99% of the movies made in hollywood today?
I would think americans wouldn't accept a game without guns blood and boobs.
I don't use Windows Media formats you insensitive clod!
What's this bouncing? I need proof.
I sense some undue influence from Mr. Walden...
I had a sucky sig.
Xenogears the orginal for PSone almost didn't make it to the states, and when it finally did it had 'horrid' voice acting, all due to it's religious overtones. Even as far back as Lunar 2 for Sega CD they changed the warp pads from pentagrams to Star Trek symbols so as not to offend over here. I don't think Pretty Fighter X ever made it over either, due to strong sexual content. This is nothing new...and it will continue to happen until people wake up and realize they are just games.
Blood and guns missing? We see those EVERY DAY on primetime television and in quite a few movies. Games use them all the time. Bouncing boobs? Fire up a game of DOA volleyball, turn on MTV spring break, watch the Victoria's Secret fashion shows on broadcast television, walk down the street, etc. etc.
Why they felt the need to remove things that we are constantly exposed to is beyond me.
...piracy will bypass this censorship.
Hails to all freedom loving warez dudes.
I remember the good old days of KoF on the Game Boy. Back then, it was just good fighting action that kept you entertained for ten minutes. I didn't care much that there wasn't blood or "bouncing", KoF was just a quality game to me. It doesn't much matter whether I see few pixels of gore or a couple others on a character's chest move.
Remember where Nintendo, Sega, etc would censor even the most minor thing (eg, changing "praying" to "wishing" in Final Fantasy, removing any mention of the word "kill" in any game, anything suggesting blood was turned white to represent sweat). This was in the days before ESRB ratings, and when video gamers were still predominantly under 18.
But to censor a game like this is anachronistic in this day and age, what with the gamer base mature and all.
Different cultures and societies have varying degrees of what is considered acceptable. SNK just seems to take the cautious route here. If you want to say that they're being prudes that's onte thing. It's really not much that's being edited. To say that it's CENSORSHIP is a little harsh and loses all perspective of what real censorship is.
Slashdot Moderation: From positive to terrible in 2 "insightful" posts.
The link to the trailer is in .wmf format! :(
And I am runing Linux in a Windows world... [sigh]
THIS is a modern game? I remember better graphics in games from 10 years ago...... Who would buy this?
Since the passing of my lord and master SNK the world has gone into chaos KOF'03 Censored?! The only answer now is to release myself from this hell.
*unsheaths his wakizashi*
*plunges it into his belly pulling across and spilling his insides all over U.S. Censors*
Let the game companies know that we don't want a watered down version of the Japanese version.
If the sales for the game are shit compared to the Japanese version, they'll get the message.
Companies are driven by profit; if they know that they will make less profit, they will be more willing to take the criticism from people who don't buy their games to begin with.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Censorship is when the government or another body imposes restrictions on information onto a 3rd party. It sounds like in this case the company that made the game is choosing to take out certain elements. It is not the same thing.
Hexy - a strategy game for iPhone/iPod Touch
the blood being taken out, i find typical, unnecessary, but nothing to whine about. it's just my opinion -- blood makes a fighting game gaudy, the same way excessive blood makes a war movie gaudy and even unrealistic.
and i agree wholeheartedly with taking out the guns. no fighting game should involve weapons, that's how i feel. i was pissed that scorpion was allowed into the mortal kombat tournament. i mean, nobody else showed up with synthetic weapons, they all used mystic forces. whether subzero's icy blasts could have actually been technologically produced or not is up to debate -- i say it was magic. i didn't even like the metallic fan thing in the sequel. i don't like weapons in empty-hand fighting games, they belong in samurai fighting games where at least a sword is expected. do you think it's fair to take a sword against honda? he'll never get out of the way or block more than one strike. he's a sumo wrestler -- that's why people like he and zangeif joined the tournament, to fight with their hands, not weapons. keep the guns and crap hidden under samurai showdown kimonos. in fact, take guns out of the fighting games. leave them in the war games. nobody wants to escape back to a time long ago when any moron could pick up a gun and negate evolution. that's not why we play fighting games. we play them to revel in a style of doing battle that has been outdated by something so easy to use that eugenics may as well be abandoned while inbreds rule the world.
but, i digress. while i can tolerate censoring blood, and i think guns shouldn't be in fist/magic/combo-fighting games, this junk about removing 'bouncing' is intolerable.
there is probably nothing more distracting to the gamer than the first time they run into a pair of realistically jiggling boobs on what they had hoped would be an easy-to-beat opponent. it's seriously disarming. any realistically portrayed part of female anatomy is disarming to other gamers, sometimes especially other females.
it's a great feat of human ingenuity to take pixels that are often so large you can see them as clearly as lego-blocks on your bedroom floor and turn them into an illusion of anatomy so realistic that the player can be aroused by it. for this technology to be stifled is a real shame in the pants. you think this is bad, wait until they censor 'falling/flying/f**king' (lawnmower man.) now that's outrage.
"Stratigraphically the origin of agriculture and thermonuclear destruction will appear essentially simultaneous" -- Lee
Cause I'll just get that and fsk the censorship. i'd rather play it with my X-arcade anyways
Ah yes. Unused to natural breasts, millions of Americans go into shock when subjected to "Bouncing".
We'll probably never see any more of this sort of thing coming from Japan's entertainment industry.
Democrats or Republicans. They are both taking us to the same place and they are not afraid of us anymore.
holy crap, that one animated gif of her down on one knee kicking out to the side is the hottest thing i've seen! what a bottom!
Anyone care to explain a non-gamer what the bouncing was all about ? I've squeezed my brain to picture a revulsing way of bouncing that matches the gore of blood-spraying decapitation and such...
posted anon to avoid "karma whoring" comments
For those of you who actually still play KOF faithfully (like me) this is an outrage! KOF has always been about flair and tradition which is why this game is still released stateside.
Remember when the Mortal Kombat sparked the whole violence in videogames debacle? The Sega Genesis Mortal Kombat was the first game to realistically (umm... 16bits was realistic back then...) portray violence and capture media attention. Though the premise of killing was no different than say Smash TV or NARC for NES. It was just looked more realistic and not cartoony.
There's so much more violence in other videogames, so much more sex, and so much more other crap that underage gamers are exposed to. Leave the majority (males 16-25) who legitimately buy KOF for its substance out of your violence and sex in videogames Hindenburg.
Don't censor The King of Fighters!
.deviatefromtheabsolute.
You would think SNK would be quite aware of what its competitors are doing
Many of KoF's competitors are rated T for Teen by the ESRB. Many video game stores have begun to require state-issued identification in order to sell M rated games. I'm guessing Playmore wants to sell to kids who don't have fake IDs.
Manipulate the moderator system! Mod someone as "overrated" today.
in fact, take guns out of the fighting games. leave them in the war games.
Even in games like Super Smash Bros. Melee, which focus on hand-to-hand combat but occasionally drop weapons into the ring?
pixels that are often so large you can see them as clearly as lego-blocks on your bedroom floor
Unlike a computer screen, a TV screen is designed to blur the pixels. Emulators have to do this in software, with bilinear filtering or (in newer emulators) smart edge-detecting interpolation.
Why is anyone surprised by this? Sure, it doesn't make sense for Playmore to do this. Some of the guys on the Neo-Geo board said they had emailed the company and asked about censorship, and Playmore told them there would be none. Obviously people at the company had the wrong information.
As anyone who's been a Neo-Geo fan since the beginning knows, this is nothing new. There was this same outcry back in the early 90's when KOF '94 came out. Good thing it can be reversed on the MVS by changing the region.
As for the PS2 port, it shouldn't make a difference except to hardcore fans. And if you won't play a game because it doesn't have blood and boobs, I suggest you find some other hobby.
I'm on top of my game like I'm standin' on Xbox.
I just noticed the animation was changed in SvC Chaos, too. It not only affects USA release, but Europe, also. Basically, the game MUST be in Japanese. I wonder if someone could patch the game?
If you want to see massive boob bouncage, try Dead or Alive for the PS1. Behold the giant perky braless wonders on the redhead chick. They bounce probably twice as long as they should when she stops moving. Kinda weird in a facsinating way.
While I in no way agree with censorship, I don't understand why bouncing boobs had any place in the game in the first place! It was the same with Street Fighter Alpha 3 and R. Mika. It was obvious why Capcom decided to include that character, and it wasn't to balance the game play.
Maybe the bouncing wasn't so much censored, as changed for the good of the game? Maybe somebody at the U.S. headquarters with half a brain realised it was unnecessary and could reflect bad on the series in the U.S. (I know I wasn't impressed when I first saw the R. Mika character).
A consistent theme with the posts here has been, "if its ok on MTV or Network primetime, why isnt it ok it a videogame". Personally, for me, it is ok. And for nearly all of us its ok. The issue is when Mrs. Betty SoccerMom comes home and finds little timmy (who is 9 or 10) playing a game with blood spatters, sucking chest wounds and humongous bouncing titties that would impress even Tim Sr.
You can claim the ratings system will prevent this, but we all know it wont. Most of the time Mom herselft bought the game without even thinking about ratings...."its a game, its got to be ok, right?"
friend of mine was showing me this about changing the region setting and how Mai's bounce comes back. Its not even that noticble. Sersuly you want bouncing breasts get porn.
It's been happening since King of Fighters '99, to the best of my recollection.
On the NEO GEO.
In the SAME CARTRIDGE. (if you can mod your NG to go between US and JAP settings, you'll notice the change)
To be quite honest, I'm sure all they did was port the US version that has all the changes inherent.
I mean the best content as far as blood and guns is available on CNN anyway.
open (SIG, "</dev/zero"); $sig = <SIG>; close SIG;
Mai's bouncing, in case any non-gamers want to see the offending material. SFW, slightly hypnotizing.
"May your shit come to life and kiss you on the face."
-- Frank Zappa, to Mrs. Gore about parental advisory labels on album covers
"Hu, ho, ho-ah-oh-oh-oh. Hu, ho ho-ah-oh-oh-oh. Mario Paint! Whoaaa!"
For those of you not in the know, Mai is the "bouncy: one in question...
Hey! I want a swinging dick on male characters !
Eww nasty, beikokujin cosplay is not cool dude.
And i surly hope the animated mai isn't quite so...um i'll be nice... "Chunky".
There's a long history of censorship in the video game market. I think the blood and gore is a small part of it. There's a lot of politically-incorrect content that never makes it to the states. A good example was the Nintendo shooter game Parodious, which, among other things, featured a red-white-and-blue Eagle that you had to shoot until its feathers flew off, and a collection of Vegas showgirls that spread their legs for you to fly between. Great game.
Only fanboys could keep such an old style alive...:)))
Well, I've a simple solution to this problem, and my wife actually agree's with me. We'll just buy the MVS carts for our 4-Slot arcade system if we decide we want either game. We've already got KOF94 and KOF98.
As for the comments about children playing the game. It's been my experience that they tend to go for the guys. They don't seem to understand that properly played, the women characters in most 2D/3D fighters have the advantage (Soul Caliber 2 seems to be an exception to this). Besides, I'd rather see children playing this than something like Bloody Roar 3, or DOA 2 or 3.
Z
Come on, what the fsk is SNK worried about. Cammy from Street Fighter 2 Alpha very bouncy also and that was released how many years ago. Plus you had the fact that she looked like a over-developed 12 year old. That's close enough to pedophila in my book. Capcom still released it and nothing came of it. Plus most of these games are rated for teens anyway. Males,in general, of that age will look anything with breasts, bouncing or non-bouncing, large or small, and virtual or living.
No good deed goes unpunished.
Yeah, but since it's not available in the states, it looks like I'll have to pirate it.
-------------------------------------------------
Remember, the Japanese version of Mortal Kombat II had to have green blood instead of red in it. There was probably a reason.
KoF has been censored in the Stateside releases for nearly a decade.
All.
All.
Arcade releases and home releases for eh game default with no blod, guns and freely jiggling.. talent..
King of Fighters 2003 has also had a limited Jamma PCB release for arcades around the world this week.
King of Fighters is NOT a JAMMA PCB. It is a Neo Geo cartridge. JAMMA (Japanese Arcade Machine Manufacturers Association) is a standard of connector used on PCBs by nearly all mid 80s onwards arcade games. It is a 56 way edge connector. See here for details.
Now, Neo Geo motherboards usually have JAMMA edge connectors, but the games themselves are not JAMMA.
Hey, someone post a link for the kof2003 or ssv rom!!!! Give me rom or give me flame!
The KOF series has sucked like a porn star for years. It's like someone saying that the producer of a bag of shit pulled a spoon out of it; it's still a big bag of shit. Blah. We can't even discuss censorship issues about it, either, since the dang game is being altered by the owning company, rather than the NYC mayor.
I am Jack's Savage Beats.
DOA is known for "bouncy" girls, so I don't see why SNK feels the need to censor Mai's bounciness since they are letting DOA one up them.
Oh well, it is all crazily dumb fanservice anyways. I'm just kind of surprised that they're doing this nowadays since Mai is practically PG nowadays compared to DOA.
"You spoony bard!" -Tellah
Non-Halloween/non-party-environment cosplay of all kinds is for people who, IMO, are freaks. Nationality has nothing to do with it, and frankly, I think that if you have a problem with American cosplayers while not harboring the same opinion of Japanese cosplayers, you are being racist.
Bizarre that a company altering one of their own games is a "Censorship" story, whereas the New Zealand government banning Manhunt isn't. Good work, eds!
You don't have to change something later just because of a public outcry either.
This self-censorship as well as changing later due to outcry (see Disney's "The Program" or Rockstar's GTA:Vice City) are both not actually censorship. They are merely companies changing their product in order to be sure they maintain a receptive customer base. Basically, to avoid boycotts, not because they are worried they'd get in trouble with the government.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I downloaded the video and man was that boring.
This is really, really beyond my comprehension.
Does anybody who already has a PC see ANY reason to concern themselves with low-tech console games?
I just don't get it.
The new main character is Ash. From what I see and what I hear from people who have actually played the beta, he's one powerful character. But does he look gay, or is it just me?
As for the censoring thing, it's easy enough going into Kawaks and change the region code to Japan or something similar. Then you'll have to deal with Japanese text in some places, but you get to see Mai's bounce! Also, I hear Angel's (pronouced 'An-ell' or something, she's supposed to be Mexican) animation where she takes her top off as a victory pose is stripped out of the US version too.
Founder of Mirror Moon - Tsukihime Game Trans
remove this troll.
remove this troll.
'War is cool, sex is bad'?
:)
Please, make love, not hate!
The hardcore fan is the one who will be most disturbed by stupid, pointless, Ninja Gaiden Trilogy style censorship, but for some reason he's the one who usually has to put up with it. I don't remember whether Tecmo had brought out Ninja Gaiden Trilogy for the SNES (terrible port, don't buy it, they also took the lightening out of the lightening level making it into a cakewalk) before or after Mortal Kombat II. What I do know is that content that was considered perfectly acceptible when the games were major releases on the NES, became necessary to censor for what was essentially a nostalgia release on the SNES.
Well, it is the same with this. You can go out and buy GTA:Vice City for your PS2, but forget about an uncensored KOF.
Still, it could be worse, like what happened with all the Samurai Spririts games besides part III on the PS1 (i.e. they were never released in the US.)
I suggest if you are a fan you find a way to import it.
All the creatures will die, And all the things will be broken. That's the law of samurai. (Jubai, 1605)
In Fatal Fury, Mai had boob jiggle. Mostly in her finishing animation (after you win). It wasn't as ridiculous and slow-motion as what KOF has, but still, the point is that in a Nintendo SNES game, the jiggle was there (we're talking early to mid 90's here!)
Any mention of an AES release?
the fact that the pixels were intentionally blurred is reasonable and discernable, hence your ability to discern it. that means it's obvious to sight
Well-done interpolation on sprite graphics (Genesis, Super NES, Neo-Geo, CPS2) is "as visible as a lego strew" only if you think to look for it. The human visual system tends to accept blurry images more readily than blocky images, and it tends to accept blurry moving images more readily than blurry still images.