How accurate is the ESRB?

[Jabrwock]

Part discussion, part record.

We always hear about how "broken" the system is. But few people actually have listed evidence of how the ESRB inaccurately describes games.

So, a list of games you've played where the ESRB rating didn't accurately reflect the content.

Game Title
Rating + Descriptors
Example of a scene in-game that didn't get mentioned in the ratings, or a list of descriptors you would have put on had you been able to list all the content and not just the major content.

The discussion regarding this will be in another thread in this section...

[Sigma_7]

This is a relativly straight forward one:

Descent and Descent II are rated 'T'een. Basically, you are a hired mercenary that fights robots that are infected with a virus, rescues hostages trapped in the mine, and initiate self-destruct to purge the virus. Standard violence involves destroying robots. The two cases where humans get killed are when you get attacked and destroyed (killing you and rescued hostages), and when you destroy the mine without rescuing hostages.

There is implied profanity during the intro (where the protagonist gets cut-off by Dravis'es fast talking ) but there's no lanugage issues. The final cutscenes has the player getting killed, but that's not really that much of a problem.

Descent: Freespace is rated 'E'veryone. You are a pilot employed by the GTA and your mission involves killing aliens. In a series of plot events, you kill another batch of aliens and kill members of your own species. There is mild language in this game, that got picked up by the ESRB (this tag doesn't appear in Descent II.)

Descent III received a 'T'. There are humans that get killed (one on-screen during a cutscene, two mercenaries ships that attack you), but it's still the same level of overall violence. There are cases where you can kill some innocents - however this reduces your score and gets shown in the end-of-mission tally.

Based on the levels of violence alone, I claim that at least one of these games has to be misrated. I'm not singling out a specific game in my listing without additional knowledge about why the games received the rating they did.

This is technically a minor issue and is a several of years old. While I'm sure that the ESRB now has a more consistant rating method, there isn't much information about why one game received a 'T' and the other an 'E' in spite of the same levels of violence. However, if these issues remain unaddressed, it can and will undermine faith within the ESRB - in the form of "Red Pixel" jokes.

[Thefremen]

Descent was release in 1995. Descent 2 was release in 1996. Descent 3 was released in 2000 and descent freespace (an awesome game, btw) was released in 1998.

I think the difference in time really has a lot to do with the different ratings.

I looked up the Fallout series and it was kinda dissapointing. All rated M, and all seemed ok. Fallout 2 should have mentioned use of drugs.

[ZippyDSMlee]

Descent was release in 1995. Descent 2 was release in 1996. Descent 3 was released in 2000 and descent freespace (an awesome game, btw) was released in 1998.

I think the difference in time really has a lot to do with the different ratings.

I looked up the Fallout series and it was kinda dissapointing. All rated M, and all seemed ok. Fallout 2 should have mentioned use of drugs.

Fallout 1-2 should not got a M rating with sellbodys and drugs and wicked death animations? :3


Interesting Dues ex 1 has a M rating but the only thing that stands out is the gibbing I don't recall strong language in it

Dues ex 2 is M as well and it dosnet have gibbing 0-o

I cant think of any right now I will check thru my games and see what is labled,I dont recall any mess ups like the PG rated food of the gods movie *L* PG for soemthign thats on the high end of PG13

[Thefremen]

Fallout 1-2 should not got a M rating with sellbodys and drugs and wicked death animations? :3


Interesting Dues ex 1 has a M rating but the only thing that stands out is the gibbing I don't recall strong language in it

Dues ex 2 is M as well and it dosnet have gibbing 0-o

I cant think of any right now I will check thru my games and see what is labled,I dont recall any mess ups like the PG rated food of the gods movie *L* PG for soemthign thats on the high end of PG13

Well Deus Ex 1 at least was fairly open ended so it may be that there were options in the game that resulted in very bloody or very mature situations which you never encountered. It's like I always say, you could play GTA:SA for 100 hours without killing a soul or doing anything illegal, it just depends on who the person is.

I actually hope in the next gta there be more options for non-violence so the game could be more of a ror-shak test.

[Sigma_7]

Interesting Dues ex 1 has a M rating but the only thing that stands out is the gibbing I don't recall strong language in it


Here's a few potential language issues:

"Jesus Christ" gets used on the second visit to Unatco. Spoiler: Attack the NSF prisoners when they are being interrogated by Walton Simons. This is not normally expected, but is possible to perform without cheating. As a side note, there were reports about this speech thread occurring without interference from the player.

There is one scene where Joseph Manderly gets angry at the player for disobeying orders. Spoiler: This is caused by choosing not to assassinate Juan Lebedev on the airplane (but Anna Navarre kills him instead.) However, if you kill Anna Navarre instead of Lebedev, Joseph Manderly is extremely angry and states "No ****. What the hell happened in there?" when informed by JC about the death of navarre. This is the one of the few (perhaps only) profane word in the entire game - profane enough to be filtered out. The tradeoff is that you get a better insight into the plot and don't have to worry about losing time to a boss fight.

Dues ex 2 is M as well and it dosnet have gibbing 0-o

It has blood, which seems to be a good guarentee of that 'M' rating.

BTW, Deus Ex 2 uses ragdoll physics ported over from Unreal. Gibbing occurrs when there's too much force between the limb and main body - the value is rather high but it has been reported that gibbing was successfully performed. Sorry for not having screenshots to back-up my claim...

[ZippyDSMlee]

Here's a few potential language issues:

"Jesus Christ" gets used on the second visit to Unatco. Spoiler: Attack the NSF prisoners when they are being interrogated by Walton Simons. This is not normally expected, but is possible to perform without cheating. As a side note, there were reports about this speech thread occurring without interference from the player.

There is one scene where Joseph Manderly gets angry at the player for disobeying orders. Spoiler: This is caused by choosing not to assassinate Juan Lebedev on the airplane (but Anna Navarre kills him instead.) However, if you kill Anna Navarre instead of Lebedev, Joseph Manderly is extremely angry and states "No ****. What the hell happened in there?" when informed by JC about the death of navarre. This is the one of the few (perhaps only) profane word in the entire game - profane enough to be filtered out. The tradeoff is that you get a better insight into the plot and don't have to worry about losing time to a boss fight.



It has blood, which seems to be a good guarentee of that 'M' rating.

BTW, Deus Ex 2 uses ragdoll physics ported over from Unreal. Gibbing occurrs when there's too much force between the limb and main body - the value is rather high but it has been reported that gibbing was successfully performed. Sorry for not having screenshots to back-up my claim...

Sigma_7

My memeory is fuzzy like my brain,most of what you have said make sense to me and I recall it..really need to play threw it again..but I am waiting on the Total conversion of UT04 of DX1 :3

I have played threw DX2 thinking about it between the BOrg and the anti tech chrush I recall why it got a M rateing *L* ,Project snowblind got a T rateing I have both PC and PS2 versions and cant recall much if anything about it....*L* No gibbing I know that much ,mabye blood mist or soemthign of the like the writing is a step below DX2 but not by much..

Intresting to note both red factions got a M rating I don't recall any gibbing in RF 2 and tis theme was no more or less as violent as Project:SB

[ZippyDSMlee]

FF6 on the GBA/DS gets a Everyone 10+ interesting I recall 2 pregnancies alot of death a nutjob that killed off acouple villages and who destroyed the world,and 1 vague torture scene sure its all animated sprites....

[V-22 Osprey]

Interesting- Manderely's "No ****" was not censored in the US copies. Also, if I recall correctly, there was also at least one other usage of the word, but I don't remember where it was. Let's see, there was also JC Denton's famous "-That would make me one ugly son of a bitch" line, and a whole lotta "Goddamn terrorist!" every time the US Army caught you sneaking around, breaking into an office, swiping nano-augs or generally doing something you're not supposed to. I don't think there was enough profanity over the course of the game to warant a tag, theoretically you could go hours without hearing anything, and conversation in the game was more about getting into long arguments about the nature of limited government with random bartenders then about who could outcuss the other. :)

On the other hand, the game Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory has a tag for Strong Language. I must has missed something, because I didn't hear any strong language during the entire game! Maybe there was some cursing in Korean?

[Picho]

There is also Digimon.

Strange game... First was T, second was E third was T again..

[ZippyDSMlee]

There is also Digimon.

Strange game... First was T, second was E third was T again..

Potty humour its gotta be the potty humor!
Some lower level digimon have poo attacks,and I am not talking about the gassy kind either 0-o