Think of the Children for November 19th

Written by Dan Keener on 11/19/2008 for DS   PC   PS2   PS3   PSP   Wii   360  

I contemplated holding this a week as it seems we are alternating small with medium sized lists, but I decided to go ahead and make this article the one that contains the smallest rated list ever. There were only 24 games this week, so you can imagine numbers were down for all consoles. The PC, Wii and DS all had around five titles, while the Xbox 360 and PS3 had a list that wasn’t too bad. Due to the lack of titles, I didn’t really have an interesting title of the week, so I went with the latest “innovation” from the ESRB that caused a few feathers to get ruffled last week

Scanning the list (quickly I might add), there were a couple of potential decent titles for the PC, but very few for the Wii and DS. Only DRAGON QUEST V: Hand of the Heavenly Bride (DS), Dance Dance Revolution Disney Grooves (Wii) and Bionic Commando (PC) caught my eye. There were a few niche products and a couple of sequels to successful titles, but not a whole lot when you only have 18 of the 24 titles to choose from.

There were a grand total of six titles rated for either the Xbox 360 or PS3. Both consoles had Capcom’s Bionic Commando, THQs 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand and Midway’s Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe (Kollector's Edition) on the list. In addition, the Xbox 360 saw Atari’s Race Pro and Eidos’ Battlestations: Pacific come across. The PS3 had Q Entertainment’s LUMINES Supernova as their rated title. Considering the lack of overall titles, this wasn’t a bad overall list.

The Intriguing Title of the Week is actually the new rating summary that the ESRB is providing on their site. Some of the rated titles now include a couple sentence blurb as to what the title is about. I’m not sure whether the ESRB compiles this summary currently, or if the developer or publisher provide it now or will be in the future. There was a small bit of questioning the new addition by some sites, with camps both for and against it due to potential plot spoilers. Regardless of your stance, the ESRB should probably handle these similar to their system of giving the option of waiting to publish the rated title until the game has been announced, that way everyone is happy.

Here is the final tally on who, what and where everything was rated for last week. There were 24 rated titles on six platforms. PC (7), Wii (6), 360 (5) and DS (5) had the most games rated. There were 15 of the 24 titles rated at E10+ or lower, 5 rated at T for Teen and four (50 Cent: Blood on the Sand, Day of the Zombie, Bionic Commando and Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 4) rated at M for Mature.

Got a comment on the article or a rated games, put it in the section below or send me an e-mail. Until next week, make sure you know what your kids are playing……

 

*The weekly Intriguing Title of the Week (and any game that is tossed in that paragraph) is identified based on a game on the list that catches the eye of the author for any number of reasons.  Good, bad or otherwise, feel free to agree, disagree or add some constructive input to the discussion.