A look at ESRB: how nudity and gore gets through
Everyone knows that game currently in much controversy after getting an AO rating, the one banned from appearing on consoles it was meant to be on. Yep, Manhunt 2 – that murder training device which scarred BBFC for life. It’s got a psychopath walking around, killing people (In video games? Blasphemy!) in the most brutal way; what else can you give it but an “Adults Only” rating?
Such series of events made people wonder: how exactly are games examined and rated? God of War had blatant nudity (with a sex mini-game to boot) and excessive gore, but those kiddy stuff only earn a “Mature” rating. It went on to be one of the best selling games, and every pimpled teenager knew about it.
Looks like cutting people in half or ripping their limbs off are also in the safe zone (read: not AO). That’s what we found out after seeing screens from Nihilistic Studios’ Conan. Dragging a naked female slave around , threatening her with a sword, going on a killing rampage the next day and leaving bodies in pieces – it’s all fine in a fictional setting.
Who could’ve missed Metal Gear Solid 3? There are no nude shots of EVA, Snake can’t CQC soldiers into minced meat; what he can do, however, is slit their throats or feed them to hungry vultures. On second thought, that’s pretty weak. Crotch grabbing isn’t enough to give a game a rating beyond M.
More on this after the jump!
Everyone knows that game currently in much controversy after getting an AO rating, the one banned from appearing on consoles it was meant to be on. Yep, Manhunt 2 – that murder training device which scarred BBFC for life. It’s got a psychopath walking around, killing people (in video games? Blasphemy!) in the most brutal way; what else can you give it but an “Adults Only” rating?
Such series of events made people wonder: how exactly are games examined and rated? God of War had blatant nudity (with a sex mini-game to boot) and excessive gore, but those kiddy stuff only earn a “Mature” rating. It went on to be one of the best selling games and every pimpled teenager knew about it.
Looks like cutting people in half or ripping their limbs off are also in the safe zone (read: not AO). That’s what we found out after seeing screens from Nihilistic Studios’ Conan. Dragging a naked female slave around, threatening her with a sword, going on a killing rampage the next day and leaving bodies in pieces – it’s all fine in a fictional setting.
Who could’ve missed Metal Gear Solid 3? There are no nude shots of EVA, Snake can’t CQC (close-quarter combat) soldiers into minced meat; what he can do, however, is slit their throats or feed them to hungry vultures. On second thought, that’s pretty weak. Crotch grabbing isn’t enough to give a game a rating beyond M.
Looking at the list of AO titles on ESRB‘s site, only a handful aren’t porn flicks. You don’t even need five fingers to count how many aren’t from pornographic publishers like Peach Princess and MacDaddy Entertainment. Apparently, even in today’s less conservative world, kids still can’t put their noses in adults’ business of making kids. Why Kratos got away with doing that (and earning extra orbs along the way), we may never know.
Oh, that’s right, God of War is fictional so the sexual content and gore in it are fictional too. Surely, there is a James Earl Cash somewhere in this world who takes people’s heads and smack others with it. That alone makes it painfully real and warrants an AO; no babes in bare flesh needed to stress that out.
Let’s not even look into the setting of AO games like Water Closet: The Forbidden Chamber or Snow Drop being fictional. Saying that stories of those happen within the boundaries of earth’s atmosphere and there are no Greek gods involved should be enough to differentiate them from fantasy-based titles where mating in all ways are allowed.
In real life, you can’t swing a sword and magically cut a guy’s arm off; you can’t walk around with a naked female slave and be left untouched by authorities. No matter how photo-realistic that is, it’s still not real. You can argue that you see a perfect representation of a human being dissected, but you’re wrong. That said, everything Conan or the likes is a-ok.
If Carl Johnson was from Hyrule, or Cash from Gaia, there shouldn’t be any problems with the ESRB. Even if they somehow look humans, if they’re not from earth, then it doesn’t matter how graphic their brutal deaths are.
Why can’t people just be more creative? Situations of sexual acts and violence based on real life gets you the hammer, so make sure your killing machine is not from this world. Look at Sephiroth: his goal was far worse than the Holocaust, but he’s one of the most celebrated villains out there. Why? Because his mother is an alien.