Here is a listing of all the recently rated Entertainment Software Ratings Board (ESRB) games for the Xbox360 giving us a head start on what to expect for our consoles in the near future. For those not aware, the ESRB assigns computer and video game content ratings, enforces industry-adopted advertising guidelines and helps ensure responsible online privacy practices for the interactive entertainment software industry.

BOMBERMAN Live: BATTLEFEST (Rating: Everyone)

Content descriptors: Comic Mischief

Rating summary:
This is an action-puzzle game in which players plant “cartoony” mini-bombs on top-down fields full of blocks. Laying down bombs allows players to clear the puzzle grids to reach exits. Players can also uncover power-ups or defeat opponents (stubby cartoon-like avatars), who blink away when they are in range of the explosions.

Major League Baseball 2K10 (Rating: Everyone)

Content descriptors: No Descriptors

Rating summary:
This is a baseball simulation game in which players select, and compete with teams from the official Major League Baseball roster. Players can manage the team’s line up, compete in season-long or post-season schedules, and engage in additional modes such “home-run derby.”

After Burner Climax™ (Rating: Everyone 10+)

Content descriptors: Violence

Rating summary:
This is an arcade-style action game in which players pilot a fighter jet through bright photo-realistic environments. Players dodge planes, rockets, and bullets while targeting enemy aircraft. Most of the jets—even the missiles/gunfire—appear somewhat fantastical (i.e., the graphics emulate a classic arcade shooter); colorful status bars on the screen display players’ speed, armor level, and score. Missile sound effects and large explosions highlight the frenetic combat, and players are awarded “combo” bonuses for shooting down multiple targets consecutively. [The straight Violence descriptor signifies that the game is higher on the E-10+ rating spectrum]

Game Room (Rating: Everyone 10+)

Content descriptors: Mild Violence

Rating summary:
This is a collection of 30 classic arcade games covering several genres. Games range from “Old School” titles from the Atari 2600 and Intellivision consoles (e.g., Yar’s Revenge, Millipede, Space Armada, Sea Battle) to titles that once thrived in 1980s arcades (e.g., Asteroids Deluxe, Centipede, Tempest). Most of these “retro-style” games depict minimal violence; for example, small icons, space ships, and sprite-like characters shooting geometric-like projectiles at each other. This compilation receives an E-10+ rating for the Konami game Jail Break: Players control a small policeman figure that shoots criminals breaking out of jail. When a criminal is shot, he flashes and drops off screen; criminals use Molotov cocktails and tiny guns to attack players. Players have the ability to shoot civilians in Jail Break, but this act is discouraged in the game—as indicated by a red “X” that appears over shot civilians. And while the compilation includes other instances of gunfire (e.g., Red Baron, Combat, Outlaw), the rudimentary graphics and low-fidelity sound design lessen the impact of the violence.

How to Train Your Dragon (Rating: Everyone 10+)

Content descriptors: Fantasy Violence

Rating summary:
This is an “arena-fighting” role-playing game based on characters and events from the movie How to Train Your Dragon. Players are charged with raising and training their own dragons and participating in different activities: customizing the dragons’ appearance, collecting food for the dragon, and fighting other dragons in one-on-one combat. This last-mentioned activity requires players to input various attack commands that make the dragon whip its tail, bite, claw-slash, or breathe fire. Essentially, it is real-time fighting in which dragons ram and swing at other dragons until health bars are depleted; snarling, jaw-snapping sounds, fire-roaring, thuds, and crashes accompany the frenetic (though fantastical) combat.

Lips: Party Classics (Rating: Teen)

Content descriptors: Lyrics, Mild Violence, Suggestive Themes, Use of Alcohol and Tobacco

Rating summary:
This is a karaoke music game in which players sing along with music videos of various styles and genres. Players score points by matching the pitch and duration of notes displayed on the screen. Music videos include depictions of men and women—mostly women—in revealing outfits, in grown-up situations, in provocative poses: a background dancer straddling a chair, then opening her legs; a woman dancing provocatively, then climbing into bed with a man; women dancing in bikinis—the camera panning close-up on their butts; and a woman guiding her hand down her body until it reaches her crotch (in the music video “I Touch Myself”)—all standard music-video fare, though depictions that parents and consumers might want to know about.

Resonance of Fate (Rating: Teen)

Content descriptors: Blood, Mild Language, Sexual Themes, Use of Alcohol, Violence

Rating summary:
In this role-playing game, set in the post-apocalyptic future, humankind survives inside the ruins of a massive clock tower. Players are mercenaries who live within this tower (of Basel) and take on jobs, missions, and menial tasks requested from on above, from the Cardinal ruling class. Several missions involve using firearms (pistols, machine guns, etc.) and explosives to kill an assortment of humans, robots, monsters, and wild dogs—usually in the service of obtaining pieces of Quartz. Combat is somewhat fantastical as players can kick grenades like a soccer ball, leap twenty feet in the air, and discharge bullets amid a cascade of lights, floating hit points, and swerving camera angles (blood is rarely depicted during battle). During the course of the game, characters sometimes drink their shots of whiskey, request their bottles of wine.

Lead and Gold (Rating: Mature)

Content descriptors: Blood, Violence

Rating summary:
This is a third-person shooter in which players assume the role of Wild West characters in shootouts and team-based (”capture-the-flag”-style) missions. With the goal of capturing rivals’ sacks of gold or being “king-of-the-hill,” players use pistols, rifles, shotguns, and dynamite to kill opposing team members. Combat is frenetic and the gunfire is realistic: Characters cry out in pain when hit; bodies get flung around when shot; and large splashes of blood emit from injured characters, sometimes pooling on the ground. Blood also splatters on the screen (appearing like spray paint) when players’ character has been killed.

QUANTUM THEORY (Rating: Mature)

Content descriptors: Blood and Gore, Strong Language, Violence

Rating summary:
Players wander through a dark fantasy world and battle mutated creatures and robot-like enemies in this third-person shooter. The game depicts a world on the verge of apocalypse, a world in which players navigate the gritty city outskirts, ascend a treacherous tower teeming with art-nouveau-style backgrounds, motifs, architecture—and shoot everything in sight. Realistic gunfire, explosions, and cries of pain accompany the frenetic and heated “run-and-gun” battles; “melee”-style hand-to-hand combat can also be used to attack enemies. Blood often splashes out of enemies when shot, staining the surrounding walls and floors. And when enemies’ heads get hit, a slow-motion animation sometimes follows: blood splatter, coal-like chunks, blocky armor, and fleshy gibs will scatter then disintegrate. The effect is closer to gratuitous and over-the-top than dramatic or viscerally intense [though it is certainly a driving factor for the Mature rating, the Blood and Gore, the Violence]. The game also contains repeated use of profanity (e.g., “fuck,” “shit,” and “pussy”).

Samurai Shodown: Sen (Rating: Mature)

Content descriptors: Blood and Gore, Mild Sexual Themes, Violence

Rating summary:
This is a weapons-based fighting game in which players select one of 24 characters (Japanese samurai, elderly spear fighters, modern American samurai, Bushido-types) and battle through matches until they reach, and defeat, two final bosses. Players engage in stylized, 3D one-on-one combat, with the immediate goal being depletion of opponents’ life meter. Clubs, bladed weapons, kicks/throws/punches, and special attacks (fire, ice, electric, etc.) can be used to inflict damage on fighters. Most attacks that connect trigger a large spurt of blood that will stain the ground for a few seconds.

The finishing moves represent the most intense part of the game: torsos can be sliced in half and sent flying across the pavement; severed heads will spew blood as they roll off screen; and chopped-off arms leave stumps from which blood does gush out. These depictions of blood and gore are relatively infrequent relative to the overall slash-attack/”move-set” gameplay; however, they do account for the Mature rating. During the course of the game, players can also follow custom storylines for the 24 characters: Some of the related text contains sexual references (e.g., “They were in the mood . . . lovemaking in one room” and “After I enjoyed her sleeping face, I left the remaining money at her bedside, and I went out of the room.”).

All information obtained directly from the ESRB Website.

Source: ESRB