Banned in Europe

Features
By published

Manhunt 2, Nazis... and every videogame ever? Read the amazing story of our continental friends

Sega Superstars Tennis looked like an innocent enough release. How could a game about Sonic, Ulala and NiGHTS ever risk being banned in Europe? Or so you might think. Welcome to the crazy world of gaming politics, where zombies hug you and you can't mention Virtua Cop.

Likewise with Virtua Cop – it's 'Virtua Squad' in the tennis game (taking the North American name for the shooter). And you don't hit tennis balls at 3D people, just at cardboard cut-outs of people. Lame? Hell yes. But apparently necessary if Sumo wanted to sell the game in Germany.

This kind of pro-active self-censorship may sound absurd to us, but you have to take into account the different laws involved. Germany is notoriously strict on screen violence. For example, German law frowns on any media which:

"...describe cruel or otherwise inhuman acts of violence against human beings in a manner which expresses a glorification or rendering harmless of such acts of violence or which represents the cruel or inhuman aspects of the event in a manner which injures human dignity".

That would be why Mortal Kombats 1, 2 and 3 were all banned in Germany then. Apparently a shout of 'finish him' followed by a beheading or impalement is glorified cruelty. Just for illustrative purposes (and because we'll never get tired of this video), here are over 231 reasons why Mortal Kombat isn't right for the German market.

Justin Towell
Justin Towell
Freelance Writer

Justin was a GamesRadar+ staffer for 10 years but is now a freelance writer, musician and videographer. He's big on retro, Sega and racing games (especially retro Sega racing games) and currently also writes for Play Magazine, Traxion.gg, PC Gamer and TopTenReviews, as well as running his own YouTube channel. Having learned to love all platforms equally after Sega left the hardware industry (sniff), his favourite games include Christmas NiGHTS into Dreams, Zelda BotW, Sea of Thieves, Sega Rally Championship and Treasure Island Dizzy.