Report: Black Ops censored in Germany, Steam to block international versions

Here's the latest installment in a tale as old as time -- according to German games site PCGames.de, the region will receive a censored version of Call of Duty: Black Ops. This time around, though, there's a new twist for people who were hoping to download and play a different country's version of the game on PC -- both downloaded and retail versions of the game have to be run through Steam for authorization before playing, and in Germany, Steam will only verify local versions of the title.

Seems like Germany's video game censorship policy is only getting more and more strict -- though that's good news for our pay-per-minute phone hotline, where German gamers can call in and listen to us describe our fully violent games. Those calls ... they get pretty weird.

Update: An Activision representative contacted us, explaining that German players will be able to activate the Austrian version of the game, but not the US/UK versions. The representative confirmed that the Austrian version is "unique," but could not comment as to whether or not it shares the German version's content cuts.