I just rented Resident Evil 0 for Halloween. The only truly objectionable thing is the gore, because the game is about a virus.
Still, games with that kind of content in them need to be restricted, so kids that aren't old enough (read:get scared), and kids that have some problems with that kind of content have restricted viewing. Games like Silent Hill need to be kept from innocent wandering eyes. The first time I saw Silent Hill in action, I was twelve years old, playing multiplayer Pokemon with a friend. We were playing it in his family room, and his older brother (read: fifteen) and his brother's friend were playing Silent Hill. It was possibly the most disturbing thing I have ever seen. There was a girl who got possessed, and was chasing a man around a carousel with an axe. Her eyes were red, and she was emitting low, gutteral grunts and groans that accentuated the mood of the horror. The game was very well done, but extremely dark and graphically violent, with tons of gore. On the other hand, a game like Resident Evil goes for the less intelligent, more adrenaline packed game play, that, while featuring a great story and action packed sequences, doesn't focus on all out terror like the SH games do.
In a lesser note, why is it that games like THPS that have become bloody in recent years, why is it that they are kept from a Mature rating? These games often feature questionable content in songs, as well as some pretty suggestive stuff, unfortunately enough.
There is a horrible double standard in the gaming industry. Games have gone from simplistic pixels to vector graphics, to two dimensional platformers, to graphically violent games. It seems like half the games on the market today are done by Quentin Tarantino, what with the blood lust. Games have evolved from the games that attracted little kids looking for fun, to the now grown-up kids that go for the goriest games imaginable. And, as always, the game with the most expensive marketing campaign wins out. Why do you think that pretty bad games get sold? Because the producers have TONS of money.
However, I am this thread has gotten me thinking. Why not create a petition to alter the way the ESRB does things? I think I might write my congressman to find out the situation on this decidedly controversial topic.