Parental Controls in Games - why I like them

MCVUK.com recently posted a piece that says Microsoft will be adding Parental Controls to Gears of War 2. The violence filter will allow you to filter out bad language and change blood to sparks during fighting. The change of blood to sparks is something I haven't seen before, and is a nice way to clean up the game without changing the overall game experience.

I don't believe profanity filter is anything new, but I do believe this is something good. I have two kids in the house, and my PC is in an open area of the sun room mainly so I can be accessible to the kids. The downside of this comes when I want to play a video that may not be appropriate for kids to watch over my shoulder, or play a game that contains more violence or swear words than I want to expose them to right now. So I when I see information like Microsoft adding Parental Controls to Gears of War 2, then I might be more inclined to take a look at the game, rather than pass over it because it's got a "Mature" rating and I don't have enough late-night time free for yet another M-rated game.

I use the ratings on both games and movies with a grain of salt. The ESRB generally does a good job of rating games, but sometimes they error on the side of caution. For instance, earlier this year we picked up Transformers, The Game by Activision, which is rated "T" for Teen. Personally, I think the game would have been fine with an E 10+ (Everyone 10 and older) rating. I let my 10 year old son play it, and I don't feel the violence is excessive. After all, they're robots, so it's not overly realistic. Obviously everyone needs to make their own decisions about what games are appropriate for their own children, and I feel my son is mature enough to realize that it's just a game.

I've also given him permission to join my husband in his Friday Night Fights gaming event, provided they use the Parental Filter when available. My husband, my brother, a cousin and two or three various work friends get together online every Friday night to play. The game varies, depending on what they're in the mood for, or what's new. They started out with Call of Duty, which I would not allow my son to play at the time (I think that was 2 years ago.) They've recently moved on to Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Advance Warfare 2, by Ubisoft. It's got a T rating, which I agree with. There is no Parental Filter, but as there is minimal swearing, and hardly any blood, I feel my son can handle it. I get the eye-roll when I comment "You know you can re-spawn in real life, right?" (I'm a Mom, I can't help it.) Before this game, they were playing Unreal Tournament 3, rated M, which does contain a profanity filter, and involved Aliens so while it looked scary, it was in a fun way, not something likely to induce nightmares.

I've also noticed that all the guys self-filter their Ventrillo communication when my son is joining them, which I appreciate. Most of them have children in their houses as well, so it's probably habit anyway.

The guys no long play UT3 together, so I've taken it over, and play on my own. I like it because I can practice WASD'ing to move around. I'm used to World of Warcraft - where you can move using the WASD keys has well, but I tend to use the two-mouse buttons instead as it's a smoother trip, and I need my left hand to hit the number keys to Kidney-shot, Backstab and Gouge. And I have the profanity filter turned on, so I don't need to worry about little parrots repeating inapropriate phrases while playing at their friend's houses.

So for me Parental Controls in video games is a good thing, allowing me to tweak a game to a level I feel comfortable with. As a Mom who games, I appreciate anything the game makers can do to allow me a wider variety of games I can play with kids nearby.