Ooooh......will have to see if any copies still around Mario Party 8 Recalled The Incriminating Evidence! 14th Jul 2007, 03:11pm by Sammy Barker. It was a Friday 13th to remember yesterday as Nintendo's latest Wii game, Mario Party 8, was recalled from the shelves. Apparently a "wrong" version of the software was ditributed around the country containing a politically incorrect term ("spastic"). The new release date of the game has not yet been announced but we will keep you updated on developments. This is the official word from Nintendo: The above game was launched in the UK today. Unfortunately we have discovered that a small number of games contain the wrong version of the disk due to an assembly error. We have therefore decided to recall all copies of the game from UK retailers so that this mistake can be corrected. We will re-launch Mario Party 8 in the UK as soon as possible and will announce a new launch date shortly. We very much regret any inconvenience caused.
Politically incorrect in the U.K., as far as I know. Whereas here in the U.S., it's not really an insult, the word is offensive over there. At least, that's what I heard. It's a case of easy localization (we both use English) without consideration of regional connotations.
spastic in the uk is a very derogatory word, and indeed can be used in an offensive way, especially when using it to refer to someone of lesser intelligence as yourself, there are also abbreviations of the word, such as 'spacca' 'spaz' and my personal favotire 'spazmoid' an amalgamation of spastic and mongoloid it used to be a normal word of refering to certain people with disabilities, but in the late 80's / early 90's was deemed politically incorrect
Didn't Working Designs have a division called "Spaz Games" that focused on nothing but shooters? I never heard any negative feedback with that.
spastic is a greek word, σπαστικός which means nerve-breaking/irritating. political correctness? or misinformed civilians? When they use foreign words , like greek ones, they should at least retain their original and unadultered meaning. Look at what this has cost them now
We haven`t actually got free speech as such , unless you visit speakers corner in Hyde Park which is a small patch of land in which you can say what you like. I mean to say we don`t have our rights written out like the US do with the Bill of Rights. whatever is written in the magna carta seems to be all we have. I guess being a part of the EU we must`ve adopted some european rights/laws which might be relevant.
actually I was just going to say the UK sucks but I felt I had to actually say something. so I tossed that together. It was just to say something more than THE UK sucks.
What do you mean? Freedom of speech only concerns the relationship between citizens and their government. As nearly as I can tell, the government had nothing to do with this - Nintendo recalled it of their own accord. I hadn't heard about Manhunt 2 being banned.
I'm not everyone, but a lot of people on here are from the UK and might take that personally. Or not, depending on if the UK does in fact suck. I haven't been there.
Speaking of bizzarre censorship, the US version of Dawn of War had the violence toned down but not in the UK version and others. It made me go "WTF!!", especially considering its already an M rated game. Some stuff just doesn't make sense sometimes.
He must have missed this bit Just did a quick walk around of some games stores near me in London and none had any on display.....all new of it being recalled. I bet I would get the version that was fine..................but surely they would have been printed at the same place so they all would have it?
There was once a charity in the UK called The Spastic Society, which helped people suffering from Cerebal Palsy. Spastic became associated with the mentally disabled (regardless of the actual condition) and was then used as a slur and offensive remark about someone. In the end it became so bad that the charity changed its name to Scope to avoid the stigma and poor jokes. The charity even has a press release to explain the change: http://www.scope.org.uk/downloads/publications/scopename_change.pdf While it might not mean anything in the USA, Spastic is something completely different in the UK. Similar in the way that "Retard" is not PC in the USA, only worse. It might seem over the top, but there you go. There are cultural differences from country to country that might sometimes seem small and pointless but will often backfire if not considered. To me it doesn't matter, but I can understand why Nintendo would want to change it before some Tabloid newspaper turns the whole thing into a shit storm.
