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It’s another full-bodied week with 35 new games rated by the ESRB. In the past seven days, Viva Media and DreamCatcher took center stage, as Viva (the folks that published the excellent, difficult, and hard-to-find Immortals of Terra) had nine games screened--though none even as ambitious as a point-and-click adventure--while DreamCatcher had five games screened, four of which are from their Dreamer series of Everyone-rated games. PC regains its standing as the lead platform, if for no other reason than sheer quantity. And this entire time, as I sat expectantly waiting for some foolishly brave publisher to put out an Adults Only game, Knowledge Adventure chimed in with JumpStart Advanced Preschool, pulling in an Early Childhood rating--a rating that I’d completely forgotten even exists!

The cross-platform award goes to both Watchmen: The End is Night Part II and Vin Diesel’s Wheelman, as 360, PC and PS3 owners will all have equal reach for those. (Speaking of Vin Diesel, the fact that the man owns his own video game studio--Tigon--ought to earn him the right to put his name on the box; but I’m sure there are plenty of arguments against that as well).

This week’s best bet goes to “The Dies” for Wheelman. Why? Because even if Vin Diesel (born Mark Sinclair Vincent) starred in several average films, he’s still in the Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay and the upcoming Assault on Dark Athena, and he’s still got an uncanny charisma--and the most guttural drawl you’ve ever heard on a big screen--to make you forget all about xXx. And even if you don’t like all of his films (I don’t think that’s humanly possible to like all of them), you could still probably pick out one or two that you thought were pretty darn good. And that’s why Vinny is this week’s best bet.

The Intriguing Title of the Week goes to Dreamer: Babysitter. Now before you rake me across the coals, let’s put this Dreamer series in context. The four Dreamer titles all put through the ESRB sieve this week were Dreamer: Babysitter, Shop Owner, Teacher, and Pop Star. Dreaming about being a pop star sounds legit, right? The number of girls dreaming about that is like the number of boys dreaming about becoming archeologists (so that they can find live dinosaurs) or astronauts (because Earth is…okay…but already too much of a known quantity for a six-year-old). So dreaming about being the next Hannah Montana on the cover of Vanity Fair makes perfect sense. Yes, that joke is about 11 months old, I’m aware. But dreaming about becoming a babysitter? Honey, sweetie, darling, sit down a moment. Let me tell you something. If you’re a girl and you’re under the age of 18, you are going to do some babysitting in your puerile lifetime, okay? You don’t have to dream. So dream about being a teacher, fine. They take you under their wing, and next to your mom and dad, nobody in the world knows more than them. Or dream about being a shop owner, cool. Getting a small-business degree is a fantastic goal for any enterprising grade schooler; everybody has to try their hand at a lemonade stand at least once. But don’t dream about being a babysitter. That dream will come true all too soon.

 

Here’s the final tally on who, what and where everything was rated for last week. There were 35 rated titles on 8 platforms: 360 (3), DS (7), Mac (1), PC (19, up from 4 last week), PS2 (1), PS3 (3), PSP (1), and Wii (6). There were 24 of the 35 titles rated Everyone 10+ or lower (not to mention the year’s first Early Childhood rating), 10 rated Teen, and 1 title (Watchmen: The End is Night Part II) with a bone-splintering Mature rating. Should we go ahead and stop watching and waiting for an AO game?

The running tally of game ratings in 2009 is as follows:
Got a comment on the article or a rated game? Put it in the comments section 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.

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