Choose the Right Game for Your Kid

Video games have deep roots, reaching further back than many know.  The Magnavox Odyssey was released back in the 1970's, arcade games like Pac-Man et cetera came out in the late '70's, and video game maker SEGA started as Service Games back in the 1940's as coin-operated diversions for US military.

However, as time wore on, games got more complicated.  At the onset of home consoles such as the Nintendo Entertainment System of 1985, most games were still cute, silly, campy, and basically harmless.  Even war games that featured soldiers blowing up and shooting human bad guys were pretty neutral, because when an enemy was shot, they just disappeared or blew up in a cartoon explosion.  

As graphics progressed, more realistic violence could be portrayed.  Also, as in any art form, those wishing to innovate wanted to push the envelope and try to make games that were more adult.  As directors such as Quentin Tarantino have done with pushing the limits of violence in movies, so did video game creators.  

The first games to make a big splash in the media for violence were the Mortal Kombat games by Midway.  This game featured "fatalities" where a player could "FINISH HIM" and mortally wound their enemy after a fight.  Some of these fatalities included ripping out still beating hearts, pulling off someone's head and showing the dangling spinal cord with blood dripping off, and lighting the opponent on fire.  When parents found out about this, they were understandably alarmed.

The ESRB (Entertainment Software Rating Board, http://www.esrb.org/ratings/ratings_guide.jsp) was created in 1994 because of games like Mortal Kombat.  This is an agency that puts ratings on video games to help parents decide which games are appropriate for their children.  More is detailed later in a section dedicated to ESRB.

Even after the ESRB ratings system, parents were still complaining that their kids were playing games that were too violent without the parents knowing the games were so mature.  Every time a new game comes out with controversial content, parents are on the news complaining that video game companies should stop making these games, because kids want the cool new game that everyone else is playing.

The argument made by myself and other older gamers is that we grew up on games.  We've been saving princesses, jumping on bad guy mushrooms, and shooting silly fire balls for at least a decade.  We grew up, went through puberty, and still love games, but we wanted something more mentally stimulating than the same old princess rescuing story.

So gamers embraced the violence of Doom, Mortal Kombat, and later on the notorious Grand Theft Auto games.  

So the state of the industry today is that games are made for all ages.  If there is a market for a type of game, that is what will be published.  Gaming companies are just like any other company.  If carjacking games are what is popular, clones of Grand Theft Auto are bound to be coming out of the woodwork, which is what happened with GTA was at its height of popularity.  

Now with the Nintendo Wii and its family friendly marketing approach, more and more companies are focusing on making kid friendly games, for better or worse.  Most of these games are rushed jobs and consequently end up being frustrating, broken games that are mostly a dissapointment.

My goal with this site is to inform parents looking for games for their kids and to provide specific lists of kid friendly games.  Please check back for more information on games as well as compiled lists of games separated by age appropriateness, video game console, and price range.

The ESRB (Entertainment Software Ratings Board) is a self-regulating agency that was created to help protect game companies from law suits from parents who believed the companies were selling violent video games to kids just to make profit without concern for the children.

The ESRB ratings function exactly like the MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) ratings for movies.  If you go to rent movies with your children and they bring you a movie called Whore Slaughter 4 and it is rated NC-17, you immediately know that your kid is NOT getting that movie.  But if you child brings you a game called Call of Duty and it says M on it, you might let him get it.  However, when you get home and see you son or daughter shooting nazi's in the face and hearing soldiers scream out expletives, you'll wonder what you've gotten yourself into.

This is the challenge presented to the video game industry.  The ESRB has been around for more than 15 years, but most parents don't play video games.  So the first time they ever see one is when their little kid starts to like games.  Of course games based on kids movies are fine, but if your child brings you a game you've never heard of, how is a mom or dad to know?

The ESRB rating is on every game released.  Major retailers like Best Buy, Wal-Mart, Target, et cetera will refuse to sell games that do not have an ESRB rating.  Furthermore, the ESRB rating equivalent of an X or NC-17 rating is AO, Adults Only.  No retailer will sell AO games, they can only be bought online.  For this reason, most companies won't even bother producing a game with an AO rating, because they know they can't sell it in a normal store.  So the ESRB effectively killed adult gaming, meaning the game has actual scenes of sex, incredibly realistic violence, or other disturbing imagery.

However, many companies have skirted the Adult rating by using a few techniques.  One of my favorite Playstation 2 games is The Punisher, based on the Marvel Comics character who is known to hand out vigilante justice and leave crack-houses, mafia hangouts, and drug-lord mansions bathed in blood.  When this game was made it originally had brutal execution scenes where a player could kill an enemy with a special item in the environment.  An example from Level 1 is breaking a window, making it into a makeshift guillotine, and then holding a guy under it and then impaling him in the chest with shards of broken glass.   To make this an M rating (M, mature, 17 and older only), they put the brutal scenes in black and white and purposefully made the camera blurry on the violent action.  Still not very appropriate for any young gamers, but the game is rated M for 17 and up.

The basics of ESRB ratings are fairly simple and, in my opinion, more descriptive than MPAA ratings for movies.  First...

Where do I find the ESRB Rating?

Simple.  On the front cover of all games is a symbol and beneath the symbol a description of what it means.  Further more, flip the game box over and on the back there will be the symbol again.  Only now there is a list of what warranted that game to have that rating.  For example, if you flip over a copy of Grand Theft Auto 4, it might read something like:

M: Mature.  17+ For:

Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Strong Language, Strong Sexual Content, Use of Drugs

However if you flip over a copy of a kids game like Cars by Disney Pixar, it might read something like 

E: Everyone.  For: Cartoon violence

Cartoon violence usually means like what you would see in a normal cartoon.  Someone hits someone else, there is a wonky sound effect, birds fly around the guys head, etc.

What are the ESRB Ratings?

From the safest to the strongest:

eC: Early Children:  This is what you'd find on something like Elmo's Counting Adventure

E: Everyone: This means it safe for all ages, but you probably have to be around 4 or 5 years old to have the motor skills and hand-eye coordination to make Diego and Dora walk and jump across the mountain to get to the library.

E10+: Everyone ages 10 and up:  This is intended for everyone age 10 or older.  This means that the game is pretty safe, but might contain some subject matter a younger child either isn't prepared for or simply wouldn't understand.  This is one of those gray areas where the parent should research more in depth.  Remember, there are countless resources for finding information about games, even months before they come out in some cases.  Two of my favorite sites are www.ign.com and www.gamefaqs.com.

T: Teen:  This is on games intended for 13 year olds or older.  My first T game was Killer Instinct on Super Nintendo.  It had fighting, but it wasn't very realistic.  Some of the characters included a werewolf, a robot, an ice man, and a raptor.  There was blood, but not a lot and it didn't look realistic.  That's basically what you can expect from a T rated game.  These will usually be games tied into something that is targeted towards teens like a movie or tv show.  It will be realistic enough to get the idea across without being silly or demeaning to the source material, but you're kid won't be seeing Wolverine performing a five second autopsy on anyone.

M: Mature 17+: This rating is intended for games that will contain adult content.  All of the Grand Theft Auto games are rated M.  What you can expect in an M game?  Lots of blood, realistic violence, lots of profanity, crude humor about sex, possibly offensive material regarding race, religion, age, sex, sexual preference.  For GTA games, you name it, they've offended it.  GTA: Vice City creators Rock Star Games was court ordered to re-do parts of the game that were deemed to offensive to Haitian-Americans.  The company was forced to re-do certain parts of the game, pull all existing copies off store shelves, and then re-press and release the games with the updated content.  All out of their own pocket.

Grand Theft Auto; San Andreas had a similar fate when it was found out that people could unlock a hidden "sex mini-game" if they used an Action Replay cheat code device.  This mini game can be found on youtube easily and is not as bad as the press made it sound.  Both characters are fully clothed and the graphics in PS2 era GTA games were so bad, it's hardly worth mentioning.  Nonetheless, Rockstar was again forced to re-make the game and pull the old version off store shelves out of their own pocket.  To their defense, the "Hot Coffee" sex mini-game mission was removed before the game actually shipped.  You had to use an Action Replay cheat device to hack into the game to unlock it.  So its not even part of the actual games content.  You had to spend 50 bucks on the Action Replay and then hack the game just to get it.

AO: Adults Only:  Don't even worry about this.  As detailed earlier, its market suicide to try and publish a game with an AO rating.  The only game I've ever even seen that had an AO rating was Postal 2 for PC.  You can only buy it from their website and its got disclaimers all over.  The game was intentionally created to be horribly offensive.  In the game you can pull down your pants and urinate on anything or anyone.  You can decapitate people with a rusty shovel, you can shove a rifle up a cats behind to use the cat as a silencer, you can throw a plague-infested dead cows head at Muslim "terrorists," and you can shoot a police officer in the head with a shot gun, blowing off his head.  You can also carry a gas tank and douse people with it and then light them on fire, then pee on them to put them out.  Not a kids game.  And fans have created mods that make it so all the women in the game are naked.  Pretty much the only thing you CAN'T do in this game is rape people.  Other than that, its the most violent, vulgar, adult game I've ever played.

Well, that about sums it up.  If you have any questions, as always, feel free to email me.  

Check back later for more updates, articles, and game lists.