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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!!
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.
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.
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.
I'm pretty sure a kid shouldn't be playing a game called "King Of Figthers" anyway.
Besides, you know.. people beating the crap out of eachother is fine.. But that damn bouncing and those evil guns.. That just makes it morally deplorable.
Different cultures and societies have varying degrees of what is considered acceptable. SNK just seems to take the cautious route here
You would think SNK would be quite aware of what its competitors are doing (ie: other video games) and they aren't really redfining the genre or pushing any limits here. A 2D fighting game with some blood and bouncing boobs isn't anything new or controversial. Mortal Kombat is a lot bloodier and I haven't heard anyone complain about Mortal Kombat is a long time..
So I'm not quite sure why they would think this is a sensitive issue. Sure other games like GTA3 may get some negative press but those games are few and far between - and as console/game sales have shown 99% of the buying public doesn't care what a bunch of little whiners think anyways.
Its not like this is some revolutionary new game where you get to take the role of a serial killer and graphically experience their most brutal moments of rape and murder.. now I can see that being much more of a potential powder-keg than just another 2D fighter.
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
--You must not have children, then?
I'd like to think that if I did I'd take some responsibility for them.
I'd also remember all the utterly violent and sexist crap I watched when I was a kid (remember Conan either the books or the movies) and realise that it is how you raise your kids that is just as important as what they watch.
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
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.
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.
Yeah, let them play a violent game BUT FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, DON'T LET CHILDREN SEE BOOBS.(because I would have to explain to them the "things of life" and it's really embarassing...)War is cool, sex is bad.
While I'm not condradicting you, I'd really like a list of things that are falsified. I've heard things are twisted, but I don't know of the purely falsified, outright lies.
With all sincerity, post some links or let us know what the falsified sections are.
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.
While there are numerous debunkings, this seems to have the most info on one page.
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.
Or you could try MPlayer, and be able to play all those windows formats under Linux.
If a first you don't succeed, your a programmer...
You mean like mpeg?
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).
You mean kids parents. Most people under the age of 14 still have their parents buy their games. Even up until 16 thats usually true. By 16, I think a few guns and some booby jiggle shouldnt be enough to scar you for life.
Pain lasts, kid. Its how you know you're alive. Sometimes I think this growing up thing is just pain management-TheMaxx
I mean the best content as far as blood and guns is available on CNN anyway.
open (SIG, "</dev/zero"); $sig = <SIG>; close SIG;
In the interests of balance, it's worth pointing out that the second link (to hardylaw) is written by David T. Hardy, an ex-legal council for the NRA, and is not necessarily any more objective about Bowling than Bowling was itself.
You make a good point. Something happens to people when they have kids, they see things way out of perspective. I think it's genetic. It makes good evolutionary sense, as I'm not sure one could suffer raising a child without going a little insane.
As a former child myself, I say bring it on. It's not what you see, but how you organize it. And that's what makes parents so powerful, they provide that all important context that really shapes a person. So yeah, were I a parent I'd let my kid play this game, but I'd rather play it with him. That is, unless genetics gets the better of me...
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
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!"
Playmore is SNK; Playmore is mostly comprised of the former SNK people (lead by former SNK CEO Eikichi Kawasaki); after Aruze (a pachinko company) bought SNK, Playmore was founded and successfully bought the intellectual rights (as Aruze just planned to use the characters in pachinko games). The company was renamed to SNK Playmore (that's the official name).