Top 10 Censored Videogames

They can’t have what in the game? Welcome to WatchMojo.com and today we’ll be counting down our picks for the top 10 censored games.

For this list, we ranked the most infamous elements of games that were censored or removed, either in certain countries or worldwide. Just so we’re clear, we excluded games that were banned outright, since the games didn’t actually change. As you should know by now, we’re sticking to one game per franchise, and be advised that this video does contain some of the uncensored content.

In a game were you got points for running over pedestrians, gamers in the UK and Germany weren’t able to experience quite the same level of chaos. When the title was sent to the British Board of Film Classification to be rated, they refused to approve it until the violence was tamed (:15). The developers replaced the human pedestrians with robots for the German version, and green-blooded zombies for the Brits. We can’t complain about getting to take part in more zombie slaughter, but this was ridiculous.

This violent, hack ‘n slash game hardly fit in with the Wii’s family friendly image, but the version of it released outside of the U.S. sure said otherwise. The spurts of blood and dismembered limbs that were prevalent throughout the North American release were completely absent in the European, Japanese and Australian release. Instead of bloody dismemberment, they got enemies bursting into … whatever this stuff is. The game’s sequel wasn’t censored, and Europe later got an uncensored PS3 version.

A lot of younger gamers probably first met Popo and Nana, this platformer’s protagonists, when they were whacking away in “Super Smash Bros. Melee,” but they were fighting snow monsters called Topi’s in their original appearance. However that was actually the censored version, because the Japanese Famicom game had them clubbing, eeeeshh… baby seals. Understandably, Nintendo of America thought that North Americans might take issue with that, and they released a final product that even a member PETA could enjoy.

Remember those “This is your brain on drugs” PSA’s? The Aussie’s didn’t and they never got to find out what the President’s brain was like on alien drugs, because the “Girls Night Out” mission, where he or she takes them, was removed from the Aussie version, as was a weapon known as the Rectifier due to it’s obvious connection with sexual assault. This wasn’t the first time that censors had targeted this franchise, because the dildo bat from this title’s predecessor became a run of the mill a baseball bat in Japan.

It’s not surprising that a game with a title like this would have a nuclear explosion, but Japanese censors still didn’t want it in their country (:40). It was unfortunate for Japanese gamers, because they missed scene where you detonate a nuclear bomb and decimate Megaton. Still, it’s understandable given that country’s history. Also the game originally had Morphine as Med-X, but when that didn’t fly with Australian censors, it was changed from all versions of the game.

Thanks to its impressively gruesome executions, this psychological horror game was one of the few titles to receive the ESRB’s AO rating, and many countries flat out refused to rate it. After some cleansing, including the nixing of a scene where you rip off a guy’s genitals, it was downgraded to an M. However, that still wasn’t enough for the Wii release, where the facial deformation scene where somebody’s nose is removed is totally scrubbed.

You’d think that people would know by now what to expect from anything associated with “South Park,” but Europeans and Australian censors thought that parts of this RPG were too much. Seven scenes were replaced with stills of a crying koala in the Australian release (:35), and a crying Michelango’s David in the European one. Don’t worry though, because those stills offer pretty vivid descriptions of what you’re missing, it should be easy enough for you to fill in the blanks.

This franchise has frequently drawn the ire of censors, the ability to pick up hookers in “GTA III” was removed from the Australian release of the game, for example, but the “Hot Coffee” minigame from this title was its most infamous moment. Thanks to a mod discovered by hackers, you could direct the protagonist C.J. as he had sex with his girlfriend. The explicit segment was wiped altogether following a recall of the game, but people who bought the game early “got lucky”.

Here’s a zombie shooter that’s one of the goriest games of all time in its uncensored version, but that’s not what German and Australian gamers got to play. Rather, they were stuck with a release that had its violence heavily toned down, to the point where the game was a shell of its former self. Not only that, but the game’s cover art, which featured a mutilated hand holding up two fingers, had to be altered differently in both the U.K. and the U.S.

Before we get to our number one, let’s take a look at some honorable mentions:
“Wolfenstein 3D” (SNES Version) (1994)

“Zombies Ate My Neighbors” (1993)

“Final Fight” (1989)

This fighter set a new standard for video game violence with its infamous fatalities, but not in all of its forms. Nintendo of America chose to censor the SNES version, resulting toned down the level of gore in the trademark Fatalities, and it replaced the blood with sweat. Infamously, Sega included a blood code in their Genesis version that restored the fatalities. And because of the uncensored nature, the Genesis version outsold the SNES just because of the violence.

Do you agree with our list? Which censored game do you wish was left uncut? For more rebellious top 10s published daily, be sure to subscribe to WatchMojo.com.