It's about time

Well, my good friend Mr. Manhunt has finally drawn the ire of the Ontario Film Review Board, which today slapped an 'R' rating on it. That means that nobody under the age of 18 is supposed to be allowed to buy or rent it and that people need to be carded.

You might think that this would piss me off and that I'd start getting on my high horse about it. No. Frankly, I'm happy. I'd rather they start taking a more serious approach to how games are sold, much like movies. I know that there is the ESRB rating system, which I think is perfectly understandable and makes sense.

But for some reason, people seem to have a hard time realizing that an M (for Mature) means that maybe your 8 year old shouldn't be playing it. Of course, these same people then turn around and blame the videogames if their kids start swearing or misbehaving.... sigh.

Anyway, I am glad that they've decided to slap the R rating on Manhunt. It's definately not a game that kids should come anywhere near. Plus, if they start actually enforcing and carding kids and informing parents when they buy games, it hopefully will cut back on a lot of the ruckus. Sure, kids will still get their hands on the Mature games, but it won't be because of an evil conspiracy by the vendors to sell them to them and thus corrupt their impressionable minds.

[rant]

I am happy about this move to start enforcing the games' ratings because it allows adults (such as myself and the 75% of the gaming population that is between the ages of 24-35) to choose which types of games we want to play rather than having the usual knee-jerk reactions from politicians whenever a controversial title such as Manhunt or Grand Theft Auto comes along.

If a game is good, players (for the most part) will gravitate towards them. I'm just as happy to play a crazily violent killing simulator such as Manhunt as I am to play something which is as insanely 'kiddie' as Mario Kart or Billy Hatcher & The Giant Egg.

The ones (such as Postal 2) which just use graphic violence for the sake of graphic violence instead of weaving a compelling but brutal tale such as the GTA games or Manhunt do, tend to disappear after about a month since the games themselves aren't that good and won't keep people interested once the initial shock value of the game wears off.

Sure, this move will piss off retailers since they won't be able to easily sell little Bobby a popular M-rated game when he comes in with his grandmother who knows nothing of videogames, but I think in the long run it will help, since developers can continue to make the mature games for those who appreciate them and also make the ones aimed at younger audiences just as fun.

When I hear about people complaining about games being too violent, etc., I find that it is mostly a lot of misinformation coupled with inappropriate games for younger kids. Think about it though. If people treated movies the way they want to treat videogames, the only movies we'd get would be rated PG at best, and even then that might be pushing it.

Sure, Finding Nemo is a great movie, but so are Lord Of The Rings, The Godfather and American History X. Just because something is disturbing doesn't mean it's bad.

[/rant off]