Censored versions of Half-Life
Due to the content restrictions in Germany, many changes had to be made to Half-Life and its expansions in order for them to be released in the country, resulting in special censored versions. According to Gabe Newell, these design changes were done in conjunction with the Sierra product group responsible for the German market in order to comply with Germany's stringent laws concerning violence.[1][2]
Contents
Overview[edit]
Half-Life[edit]
A majority of the censorship edits dealt with removing the violence and gore in the games. Characters no longer bleed when injured, and they fade away when blown up rather than gib. The scientists and security guards do not collapse upon death. Instead, they calmly sit down on the floor and shake their head in disappointment when killed. The Marines were replaced with Robot Grunts and have their own unique lines delivered with robotic modulation. The death animation of the female assassin was altered so that her eyes remain covered by her night vision goggles rather than become visible after the goggles slide off. The assassin's breasts also do not bounce while walking. Barnacles vomit mechanical parts such as springs and cogs when killed due to the original human body part gibs being replaced. In the multiplayer portion of the game, the only available player model is Helmet. Despite all of these changes, corpses and blood decals already placed in the levels can be still be found throughout the campaign.
An alternate violence mode with different settings is also present. In this mode, human characters produce yellow blood splats and leave red blood decals behind. Gibbing is present, but human characters generate mechanical pieces due to the gibs replacement.
Expansions and ports[edit]
The expansions were censored in Germany in a similar manner. In Half-Life: Opposing Force, most human characters sit down after they are killed, including the Marines, the Black Ops soldiers, and the Drill Instructors. They produce red blood in the second violence mode. The male Black Ops assassins only use the night vision goggles-wearing head type so that the head variations with exposed eyes are never seen. The multiplayer portion is likewise modified. In the Capture The Flag mode, rather than Black Mesa civilians battling the Opposing Force military, multi-colored versions of the Helmet and Robo models face off against one another. Half-Life: Blue Shift uses the same censoring from Half-Life, but the robots speak in a normal human voice during scripted scenes as opposed to robotic speech. This oddity also occurs with the robotic grunts who speak in Half-Life: Decay. The model for the Robot Grunts was updated in Blue Shift to reflect the new High Definition Pack animations, although its appearance was not changed.
The PlayStation 2 port of Half-Life is also censored, using the same German language localization from the PC version. While the censorship encountered here is largely identical to its PC counterpart, the headcrabbed scientist in the map c1a1 was removed, and Barnacles now puke normal human gibs as the mechanical gibs replacement was not included. The model for the Robot Grunts was updated this time to be consistent with the port's visual upgrades. However, the Head-to-Head multiplayer mode still features human models.
Behind the scenes[edit]
A few early released screenshots for Half-Life depicted robot variations for the scientists, security guards, and zombies. In the final game, only the Marines were given a robotic variation in the censored versions. The cut Human Sergeant is known to have had an alternate censored variation at one time as this model, named "g_heavy", is mentioned in the Half-Life SDK.[3] The censored Zombie and Human Sergeant models first became available through the posting of the Net Test 1 build.
Gallery[edit]
Half-Life (pre-release)[edit]
Censored Human Sergeant model.
Censored Zombie model.
Early censored Human Grunt model.
Ditto, on the cliffside.
Censored Scientist model.
Ditto.
Censored Security Guard model.
Ditto, lying dead in the background.
Censored Zombie model.
Half-Life[edit]
Censored death animation on the security guard model.
Comparison of the Assassin's breast bounce.
Robot Grunt replacement for the human soldiers.
Helmet, multiplayer model.
The mechanical gib models.
Half-Life: Opposing Force Capture The Flag[edit]
Example Otis model for comparison.
Preview image.
The censored Otis model, a recolored Helmet.
Preview image.
Example Tower model for comparison.
Preview image.
The censored Tower model, a recolored Robo.
Preview image.
References[edit]
- ↑ Interview with Gabe Newell on Link (1998) (archived)
- ↑ Half-Life 2: Raising the Bar (uncorrected proof), page 75
- ↑ Half-Life SDK source files
