Calling all German computer game freaks...

Was just wondering what your thoughts on these games are? such as Medal of Honour or Call of Duty. (Where you play the Allies and relentlessly kill hundreds of Germans per minute)

was just reading a forum and it was discussing how an Italian kid felt "weird" as the new Medal of Honour game has some Italians in it to mow down, and he said "I now know how the Germans must feel". It got me thinking about what was the general concensus of these kind of games here in Germany? also are they actually allowed on the shop shelves at all? im sure theres a strict ratings thing going on over here, but dont know for sure.

anyway, just curious thats all.

I'm more into RPGs and strategy games, but I think there are lots of Germans who play CoD, MoH and similar games.


Like other first person shooters, they are labeled "Killerspiele" by the media, and many people hold them responsible for killing sprees and other acts of violence whenever the perpetrators are underage.


They are not to be sold to minors. Swastikas and sig runes have been replaced by iron crosses.

One of my first games was Panzer General by SSI, what a cool game it was. You were a German general during second world war, trying to win the war.Starting with Poland and France, continuing with Russia and England, concluding with USA. That game sold 1 million copies worldwide even made to Newsweek, criticising Americans buying a game where you are playing a German general and invading US at the end of the game

I can't play the Medal Of Honor game that I bough here - it's just too absurd. Storming the beach as an American or Brit and yelling to your comrades in German just... sucks. I think the games are still pretty popular here though aren't they?

I know exactly what you mean. There was a little prick like that at a place I worked once who talked non-stop everyday about nothing other than Medal of Honor or some other WWII game(s) that he was obsessed with.

Then he really started to become annoying once he started watching some series about about a group of American soldiers during the war called, I believe "Band of Brothers". He was constantly recounting all sorts of crap from the show and quoting lines. Then he started walking around the office all the time speaking German with a heavy American accent and using lines that the American soldiers apparently used to pick up girls during the occupation ("Hallo schöne Fräulein. Ich habe Zigaretten und Schokolade. Möchtest du mit mir ins Kino gehen?") Or to issue commands to captured German soldiers ("Hände hoch!" "Mach schnell!")

He really made me want to vomit.

So, since he bothered me so much, I thought the best thing to do would be to use the much-beloved German "directness" in speaking with him. The next time he started in on this crap, I was in the break room with him and about half a dozen co-workers. He was jabbering away about the best way to win the Battle of the Bulge or panzer model numbers or some such crap, so I asked him, while everyone was listening, "Don't you ever feel strange playing those games? Pretending to kill Germans? The soldiers portayed as the heroes in those films and games killed thousands of Germans in your grandparents' generation."

WRONG way to handle things. Strange silence and general stubbing out of cigarettes while everyone mumbles something about needing to get back to work ensued.

Lesson learned: Germans love being "direct" as long as that directness means they are pointing out to you why you are wrong. Pointing out to them that their behavior is strange is not considered direct, but "tactless". i.e. they love to dish it out, but they can't take it.

I play mostly online, and therefore you get to take the roll of either side. I have no problem shooting people in German, American, Russian or British uniform. It's just a game. That said, when you do play online, its more than likely the guy your shooting is a 15 year old Finn than anything else.

Although, I will say that when I realise there are French people on the server, I do have a perverse please in killing them... especially if they have voice comms on and start moaning in that crappy waffle they call a language.

I play HALO II on-line, which allows you to talk to other players. Unbelievable the way people speak with one-another.

How so?

Really? that's amazing, I never would have thought they'd go to such lengths as to change the actuall graphics in a game... speach, yea obviously, but graphics, thats nuts. Unless of course its easy to do. I aint got a clue.


I always thought of online a bit different to a single player game. As there's alot of scripted moments in the single player, it sort of puts you in the shoes of the country your playing for. where as online, its different, even if your playing for a perticular country, you can talk to the people on your team etc, they mostly speak english, and i dunno, to me its different.


haha yea, I play Raibow Six Vegas alot. Its great just listening to some of the arseholes who are like 14 years oldv trash taking about things they've only ever seen in books (or maybe more likely these days on the internet). its always good to let them say what they want, then kick their arse and they shut up, you can almost hear sadness in their eyes. haha.

Thanks for all the posts anyway.

As these symbols are illegal in Germany it was either a censored version of these games or no version at all.

As long as you leave the option of playing something different if people feel uncomfortable I think its okay. May actually be quite funny. But I would not try to push people. Just give it as an option.

There is an index for "jugendgefaehrdende Schriften" in Germany. Games, books or movies end up on that index if they are found to be promoting violence or be pronigrafic. They then cannot be advertised or sold to minors under 18. In the german version of Half Life the scientist where robots. The blood was replaced by screws and oil. In Command and Conquer the story was fixed so that armies of robots where fighting and the blood was black (oil ...). The screams also where replaced.

The symbols of the 3rd reich are a different issue. The game could be banned completely for that and not sold at all. If the symbol is shown in a context that is not advertising national socialism they can still be allowed (For example in Indiana Jones movies). But the programmers usually don't take a chance. It is quite possible that the English versions of the games you mentioned are on the index, but not banned completely. If it is banned, you could be fined for importing it to Germany, I think. I doubt anyone would do that, though. Wolfenstein, for example was banned and pretty much everyone I knew then had it ...

I feel pretty cool being able to understand (most of) the language, while a little while it sounded like a weird exotic language.

INflatable woman, I hope u don't speak American English to look down on French like that.

The game is 95% guys, so what do guys do with one-another? They take the piss out of one-another. And what better way to get an edge in the game than to get a rise out of the other guys, racial slurs and speculation of homosexuality are common.

I dont have the voice comms on.

I'm german and I found the introductional text to return to castle wolfenstein quite funny.

In every language it was something like. You are so and so its ww2 and you go in this castle and kill every german you encounter.

In german it was far more elaborate: you are so and so it is ww2 there is this castle in germany where you find real nazis but not any kind of nazis but a special nazi cult called the wolfs which are realy evil even to nazi standards so its sort of ok to shoot them etc... it kept on going.

I got the game from an english collegue years ago and it still pops up in our (telephone) conversation. something like this
Are you ze wolf?
No No I'm not a wolf I might know some wolfs remotly but we are not related..etc.

I felt uncomfortable playing the first wolfenstein because every third wall was a large svastika flag filling out your pc screen nicely. I felt if somebody sees me playing this I have a lot of explaning to do (No, no I'm not a wolf, its not what you think)

It's pretty straightforward to change, just replace the texture map giant_swastika_thing_we_are_not_allowed_to_show_01a.bmp or whatever with giant_symbol_thing_we_are_allowed_to_show_01a.bmp and everyone's happy. I'd imagine that's all they had to do in RTCW et al. MOH & COD don't have the swastika so much. I don't recall if the free multiplayer RTCW mod, Enemy Territory, has swastikas or not.

I once bid for Quake Arena for PS2 on eBay.de and won the auction only to get a message from them saying that I had bid for a game banned in Germany. Eventually just got a copy off my Dad and it wasn't even all that violent. You should see the German tv version of Starship Troopers though, thoroughly emasculated. But they did ban Manhunt outright. And Manhunt 2 will most likely get the same treatment (it's already been, in essence, banned in Ireland and the UK).


As for killing Germans, again, like most gamers I guess, I'd play the single-player mode once and exclusively multiplayer afterwards. Nationality doesn't come into it, it's whatever side has the best weapon most suitable to the maps needs. COD has the best weapons, but I'll play on the Allied side if there's a slot free, just to use the Springfield and the Russian Mosin for sniper maps, KAR98 doesn't sit right and isn't as accurate for me. In MOH though, the KAR is great, very effective over long ranges, so I'll play as a German. ET doesn't matter much as the weapons are balanced (both sides get the same heavy machine gun for example). But I'd hazard a guess that more Germans play CS than any other multiplayer FPS.


I can't either, the sound of all that adolescent bravado and faux testosterone and voices breaking just winds me up no end and I lose my headshots. Besides, could be this bunch of knobulets.

At least you can then show how you shoot every nazi you encounter.