Jericho finds no salvation or rating in Germany

by Alexander Sliwinski { Sep 26th 2007 at 9:30AM }

The Unterhaltungssoftware Selbskontrolle (USK), the German version of the ESRB, is not rating the upcoming first-person shooter-horror game Jericho and therefore it's practically banned in the country. We've gotten used to this with the Germans, the same fate was bestowed upon Gears or War and Dead Rising, although The Darkness made some changes to become acceptable.

Given what we've seen of Jericho, it was probably the violence and gore that made it receive the un-rating. At least this might bring a little bit of attention to the game which Codemasters seems to be putting almost no effort in promoting -- which is par for the course by the publisher. Like we said before, as long as the squad AI holds up in the game, we saw potential in the title. The game releases at the end of October, Germans can hop in their car and take a quick drive to another country for their copy. We hear Austria is lovely that time of year, have a cup of gluvine for us while you're there.

Gallery: Clive Barker's Jericho

Tags: codemasters, germany, jericho, usk

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Phranctoast @ Sep 26th 2007 9:58AM

phyched for the demo. Undying was great. hopefully this is on par. May be a sleeper hit!

Night Elve @ Sep 26th 2007 10:02AM

I'm looking forward for this game.

Ihar `Philips` Filipau @ Sep 26th 2007 10:03AM

No rating? No worries. One can easily order any game from UK. Works like charms. And guaranteed to be NOT localized.

I've never bothered to check what "unrated" means in Germany. But from movies/DVDs I have an impression that it is the same as in US: you can sell them only to 21 (or whatever age limit is) or older people. What I know for sure, younger people are not allowed even to see such content: in other words it may not be on unrestricted retail shelves. But I can hardly imaging pr0n shop having games for sale. (Though they often fall into the same "unrated" category.)

Iceman346 @ Sep 26th 2007 11:24AM

Actually not rating a game hasn't severe consequences in germany. It basically holds the same restrictions as an "ab 18" rating, that the game can't be sold to anyone under the age of 18. They can be on retail shelves and marketing is allowed.

But unrated games are fair game for the german Bundesprüfstelle für Jugendgefährdende Schriften and normally such games are on the Index very soon. And games which are on there are not allowed to be on display and all marketing is forbidden. Additionally Microsoft and Sony won't even allow releasing unrated games for their consoles in germany.

Codemasters already proclaimed that the pc version will be on sale here until it's put on the Index, the same was done by Activision with the uncut version of Quake 4 which was replaced by an extremly cut version later on.
But as it is likely that the demo will be put on the Index it is possible that Jericho will never reach german retail shelves as the full version would also be on the Index because the content is the same.

Simon @ Sep 26th 2007 10:16AM

Actually the censoring of The Darkness was pretty severe. You can see the comparison here:
http://www.schnittberichte.com/darkness.php
It's german, but it should be pretty obvious which is the original version...
Damn glad I played the UK version.

blooh (CDF - Ass Ring) @ Sep 26th 2007 10:43AM

i wonder why they banned Dead Rising, they don't swear much or anything, and all the violence is against zombies

did they ban half life 1/2 as well? and pretty much any other fps ever made?

strider @ Sep 26th 2007 11:14AM

"... Codemasters seems to be putting almost no effort in promoting."

Hmmm... I nearly threw away my October issue of MaximumPC when it arrived in the mail. There's a Jericho advertisement that covers the entire front and back of the magazine! I mean, you have to turn the page past the ad to reveal the magazine cover.

Cudo's for the bold ad move but booo's for using permanent adhsive insead of that easily peeled off gorilla snot that seems to be so common everywhere these days.

I'll give it to 'em that they're targeting their core audience by going fo MaxPC readers...