Doom 3 Recieves 18 Certificate

So, "18 Certificate" means a "Mature" rating for us Yanks, right? Forgive my ignorance of certificates...

The "mature" rating we give here in the US is 17+. (T=Teen, 13+; E=Everyone, no age restriction) Some stores actually ID kids that appear to be under 17, but most don't care. If you're in a store that does ID, however, you have to have a parent/gaurdian with you to purchase said merchandise. Some stores do the same thing for 'R' rated movies. There's also an 'A' rating for games, meaning only adults can buy it (not sure of the age limit on that one) but I've never seen a game that actually got that rating. I would imagine it would have to have wanton sexual behavior since ultra violent games only merit a 'M' rating. (ie: GTA games.)

EDIT: See here if you're interested in getting a more detailed explaination.

Yeah, I guess so. I looked on the ESRB website (linked to in my previous post). The 'A' rating is for 18+, while the 'M' rating is 17+. That's just stupid. Why not just make it one rating. Either that, or make the 'A' rating have a higher age restriction. But it just seems dumb to have the two ratings only 1 year apart.

http://pc.ign.com/articles/525/525394p1.html

August 3rd.

Kinda far away, but I guess they need time for marketing. It beat Half Life 2 to release after all...or maybe they're about to announce their date too.

Most non-video game chains won't even carry A-rated games (Wal-Mart, Target, Best Buy, Circuit City, etc.) I believe some of the video game stores will carry them, but will not put them on display. You have to ask for them at the counter, and show ID of course.

May as well be a ban. Almost no one will put A-rated content into a game with a significant budget.

'Mature' is equivalent to an 'R'. You even need ID to purchase 'M' games, just like attending an 'R' film (though it's much easier to get around the video game system than it is to get around the movie system). I can't imagine that any amount of violence, short of photorealistic renderings of something like dissections or traumatic death, would earn an 'A' rating. 'A' means 'Sex'.

You can actually have topless females in an 'M' rated game, though it's very rare... it's tip-toeing on the line. References to sex are allowable, up to a point. The Baldur's Gate series demonstrates this. The game has a brothel, and you can pay women to have sex with you, but nothing at all is shown... it's all dialogue proceeding and following the sex, and no dialogue or anything of the sex act itself.

Interesting enough, Bioware's Neverwinter Nights has a 'Teen' rating, and it gets away with a brothel. The dialogue is very, very carefully written, with innuendos and double entendres used instead of actually mentioning sex, but anyone over the age of twelve will understand what's being sold. If you're talking to one of the whores and choose precisely the right dialogue selections she'll agree to sleep with you, and the game isn't very subtle at all about it. You go to climb into a huge, round bed with her (or him), the screen goes dark, and you wake up "Sometime Later". She'll be asleep, and it'll say something about "She needs to rest after a busy night". Even better, you're character is "naked"... all his gear is off, and your avatar on the screen is wearing nothing but underwear. Now, all that detail should have earned the game an 'M'... but it was so difficult to pull off that apparently the ESRB testers never found it.