I'm a little disappointed in people's unwillingness to accept Video Games as a legitimate story-telling medium. I have almost no doubt that this decision is based upon woeful ignorance; The Ratings Board in Germany probably assumed that players recieved "points" for killing civilians or something ridiculous, which is why they are forcing their game over policy. They can't or don't want to see that this is more than just a brainless, simple game. This is a narrative that the player is being thrust into, and any reprehensible behavior is more telling of the player than of the developer.

My sister married a German and so regularly visits Germany to see his family, and on her most recent return my family was discussing gun control and ownership. I live in backwoods Georgia, where hunting and fishing is all routine, and she grew up in the exact same background as myself. Point being, she's just as nutso stupid about the topic of violence and guns as the German government seems to be, and I can't understand why. When I brought up the fact that there was a violent attack in Germany the last time she was there, and that the police took the suspect down with, gasp, guns, she turned from intelligent debate to insulting me personally, and that seems to be the typical response. Once the bleeding hearts that think with emotions realize the facts are on your side, suddenly they switch their aim of argument from the simple truth to something sure to pluck the heartstrings of all. Germany, I think, has a long history of violence, and this might be their feeble attempt to make it look like their government's accomplishing something in the fight against random, brutal acts of bloodshed. Protip: it's not working.

I don't favor censorship, but this particular case is a lot better than it could have been. I don't think the experience has really been harmed that much.

@ Syvergy

You contradicted yourself sir
Dismemberment of real people (not zombies/creatures etc) L4d 2 has dismemberment of zombies. But I think I get what you mean.

Getting my copy in the mail tomorrow. I've got alot of work to do now though, so im trying not to think about it.

@KrazyKraut

HAHA, really dude? Have a sense of humor. Your government is WAY too strict when it comes to gaming laws and regulations.

And you shouldn't be talking with a name like "Kraut" Which is derogatory slang toward a german....Nazi.

I´m one lucky person who has gotten his copy early and I can say it was a very intense scene. I felt horrorfied by what happend on the screen and did so even the second time I played the level, discovering little scenes I had missed on my first playthrough. I made the decision not to shoot the civilians, and I felt very good about that decision. In the level I encountered a situation in which I saw a bleeding man crwaling away from me and eventually dying. In this situation I had think about shooting him to end his pain or letting him bleed to death. Choosing the second option felt like the right thing, but reflex killing a police officer who shot at me, while he was trying to defend the civilians, felt horrible. Later in the level you have to kill a lot of policemen which I found to be annoying, since the element of coice is taken away from you. Killing the first Police officer was an unessecary act of violence from my side, since I could have ducked into cover and waited for one of the terrorists to kill him. He would get killed anyway, but at least I wouldn´t have been th one killing him.

That said I´m glad I had to choose what to do. I would imagine the scene would have made a much lesser impact on me if I the option to be bad had been taken away from me. After all the good decision I had made had not been a decision but a mechanic of the game.

Although I would prefer it if gamers had the choice to kill and simply chose not to it's not so bad. Yes it completely takes away the point of playing through the scene in the first place but at least it's not banned.

Germany will always have an issue with this, I can only assume it has something to do with how the world views them and that they want to show how they have cracked down on anything "evil". Australia is going to unscrew the weird 15 age rating limit thing eventually (well, hopefully), but like Syvergy said they only have issues with Drugs and gratuitous violence.

Also, isn't this scene skippable? Or is it those darn people who know it can be skipped, but jump all over it anyway just to complain for complainings sake that are the problem?

Modern Warfare 2 should've really pushed the envelope and indocrinated your character so much in the terrorist groups beliefs that it made you WANT to shoot the "innocent" people who obviously aren't innocent to the group that's randomly shooting up their airport.

ok... ordering from amazon.co.uk right... now...

"Should our morality be decided for us in all versions of the game?"

Stupid moronic internet statement. Because your morality should determine the German and Australian government's morality? Disagreeing is one thing but whining is another.

I still don't see why we want our games to "make statements" and be "cinematic".

Can't we spin stuff like this of into another category, something like Interactive Cinematic Art?

*Off, not of.

@HEL105
Why?

The name is completely arbitrary.

I live in Australia, and you always read stories about any type of bad thing that happens in other countries and think, "shit, must suck to live in THAT country!" But now i do live in THAT country, and sure enough, it sucks. Though i think our MW2 is un-touched. So score one for us!

"Stupid moronic internet statement. Because your morality should determine the German and Australian government's morality? Disagreeing is one thing but whining is another."

You have made yourself sound like an idiot and a prick. Well done.

It's not the government's place to have or enforce morality. Simple as that.

So, i´m german and let me a few things clear:

The companys,like Activision in this case, decide by themselves how much a game will be censored. If Activision thinks they´ll only get a 18+ rating if they censor the Airport level like they did, it´s their choice only. Even if MW2 would not have been rated, Activison could sell it here, though without a rating, there would be the risk that the game could be banned for minors.

For example: EA´s Dead Space wasn´t censored in any way here and it was rated 18+, it isn´t banned or anything like that.
Neither the government nor the ratings board (the USK) force the publishers to censor their games.

"It's not the government's place to have or enforce morality. Simple as that."

Well aid sir. Well said.

Wow. Why do post about Germany always bring out the cynicism, ignorance, and outright douchism in everyone? Nobody gets this enraged about Aussie news.

Oh wait that's right, somebody said the word "Nazi". Awesome. Thanks guy.

It's better than taking out the scene altogether, but damn if I'm sick of hearing about governments censoring games. Is Germany really that different from us that they need their violence watered-down?

@CKRFIEND
Kraut....lol..you know what that mean`? NO??? so stfu and get some education.

Is Germany right in forcing Infinity Ward's hand here? No, of course not, why would you even ask that.