Last week was another good week of rated titles from the ESRB, as we had not only quantity, but some serious quality too. One of the most anticipated games of the year was rated for the Xbox 360 and PS3, as well as one of the most eyebrow raising titles. PC and DS took the lead again with their incessant throwing of titles against the proverbial sales wall and seeing what sticks.

Lots of titles for the PC and DS, and most appear to be the usual bevy of casual titles and junk tossed out to see who will be sucker enough to plunk down $29.99 for it. There really isn’t a lot to get excited about except maybe the small screen transition of Viva Piñata Pocket Paradise (DS). There are simply way too many goofy titles like Polar Golfer Pineapple Cup (PC) and Mister Slime (DS) to take much that is developed for these platforms seriously anymore.

While the Xbox 360 and PS3 had several heavyweight common titles rated this week, there was one that stands out as being most anticipated. Star Wars: The Force Unleashed with its breakthrough physics was set up wit a ‘T for Teen rating from the ESRB. In addition, the two consoles also saw the “was it a necessity eyebrow raising” Guitar Hero Aerosmith, Enemy Territory: Quake Wars and Battlefield: Bad Company rated. All were also tagged with the capital ‘T’. The Playstation 3 had echochrome and the Xbox 360 had Happy Tree Friends: False Alarm to round out the next gen titles.

It was pretty easy to pick a title of shame this week, with Emoticons taking the honors. While the game can be fine and addicting, bringing it from a free game in the casual setting of a Social
atmosphere (Facebook) into the full retail world for PC is not the way to do it. In addition, now that the retail version for PC has launched, developer IQ212 has made rumblings of punking your free Emoticons versions for Facebook with some ads. I understand the need to make a buck, but to create a cutesy free game (think any puzzle game where you make matches only using Emoticons) and then pulling the rug out from people that have been playing it ad-free is not the best way to keep the buzz going in my opinion.






Title
Publisher
Rating
Platforms


echochrome
SCEA
E
PS3


Phantasy Star III: Generations of Doom
SEGA of America
E
Wii


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