Petition

[Dr. Tek]

read the article, it had some good points in there, some about the underrating issues, and from a company as notable as gamespy, thats good to hear, yet the didnt mention anything about how innacurate the ratings are

. again, my example of XIII. when i buy a game thats rated m, if its only for blood and gore and violence, with in reasonable limits that is, i have no problem buying and playing the game. when i checked the content descriptors of the game, and after playing the demos, i thought that the inrtense violence and blood may have been an overstatment, as the blood was monotone and violence, well, the game looks like a comic book, so i thought it was yet another game that was probably rated m for only some parts in it, as were other games such as halo, where the reasons for the m rating are not apparent until later in the game, but after playing XIII, wht i had suspected about the content descriptors was rite, they were overstated, yet they lacked to 2 ones that would make the game m wihtout everything else, and these would be the 2 that would keep parents from letting their kids get this game, whch many have since it looks like a comic book or cartoon. there is execessive use of the f word, and all enemies in the game, nearly every other word out of their mouth beigins with s, as in everytime some hear u move or see u, thats all they will say. nothing of this was mentioned as a reason for it being m. the other one is its depictions of nudity, as there is one part in the game where you have to go through to progress through the level, that contains drawings of naked women. there is no way to avoid this area, as it is the only way to progress, and again here, esrb said nothing. many parents will let their kids buy this game, because most are not as concerned with violence as they are with these other 2, and sadly, games that contain them are hardly ever given the content descriptors for that, and no one knows until they play the games for themselves. all this also applies the other way around, where some content descriptors can not be found in a game thats labeled woth them. so esrb's ratings are pretty much useless to accomplih their "goal" whch they say is to inform ppl on the content of games.

 

[iamscott]

Well, yeah. I mean, look at Conker's Bad Fur Day on the N64. That was one game where the rating was inexplicable. I mean, it was rated M, but had a warning that said no one under 17 is allowed to play the game because of explicit content. That's pretty stupid, if you ask me. As for the example of XIII, I haven't seen or played it. It looks to me as if this game might deserve an R rating if it was a movie. As for the nudity, it really depends on the situation. Many famous pieces of art include nudity. If these paintings are replications, or representations, of classic or contemporary art, then I see no problem, save for the rating descriptors. However, if the nudity borders on explicit, such as in The Matrix Reloaded, or Gangs of New York, then, yeah, there is a problem with that. If the nudity is just something that the developers stuck in there for the sake of being that eternal hormonally challenged teenager, then that is also a problem. However, I do believe that suggestive themes and mature sexual themes have appeared in games for far too long, and that the ratings in such instances are quite inappropriate. As for the language ratings, I have seen PG movies with worse language than many games out there, and I think that the ratings need to be adjusted as such.

About Splinter Cell, how exactly did that rating fit? Yeah, the game should have been rated Teen, and the violence and some language was there: however, what's with the blood rating. If you shoot people, no blood. There is one mention of blood that was not objectionable, and I do not see a problem with this game as it is. It certainly is one of the better games of the past two years.

 

[Dr. Tek]

the nudity in the game was no clssic art. it was in a mens locker room, and it was pictures of women stripping, that is as far from classical art as u can get. splinter cell on the pc does have blood, but its very pixelated.

 

[Serpentine_Cougar]

maybe CCGR should have some kind of rating system that is put along with a game's review, but better/more complete than ESRB

 

[iamscott]

See, that's the problem. We could, but would it mean anything to anyone besides the limited viewership of CCGR? (Sorry, Cheryl. The viewership is very limited compared to the reach that the ESRB has.) Sure, it would mean something to us, but it would be more of a quick fix, or a patch, instead of a real solution to the real problem that the ESRB represents in this country.

Hey, Dr. Tek, I wasn't trying to imply that the nudity was classic art. If you read the post above, you will likely see that I said it depends on the situation. It seems to me that from what you described it as, the nudity was just stuck in there for the sake of the eternally hormonally challenged teenager. That's been a problem since, what, the days of Duke Nukem on the PC? Those games had tons of nudity in them, despite there being a parental filter stuck in the game for kids who wanted to play the game without all the naked women.

What I see that needs to be done is what I've said. We need to get something going to fix this travesty known to us as the ESRB.

Hey, CCGR, I've got the commentary finished. Just so you know. Should I send it to you via email, or should I upload it to the site?

 

[Dr. Tek]

sry bout that, i just reread thru the way i wrote it, misworded it some, and it sounded wrong, nuthin meant by it other then just reply how it was depicted. i occasionaly forget to read thru my posts to see if they are worded the way i meant them.

 

[CCGR]

e-mail it to me imscott. I know CCGR has a targeted audience, no offense taken. Still very proud of it's success.

 

[iamscott]

Cool. Will do. Uh....now the problem is to get the data onto my parents computer, because mine doesn't have an internet connection.

Just to get off topic a little, you remember how my computer was all messed up? Well, I got a new one, and then, this is just great, my CD drive breaks. Fun. How I'm going to fix that, I don't know. I'll probably just buy another drive with a CD-RW on it, but it still kinda stinks.