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Censoring Maniac Mansion for the NES
Via Destructoid, an article at the personal site of Douglas Crockford, a gent who worked with LucasArts during the NES days. He takes a look at the silly amount of content censored to get the game Maniac Mansion acceptable for Nintendo and the Nintendo Entertainment System. "'Well, Mommy, I'm worried! He hasn't eaten in 5 years. / YEAH, SO!!! / and he's been bringing those bodies, and he carries those bodies to the basement at night.' [sic] This was from Weird Ed's dialogue with his mother, Nurse Edna, in which Ed tries to get his mother to recognize the terrible things that have happened to his father over the past 20 years. What was Nintendo's problem with the dialogue? ... In fact, Nintendo's interpretation of the speech was that Dr. Fred was a cannibal, that he was eating the bodies. That was never our intention, so we changed Ed's speech to 'He hasn't slept in 5 years,' which helps to explain why Dr. Fred is never seen in his bedroom. But even if we had intended that Dr. Fred was a cannibal, what's the harm? He would have been one under the influence of the evil purple meteor. The game recognizes that it is bad, and your mission is to rescue him from this unhappy state. Who would be offended?"
My hamster's frozen.
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I read this a year or two ago - it's really funny and nostalgic. OTOH, it shows to what length Nintendo of America would go to back then to project the image of the "Family Computer." Way farther than taking blood sprites out of Mortal Kombat.
Of a game ahead of it's time. Now we're accepting of sleeping with hookers, running them over, and taking our money back in games. But in the early days of Nintendo they seem to of had pretty tight Standards & Practices to get a cartridge licensed.
But times have changed and now you can strangle people with a choking acting thanks to them!
Ask not what you can do for your country. Ask what your country did to you
Well in that day and age video games were a new and much smaller market. The NES came out and saved us from the video game crash. As a new product in a market that had just crashed, they had a lot more to lose. Video games were getting enough flak from politicians as it was, they didn't even want to risk something like cannibalism being inferred. (This predates the ESRB and whatnot) Nowadays the market is much more mature and more graphic things are being tolerated.
They gave up around the SNES days. The event most people point to is Mortal Kombat. The Genesis version had blood, the SNES didn't (or it was green). The Genesis version sold much better because it was more faithful. They started to relax things.
It's quite clean Nintendo doesn't do that (for the most part) any more. Resident Evil 0/1/4 (Cube, Wii), Conquer's Bad Fur Day (N64), Red Steel (Wii), Manhunt 2 (Wii) and others show that they are willing to put up with violence and such.
Things were a little different back then. Stamping a DVD is much cheaper than burning ROMs. Nintendo doesn't produce the games for you like they used to, so even if they wanted to censor things they would have a harder time today since they aren't the gatekeeper.
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This isn't Nintendo Japan, this is Nintendo United States of America. The article briefly mentions it, Nintendo of America NOA.
This is an important difference, this story is nothing new, and if you are willing too google a bit you can easily find other examples of NOA censoring games. INCLUDING N games, Nintendo of America EVEN censored Nintendo games from japan. http://www.filibustercartoons.com/Nintendo.php (google NOA censoring) for instance shows several games in their original japanese release and the censored US release.
It is a US thing. Although the rest of the world seems eager to catch up. Remember kids, nudity is bad, violence against those who are different is good, as long as you don't say it out loud.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Eternal Darkness was one of the best games ever on the GC. I can't imagine it would pass the Nintendo censors on the Wii.
:)
Well, first they would have to restore their lost sanity
Um hi Manhunt 2? The only reason it was not released on the Wii was it got a AO rating, the M version WAS released on the Wii.
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It's retrogaming, dude. Of course it's a dupe!
Stupidity is the root of all evil.
So they chose to imply he was sleeping with the bodies? Sickos.
What are you talking about?
Nintendo hasn't imposed any of these censorship standards on third party developers ever since the ESRB came into existence. Take say, Mortal Kombat II as an example. That was released uncensored on the SNES. It completely clobbered the Genesis version in sales, unlike the first Mortal Kombat game.
That reminds me, the other Mortal Kombat game, Armageddon was also released on the Wii, and I hardly think that is censored at all.
They softened their standards. You can block violent games on your Wii, you know, so there is no problem anymore. Sure most parents do not know it's possible, still, it's there.
Furthermore, mature gaming is still a big target. That's why there are FPSes on Wii too. When the kids are sleeping, daddy raids the baddies.
Stupidity is the root of all evil.
Things were a little different back then. Stamping a DVD is much cheaper than burning ROMs. Nintendo doesn't produce the games for you like they used to, so even if they wanted to censor things they would have a harder time today since they aren't the gatekeeper.
Nintendo still does the game production. Nintendo will never release a system where they don't, as that's where their money and power comes from.
They gave up around the SNES days. The event most people point to is Mortal Kombat. The Genesis version had blood, the SNES didn't (or it was green). The Genesis version sold much better because it was more faithful. They started to relax things.
The blood was actually non-existent in the SNES version. It was replaced by grey 'sweat'. Also, some of the fatalities were toned down, most notably Sub-zero's.
Uh, no. If you think reading the passage is as bad as electric shock then this isn't even a rational discussion. The only thing that seems to offend me anymore are people that take offense to everything.
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A cannibal passed his brother in the woods.
That show pissed me way the hell off. It had almost nothing to do with the game.
One episode, I was thrilled when TV Guide said that the Edisons get three unexpected visitors in the night.
Turns out the three visitors were the sandman, the tooth fairy, and mister friggin coffee.
Technoli
But should Nintendo see a point in censoring they might go back.
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
Never played MM, so I don't know about the context, but the uncensored dialog seem to be more blunt and to the point while the censored stuff leaves more room for the imagination.
Huh? You realize they don't allow AO rated games to be sold on their system; third party developers will loss their license to develop games if they try to put one out. The other two consoles are the same, but don't pretend its not censorship.
That's besides my point. The parent poster was implying that Nintendo would go back to their old ways of censoring titles on the Wii like they did with the NES and early SNES titles. I'm just saying they don't enforce those policies.
The issue with an AO rating is a different issue compared to what was done back then.
No, the issue is the same. Whether they decide what content is censored, or leave it up to a third party to do so is not really relevent. The result is the same; no adults only content allowed on the console. The way it works now just shifts who's doing the work. There's no reason for them to ban AO titles on their console.
Worst was Kano's. Instead of ripping out their heart, he pulled out... a giant ball of sweat.
Where did I mention anything about AO rated titles in my post? You're nitpicking over a red herring, stop.
Nintendo has gone to absurd lengths to clean up their games, but honestly I think they're free to do as they please. Nintendo is a private company and if they decide they don't want offensive content available on their console its their prerogative. If, as a consumer, I have a problem with that practice, I'll buy a system from a company that doesn't put such restrictions on games. It's not like Nintendo was engaging in thought control or propaganda.
What I do have a problem with, however, is when the government starts deciding what should be censored. It's like the Fairness Doctrine. A lot of people are pushing it in an attempt to control conservative talk radio. That's all well and good, but the irony is that the doctrine came about originally during the anti-communist movement and then actually used against liberal talk shows. So this cuts both ways. You can't say you're for free speech provided it only suits your own opinions and desires. The last thing we need is more government control.
I have the right to dictate what I'm exposed to in my own house in the same way Nintendo can dictate the content for their consoles. Even if I agree that the extent to which Nintendo of America went to clean up their games was absolutely ridiculous. Although, I can't really say it business.
What you didn't know is that its based on an MMOG they created in partnership with Quantum Computer Services in the late '80s. Imagine Maniac Mansion with no fixed plot, about 100 times as large and with hundreds of other players in the game.
Quantum canned Habitat after the pilot test in order to recover space on the mainframe for AOL 1.0.
Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion.
To put it in perspective though, for as shy to sex and the US is, the EU and Japan is the opposite, much of the violence that passes as M or even T games would ban them elsewhere.
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Well Mortal Kombat is kind of misleading in that way. Yeah the Genesis version had red blood instead of sweat, but it also played a hell of a lot better.
I have to agree, though, censorship on Wii seems to be much more in the hands of the ESRB than Nintendo these days. If Manhunt 2 "Uncensored" had received an M-Rating I'm sure it'd be in stores right now, and probably selling more copies as well.
The Farewell Tour II
In the NES era and the first half of the Super NES era, Nintendo did not allow content on its consoles that would have been rated M had the ESRB existed. It had to be T or cleaner, or go release it for the C64 instead. Look through the U.S. Virtual Console list: all NES games are E, and all Super NES games are E, E10+, or T.
Mortal Kombat's main competitor at the time was Street Fighter II Turbo, rated T. I'll guess that the original Mortal Kombat for Super NES was T material, given that the Sega Genesis version of MK was rated "MA-13" after having similar censorship applied. MK for Genesis had a blood code ABACABB, but unlike ESRB, Sega's VRC didn't care about hidden content,[1] and this blood code was a system seller for the Genesis hardware. Nintendo learned its lesson and allowed MKII to come with an ages 17+ sticker. Subsequent MK games would carry ESRB ratings.
[1] The nearly identical Sega CD version of Mortal Kombat shipped with blood turned on by default and was rated MA-17.
I'm sorry, I thought you'd see that banning AO titles is censorship, much like it used to, which you DO talk about in your post. Certainly I thought you'd have picked up on that where my post states as much. The fact that they are censoring less does not change the fact that they are censoring.
Since when do corporations care about image?
At any rate, if it was about money, they'd make more by allowing AO titles. Certainly adult DVDs didn't prevent DVD players from becoming popular; in fact, quite the other way around. Why would it hurt a console, especially one with the same controls as a DVD player?
Troll?? Give me a break.
The Generation
I'd say something witty here, but I'm not that bright.
As for money, your DVD analogy is wrong, because adult DVDs had no bearing on the DVD market at all despite their claim to the contrary... Where you are RIGHT though is VCRs, as the birth of the VCR is directly correlated with adult tapes. But the difference here is both that the market took a long time to accept the technology, because technology in general took a long time to accept then (think about it, Microwaves existed in the 60's VCRs the 70's yet how long did it take for either to show up in your house?)
Likewise the idea of the systems are different. VCRs where considered "adult" devices. Kids didnt touch them, forget about using them. Kid movies and shows on tape? Those didnt show up to easily the mid 80's long after the VCR was in the homes already.
Gaming devices though aARE considered "kid" devices. Your still looked down upon by most of the US for playing games, its sad but true. Imaging a "kids" toy being used to play porn? Thats like asking for the religious right and babysitter left to lock up this entire country and make Jack Thompson our savior.
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