The ESRB is a mess and there are very few people that dispute that.  When it comes to any form of media entertainment, it all comes down to the maturity of the consumer as to what they allow themselves to take from the product.  I, personally, can play days worth of Grand Theft Auto without ever stealing a car or pimp-slapping my wife, and while I may speed a little, I’ve always stopped before involving a S.W.A.T. team.  But it isn’t just the “Mature” titles that can have a possible adverse effect on the player, but the innocent “E” or “Everyone” titles.  Don’t believe me?

Perhaps the guiltiest of all of these “E” rated games is Viva Piñata.  It starts off innocently enough– “look you can raise little animal piñatas in your own little garden!”  But it’s not just a garden it’s a farm.  A farm for giving people piñatas.  Now, what does that mean?

1) You have to breed the piñatas.  You have to get them in the mood to go and “dance”.  And there are some weird dances.  Dances where one piñata swallows its partner whole and spits it back out.  Dances that go ass-to-ass.  Weird, kinky shit.  More unusual is the fact that the non-gendered piñatas are perfectly willing and able to mate not only without regard to any sort of standard/enduring coupling, but are also able to mate with their own offspring.  Sure, you can say it’s okay because the stork bring the egg when the “dancing” is done, but that doesn’t change the fact that I have a farm full of inbreds.
2) You have to feed the piñatas– sometimes feeding them other piñatas.  This involves one beating the other other to death so as to feast on their candy innards. 
3) All of this breeding and candy cannibalism is just to fatten these creatures up to ship them off so some child can crush and consume you incestuous product.

If that wasn’t enough, the player is helped in the game by the cast of The Wicker Man, complete with creepy masks and relentless desire for piñata sacrifices.  And should any of these townsfolk wander onto your plot of land, you can beat them with a shovel for money.  Now it’s possible I’m reading a little far into the psyche of Viva Piñata, but they’re not the only game guilty of this sort of lurking evil in what seems at first to be an innocent game franchise. 

Take “Bomberman“.  First and foremost this “E” rated game is about taking bombs… and well, using them as bombs.  To kill each other.  Corner your opponents with explosives, and you’re a big winner.  Sure, it’s all cuddly cartoons and fun; but you are in a competition to detonate your fellow gamers.  “That’s just competition!  There’s nothing wrong with that!”  Oh, sure.  Until you win.  That’s when the game tells you what exactly won.

“White Bomberman wins!”” the game declares! What the hell does that mean?  The imperialist Aryan bomberman has blown the repressed Black Bomberman into his payless employ?  Moved the Red Bomberman onto the reservation?  Some of the more technicolor (see also: “homosexual”) Bombermentransgendered people are fighting for their very right to exist against your explosion-fueled gay-bashing.  And this is a game that doesn’t just use bombs… there’s some other negative-player effects as well.  You get “diseased”, causing your controls to work in reverse, or player to move slow, etc.  And you can go, touch another player, and transmit your little evil STD to them.  So now the White Bomberman can choose to give the Yellow Bomberman syphilis.  You may think that Bomberman is a harmless game, but next time you fire that puppy up, you’ll see that it’s just a racial arms race propagated by bombs and sexually transmitted diseases.

So, next time you’re out with your younger sibling / child / whatever poor sap is partially entrusted to your care, and looking at video games, consider what you’re exposing them to.  Play the games first, and know what’s going on.  Hell, you might just go for the “M”.  At least Manhunt 2 is straight to the point.