8 Times Censorship Almost Ruined Your Favourite Video Games

While its sequel is often the centre of attention, the original Half-Life established most of the core mechanics and pioneered the style of first-person shooting that would make its follow up one of the most revered titles of all time. However, it's also known for one other thing: having a censored German version that was absolutely abysmal.

Unlike other shooters at the time, Valve's release offered players a vision of a completely different type of FPS, one that was incredibly story-driven and focused on player expression. This meant that if you wanted to kill the NPCs while playing through the levels, the game wouldn't stop you.

In the German version though, while you could litter them with hundreds of rounds, these characters would never die. In fact, at a point they'd get so sick of your attempts to kill them that they'd just sit down and shake their heads in disappointment while you fired away.

Depictions of blood were completely removed as well, taking the impact out of combat entirely and resulting in a bland action game that lacked any real bite.