Games with screwed-up ESRB ratings

[Crevalle]

I remember playing through Hitman 2 for the xbox, and never seeing any nudity--which is what was listed on the back of the box under "Rated M". My wife and I thought it was mildly pathetic that nudity exists in pixelated video games, but there was none.

[Conn]

Halo 1 and 2: A bit of blood splatter that looks like paint, and a few swears (if I recal correctly) does not equal an M rating.

Star Wars: Republic Commando: ..and oddly enough, this game is definitely more violent than Halo- blood, or oil, is frequent and using the knife on an enemy at close range causes the blood to splatter across your visor. Of course, it's nothing TOO violent, but still!

Super Smash Bros.: Melee: How is this a 'T'?!

Metal Gear Solid: I never thought this series was really 'M' material. Swearing, blood (which is optional) and some suggestive themes warrants this an M? Come on. What teenager hasn't already experienced swearing and heard sexual innuendo?

More later.

[Alienblue]

I am so sick of this country's obssesion with SEX being so terrible while viloence goes unnoticed. I just had a funny cartoon censored because it had the words "Woman's CHEST" in
it! It is getting ridiculous. Kids can watch people getting blown apart but if a game is nice and wholesome EXCEPT for one shot that may show a butt or breast, it gets an M or worse.

I'm against extreme violence, but at the same time, it is again ridiculous to censor a game that shows BLOOD. EXCUSE ME, but every human body is FULL of that stuff (I used to be a CNA), and kids get cuts, bruises and bloody noses all the time. You can protect kids so much that they grow up into confused nuerotic adults, you know. As with many things, I wonder how much the ratings have to do with politics than real concearn.

[Quill]

[QUOTE=Conn]

Super Smash Bros.: Melee: How is this a 'T'?!
[/QUOTE]


Good question... I've pretty much played the game inside and out and the only reasonable arguement I could see is you can look up the Princess's dress and see her granny panties... aside from that.... explosions maybe?

[Edward M]

[QUOTE=Zenzerotron]It's always bothered me that the "Devil May Cry" series and the 2 "Castlevania" games for PS2 got M ratings.

There's no bad language in those games, no nudity, and almost everything you kill are fantasy-creatures. There's no reality to those games whatsoever, they're pure fantasy.

To me, there's a HUGE difference, as far as violence, between killing real people and killing monsters/creatures-of-fantasy.


[/QUOTE]

A character gets impaled by a sword in one of the most graphic scenes I have ever seen in a video game in Devil May Cry.  Devil May Cry earned it's M rating by far.   But overall the ESRB seems to be too lenient on violence  but too strict on sex, kind of like America in general.

 

How the hell did Dead Or alive extreme beach volleyball get an M rating?   It is nothing more then women in bikinis.  No violence, and no sex.  At most it should have been rated E+10.

 

 

But then a game like Smash TV gets a T rating, which is just a pure bloodbath, doesn't make sense.  Then Grand Theft Auto San Andreas, a game where you can go around killing peoplew decapitate, kill cops, do anything you want gets an M rating.   But then they discover a lame PG 13 rated dry humping simulator in it, and it manages to get a Ao rating?  How is that.  How is that dry humping simulator any worse than anything else in the game?

 

 

And speaking of the Ao rating, why does the ESRB have an AO rating?   It seems as pointless as the NC 17 rating.  Is there supposed to be a difference between something that is acceptable to a 17 year old and an 18 year old? Just like no theatres will carry NC17 rated movies, no stores will carry Ao rated games.  Its basically censorship for adults.   I know that many movies like Pulp Fiction were censored to get the R rating instead of the NC 17.   I really wish the stores didn't feel the need to tell me, an adult, what I can and cannot play.   The ESRB is a lot more secretive than the MPAA, so I have no clue what has been cut out of games to get the M rating instead of the AO rating.  

[Dennis]

In my opinion, violence should be the absolute worst thing you can find in a game.  Most teenagers swear on a daily basis, and if they don't, you can't avoid hearing it.  Most teenagers have smoked and tried alcohol, many have tried drugs.  Most teenagers have at least experimented with sex if they're not regularly having sex.  But most teenagers have never killed anyone or even hurt anyone on purpose.  The ESRB and the MPAA are just completely backwards from what they should be, and the last poster was right:  the ratings amount to censorship for adults, because they make ZERO difference with kids.  It's enraging.

[Anayo1]

[QUOTE=Dennis]

In my opinion, violence should be the absolute worst thing you can find in a game.  Most teenagers swear on a daily basis, and if they don't, you can't avoid hearing it.  Most teenagers have smoked and tried alcohol, many have tried drugs.  Most teenagers have at least experimented with sex if they're not regularly having sex.  But most teenagers have never killed anyone or even hurt anyone on purpose.  The ESRB and the MPAA are just completely backwards from what they should be, and the last poster was right:  the ratings amount to censorship for adults, because they make ZERO difference with kids.  It's enraging.

[/QUOTE]

This teenager is wondering what sorts of teenagers you come into contact with.

[sega saturn x]

[QUOTE=Zenzerotron]It's always bothered me that the "Devil May Cry" series and the 2 "Castlevania" games for PS2 got M ratings.

There's no bad language in those games, no nudity, and almost everything you kill are fantasy-creatures. There's no reality to those games whatsoever, they're pure fantasy.

To me, there's a HUGE difference, as far as violence, between killing real people and killing monsters/creatures-of-fantasy.


[/QUOTE]
Dante gets run through with that huge sword in like the first ten minutes.  The game deserves an M no doubt.

[bluemonkey1]

Anayo I knew tons of other teenagers who had sex, did drugs and drank alcohol.  It's not rare.  I will never understand how it is ok for a teenager to watch films with quite horrific acts of violence but not to watch a simple porn film.  Crazy.

[Conn]

Here in BC, 9/10 kids have done drugs.