Differences between US and World Versions of games?

[eyal8r]

What's the differences between the US and World versions of different games?  I want to start thinning down my inventory, and get rid of the ones that I don't need, if they're just repeats.
Thanks

[cdbrown]

Some have language differences, some have different copywrite details but generally there is little difference between them.  US seems to have the Winner's Don't Use Drugs while the World versions don't as the world doesn't care what the director of the FBI says 

[eyal8r]

so for the most part I can delete the World versions if there's a US version as well?

[elvis]

In some circumstances US versions will be edited (eg: female character sprites changed, nudity removed, certain weapons missing, blood missing, etc) because for some bizzare reason the US censorship board doesn't seem to believe US citizens are capable of making informed choices for themselves, and need to be shielded from bizzare Japanese culture icons.

Although that was far more prevalent on consoles than it was on arcade hardware.  But still, there are a few instances where it occured.

You'll find that the "World" version of a game will be larger than the localised ones, as the localised versions were merely a few extra sprite or text/font ROMs that sat beside the parent world version.  Deleting the localised versions won't do much to save disk space.  And if you don't want clones, you can easily turn off the option to display then in most front ends.

[eyal8r]

So, if I turn off clones- which will it turn off, US or World version?
Also- If there's 3 sets of a game, I can delete out (or remove from the list anyways) Sets ! & 2, correct?

Thanks

[brophog]

That depends on Mame. Some games it lists different countries as the parent rom. There is no set country designated as the parent.

[eyal8r]

so how do you tell that tho?

[loadman]

I want to start thinning down my inventory, and get rid of the ones that I don't need, if they're just repeats.

In my opinion I would not bother deleting roms. They take up little HD space in the scheme of things.

I would just choose the version of a game you like then if you are using a good FE you can delete the other versions of the game from your game list. That way you don't have to worry about Parent roms etc

[eyal8r]

Right- that's what I'm doing. I'm not deleting it from th HD, just from the FE...

[RayB]

Is there a site out there on region differences? I'd like to know which games have the most varied content. I tend to pick US or World versions of games since I am used to the North American titles and I like English, but I sure would like to see some of the things that may have been changed in some games.

I found one variation just last night: In Snow Bros 2, for some regions the player select screen shows crude cartoon drawings, but when set to US, Europe, you get these weird semi-digitized graphics of babies in make-up!

[RayB]

I just found another one. From the History info for Final Fight:

The Japanese version has an additional scene that shows Jessica in underwear on the TV. This scene was removed in all non-Japanese versions of Final Fight.

[elvis]

so how do you tell that tho?

MAWS
http://www.mameworld.net/maws/

Some frontends will tell you which one is selected when clones aren't shown.  AdvanceMenu does, but MAMEWah doesn't I don't think.

[ahmer]

Is there a site out there on region differences? I'd like to know which games have the most varied content. I tend to pick US or World versions of games since I am used to the North American titles and I like English, but I sure would like to see some of the things that may have been changed in some games.

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