by Matt Remley

Created on: April 16, 2009

Just like other forms of media, video games have become the prime target of many debates. One of the biggest debates over video games is often times about the violence in them or sexual themes. These debates are usually done by politicians and angry parents who wonder if these video games are really appropriate for children to play.

The challenge of this is parents usually don't know what video games their child should be playing or not. Sadly, parents seem to have no idea that there is a rating system in place just for them to know whether a video game is appropriate for children or not. This rating system is called the ESRB, and applies ratings to every commerical video game released in North America.

ESRB is also known as the Entertainment Software Rating Board and was actually founded way back in 1994. That being said there is no excuse for parents not to be familiar with this rating system. The ratings go all the way up to A (Adults), however there are extreme restrictions on games that receive that, and the major video game publishers refuse to allow them on gaming consoles.

Very few games have come out of the ESRB with an adult rating, and if they do they usually attempt to tone it down so they can get a mature rating. Keep in mind that there has only been around 25 video games that have even received higher than a mature rating, so parents should know that the ESRB is doing great things.

Grand Theft Auto Series

For those parents needing help in deciding what isn't appropriate and unable to understand the ESRB rating system, this is one of the games that must be kept from children. Although it should be fairly obvious, the Grand Theft Auto series of games are extremely violent and have been in the news several times because of different inappropriate themes.

These games really shouldn't be played by anyone under the age of 16, which is why most of them are rated mature and only those over the age of 18 can buy them. Sadly this doesn't always help because older siblings may leave the game out for the children to play, so make sure these type of games are looked after well.

Games from the Grand Theft Auto series usually have tons of violence, gore, sexual themes, and even drug dealing. These games are great for adults that know the difference between real life and video games, but children can start to believe that this things are typical of the real world.

Manhunt

Another violent video game by Rockstar Games is Manhunt 1 and 2. These game feature ultra realistic

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