esrb posts

Combing through the ESRB's web site you sometimes encounter games that you didn't even know existed. Such is the case this week with the reveal via the site of Mayhem, an upcoming driving action game for the PC and other platforms from publisher Evolved Games.

The ESRB's rating description of the game shows it to be a driving action game with "demolition derby" like battles that result in the player getting "mayhem" points to unlock new items. Apparently comic book like captions pop up when the player causes multiple crashes. There's no word on who developed the game nor a release date.

This November, oral arguments will be given to the US Supreme Court in the case that pits the game industry against the state of California over a law that if approved would restrict the sales of certain games to minors. Game Politics reports that a mock version of that case was held at William & Mary Law School this past weekend.

In short, it sounds like the mock trial was unfortunately weight heavily against the game industry, According to a person who attended the event, he "understood the ESRB rating system better than any of the Moot Court participants." In the end, the mock court voted 6-3 in California's favor. We just hope this is not an indication of how the real court case will turn out.

We all knew that Fallout: New Vegas was going to be rated "M" by the ESRB. And indeed that's exactly what the US-based game ratings board has done for the upcoming post-apocalyptic RPG. However the ESRB's web site also goes into some details on the game's content. That includes a reveal of something in the game that, well, had us say to ourselves, "That's kinky."

Among all the blood and gore that will be in the Obsidian Entertainment-developed game, the ESRB content description also says Fallout: New Vegas has (spoiler alert) "an extended sequence suggesting (no depiction) sexual activity with a robot." The description also has some dialog from the robot in question; we leave you to head to the ESRB site to read it for yourself. It's safe for work, but just barely.

The US-based game trade group the Entertainment Software Association is perhaps best known as the owner and operator of the annual E3 trade show. However, the organization has a number of different interests and activities. Today the ESA offered up its 2009 annual report to the public.

The PDF-based document goes into detail on all of the ESA's activities such as running the Entertainment Software Ratings Board, the US game ratings system. The annual report also details the ESA's activities in federal and state governments, its dealings with fighting game piracy and protecting intellectual property rights, its charitable ESA Foundation and more. Currently the ESA has 35 game developers and publishers as members.

Earlier this week the Entertainment Software Ratings Board inadvertently exposed the email addresses of nearly 1,000 people in response to Blizzard fans upset, ironically, about the prospect of their real names being used as a requirement to sign into Blizzard's forums. The ESRB has now issued a formal apology to those people who got their email addresses caught in that mess.

According to WoW.com, the ESRB said the problem was, as expected, due to "an unfortunate error by one of our employees" and added that "it was never our intention to reveal this information and for that we are genuinely sorry." The ESRB said the organization is "doing everything we can to ensure it will not happen again in the future." We think that closes the case on this matter.

You really didn't think this whole Real ID issue was over, did you? Blizzard's decision late last week to pull back on plans to require the use of its Real ID system on the company's forums made its fans happy. But before that move was announced a number of Blizzard's fans protested the move to the Entertainment Software Ratings Board (ESRB) in the hopes that the US game ratings organization could intervene.

Late on Monday the ESRB emailed those people back. The message itself, which repeated that Blizzard decided not to use Real ID as a forum requirement, isn't the main thing. Unfortunately whomever at the ESRB sent the email didn't use the BBC input. As a result our sister site WoW.com reports that nearly 1,000 email addresses were shown to all the folks who got the reply back. We are sure that it was a simple mistake but it is very ironic concerning the topic of the email was online privacy.

The somewhat mysterious upcoming Ubisoft game Bloody Good Time just got a bit less mysterious. The ESRB web site has just put up a fairly detailed description for the game which is currently scheduled for release before the end of June. The PC-Xbox 360 game is rated "T" for "Teen" although from the content descriptors (blood, use of alcohol, drug reference) it sounds like the game is pushing pretty close to the "M" rating.

Described as a first person shooter Bloody Good Time will supposedly depict characters in a cartoony art style on a TV set. The goal is to kill other actors on the set using" frying pans, golf clubs, barbeque forks, machine guns, flamethrowers, knives, and swords." The game will have a director guiding and encouraging them through all the violence. It also described the sets themselves as having environmental traps that can take out several characters at once. Now if Ubisoft will send over some gameplay footage or screenshots we would have a better idea if this will be a game worth playing.

Earlier this week we reported that the upcoming indie platform-puzzle game Limbo was listed on the ESRB web site as coming to the PC. Previously the game from developer Playdead was announced as an exclusive for the Xbox 360 console's Xbox Live Arcade service. Well, as it turns out it will still be an Xbox Live Arcade exclusive.

Despite the earlier ESRB listing for a PC version, our sister site Joystiq has confirmed with Playdead that the game isn't coming to the PC at all. Indeed the ESRB site has now complied with Playdead's request that the PC listing for the game be removed. It's too bad since we think the game would have a solid audience on the PC platform but that's just us.

We've been reporting for some time that a PC port of the console fighting game BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger will be released in t the UK and in parts of Europe in June but there's been no word on if that version is coming to the US. Now it looks like the PC version might actually be heading stateside.

The ESRB web site has just updated with a listing for the Windows PC version of the game. Normally if the ESRB has a listing it means that it's been submitted to the US-based game ratings board for a likely US release. The listing shows Arc System Works, the Japanese developer of the game, as the publisher. It's possible that the developer has decided to publish the PC port themselves here in the US, rather than work with a publisher.

Last year, developer Hello Games announced their plans to release Joe Danger, a downloadable mix of a motorcycle racing game with some Mario-style game design. The title got a lot of attension but earlier this year it was announced that Joe Danger would be released as a PS3 exclusive.

However, Hello Games didn't rule out the game showing up on other platforms as it told our sister site Joystiq at the time. Now the ESRB web site reveals that Joe Danger has indeed been rated for the PC in addition to the PS3. While it may not be released at the same time as the PS3 version it's looking like Joe Danger will be available to download for our hard drives at some point.