I have played a lot of games in my life, action, adventure, shooter, puzzle, MMO, and more, and my favorite, the most memorable games are all rated T or lower. In fact, I feel like in a way when developers go out of their way make sure their game is rated M, it takes away from the experience and puts too much focus on brutal violence, language, and nudity. That should never be the primary part of a game. Now don’t get me wrong, I like violence, nudity, and language as much as the next guy, but it’s all just unnecessary.
Sure it may be fun running around slicing people’s heads off and watching blood and guts gush out and spew on the naked bodies of the other enemies you just killed, but that all gets old very fast and is simply unneeded. You can tell the same story without incorporating as much violence as some developers do. Does the game really need that over the top violence to get its point across? Yes some games need violence, no one wants a Zombie game without blood gushing everywhere, but there needs to be a point where the developers sit down and say “Ok, that’s a little too far”.
This is the part that really gets me, language. What’s the fucking point? See how pointless that last F-Word was? A sentence like I just typed is now uncommon in some M rated games. The dialogue features so many swear words that it just ruins the experience, no one wants to hear an F-bomb in every sentence. I can’t tell you how annoyed I got at that word in Killzone 2 or even the Gear series. It ruins key dialogue moments, and feels so pointless.
Then there is nudity, or even the random sex scene in some games. The only reason I can see developers putting content like this in their games, is to boost sales. The only game where I have seen Nudity and Sex cleverly worked into the story is Heavy Rain and that’s it. Every other game I have played with this content is feels so out of place and pointless.
Listen, developers don’t need to make their game M just to make it a good game. Almost every gaming masterpiece is T or lower, look at Uncharted 2, Portal, Little Big Planet, World of Warcraft, Zelda, Mario etc. All games are insanely memorable, and they did it without forcing violence or pointless sex and language into the game.
