Games the ESRB/PEGI/CERO etc. rated wrong

[KillerJuan77]

You and KillerJuan77 have made some very vaild points, but I'm still sticking to my opinion.

Search in YouTube "The Last Exorcism cat scene", if you still stick to your opinion after that I would be shocked .

[flamepanther]

The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker got an "E" rating from the ESRB, even though Link kills Gannondorf by stabbing him through the brain with a sword. I always thought that was weird.

[irixith]

The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker got an "E" rating from the ESRB, even though Link kills Gannondorf by stabbing him through the brain with a sword. I always thought that was weird.

It's because they're "cartoon characters", and cartoon violence is considered E. I forget how much more "violent" it needs to be to bumped up to an E10.

[AppleQueso]

Wind Waker is nothing! I've always wondered how on earth Zelda: Ocarina of Time ended up with an E rating in its original release. I mean between Ganondorf coughing up blood, a torture chamber in the Shadow Temple with blood all over the ground, and blood spurts from various enemies, it's hard to believe that the game got an E rating.

I know that the blood was recolored green in later releases (even though it took them I think until the gamecube or wii rerelease to remove the blood in the torture room), but still, this game had an E rating when it first came out, blood and all.

[KillerJuan77]

Wind Waker is nothing! I've always wondered how on earth Zelda: Ocarina of Time ended up with an E rating in its original release. I mean between Ganondorf coughing up blood, a torture chamber in the Shadow Temple with blood all over the ground, and blood spurts from various enemies, it's hard to believe that the game got an E rating.

I know that the blood was recolored green in later releases (even though it took them I think until the gamecube or wii rerelease to remove the blood in the torture room), but still, this game had an E rating when it first came out, blood and all.

Those are gamecube screenshots, so the game was censored on the VC and grey cartridge re-release.

[AppleQueso]

Wind Waker is nothing! I've always wondered how on earth Zelda: Ocarina of Time ended up with an E rating in its original release. I mean between Ganondorf coughing up blood, a torture chamber in the Shadow Temple with blood all over the ground, and blood spurts from various enemies, it's hard to believe that the game got an E rating.

I know that the blood was recolored green in later releases (even though it took them I think until the gamecube or wii rerelease to remove the blood in the torture room), but still, this game had an E rating when it first came out, blood and all.

Those are gamecube screenshots, so the game was censored on the VC and grey cartridge re-release.

Actually two of them are from emulators, but the torture chamber one is a gamecube shot, you're right. Kind of funny how they went to the trouble of changing the mirror shield design but didn't bother removing the blood all over the floor in that torture room. Ganondorf's blood is still green in the GC version too.

For the record, there are grey carts that still have the red blood. I've played a few. Most have green, but a lot of the earliest ones still had red.

[flamepanther]

It's because they're "cartoon characters", and cartoon violence is considered E. I forget how much more "violent" it needs to be to bumped up to an E10.

I get that, but so are the Street Fighter characters as they're drawn in the SF Alpha/Zero series, and those all get a "T" rating despite a generally less severe level of violence--basically for being Street Fighter.

The problem with ESRB (and MPAA, etc) ratings is that the "criteria" are all subjective. You're always going to end up with bunches of cases where something gets a more severe rating than something else with more severe content.

[DinnerX]

The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker got an "E" rating from the ESRB, even though Link kills Gannondorf by stabbing him through the brain with a sword. I always thought that was weird.

I always bring up Zelda when I'm bashing the rating system. As has been said OOt was pretty harsh in some spots. MM was dark all around. Yet they're all E.

SSBB got rated T and I'm not sure why. Then there's games like lego star wars II and chi-bi robo getting E10+ instead of E.

Jet Force Gemini has blood and body parts being blasted all over. I mean you can rocket launcher tribals and get red blood splats all over and have heads bouncing off the wall for pete's sake. And let's not forget you get rewards for collecting the heads of enemies and tribals. Yet the game is T.

[Lokkenjawnz]

Zone of the Enders on ps2 didnt seem to warrant a Mature rating, though i only watched a friend play though for a little bit. Also MGS 1,2 and 3 dont have enough violence or gore to warrant an M I feel.

Edit: Portal 2 is rated E, I know that there isnt really any violence, but the subject matter and comments by glaDOS are geared for the older crowd.

IIRC, ZoE was rated M mainly because of the demo for MGS included with it.

My favorite ESRB WTF though is Digimon World ( I think that's the one anyway) for the PSX. It's rated T for "Comic mischief" which, as far as I could tell, constituted the Digimon pooping. So a game geared totally for children, was rated T. Nice job ESRB.

[saturnfan]

I always felt that the ESRB rates games correctly 99% of the time. There are always going to be a few titles that teeter on the edge of T and M and since the ESRB raters don't actually play the games (they only watch a video) its reasonable to expect that a few inconsistencies will arise.

The largest point of contention, I think, are the differences between M and AO since the official ESRB criteria between the two is vague and not well defined. I think the ESRB should re-write the guidelines for an AO game, dropping all references to violence and language and making it specific to hardcore pornographic content.

As for a specific game, I remember Area 51 (the old light gun shooter, not the xbox fps) being rated M and it should have been given a T (or even an E10 rating if it had existed).