Video Game rating systems - Halo Reach

[Juliegirl1]

I am a divorced mom with a ten 1/2 year old son who loves his gaming systems. I have been pretty strict as far as letting him only purchase/play games that are for his age level. I know that he has played Mature rated games at his friends' homes with his father's permission and recently Dad bought him a Halo game. Unfortunately there are different rules at Mom's and Dad's houses.

So all my son has been asking for is Halo Reach for Christmas. He knows I won't buy it for him but is pretty confident that his dad will buy it. I've never actually seen it but know that it has a Mature rating. Would you let your ten year old play this game or other Mature rated games?

I'm trying to decide if I should raise the issue with his dad knowing that he already plays a different Halo game or if I should just keep my attitude of "my house my rules". I should say that his dad is very combative and looks for any reason to start a fight with me and I know that my bringing up my concerns will be cause for our very own world war.

I guess I'm just not really sure how "bad" or violent these games are since I've never played them or seen them. I do let my child watch some movies/tv shows that are rated above his maturity level (usually rated so for language but not extreme violence or sex/nudity).

 

[Juliegirl1]

Forgot to mention that I do allow my son to play with Nerf guns and play "shooter" type games (Rayman's Raving Rabbids) but I really do not like the realistic shooting/killing people gory, bloody, games that I sometimes see. My son's argument is that in Halo Reach you are shooting Aliens and it's not gory.

 

[Tinker'n'Fun]

DS said they are "people" but they are in body suits, the shooters are not aliens but people. There is blood (green, red, blue), some gore, violence, and some language that is in the actual game, and once you play online the language is very rough. DS15 is allowed to play, but I am not sure if I would have let him at 10 1/2. I guess it depends on how mature you son is.

 

[dawson5]

My boys (oldest two) play this. Have you looked at any of the videos on youtube? It might give you a better idea.

 

[5lilfish]

I probably wouldn't put up a huge fuss over it. I held off on Halo for a very long time. My son, who has mild Asperger's, sees a therapist every other week..just to give him someone to talk to other than Mom/Dad. His therapist uses video games for part of his session, to help loosen up conversation (sort of like how it is easier to talk to your kids when driving a car because you don't have eye contact and other body language issues). Well, when the therapist asked our permission to use Halo about a year ago (our son was 12), I figured if a trained psychologist didn't think it was going to harm my son, it was probably pretty safe.

Once my son was allowed to play it, he started having halo get-togethers with other kids in the neigborhood (which helped his social skills too...remember he is on the spectrum). One kid, who is 11 yrs old, was not allowed to play because his parent's did not allow games rated 'M." We respected this and understood completely. Well, this kid must have kept at his parents because eventually they agreed to at least watch the game for 20 minutes. After watching it, they decided to allow their son to play it.

Jess

 

[Hannathy]

My just turned 12 yr old plays halo reach. I don't have a problem with it. As the PP said the gore is alien gore from what I can tell it isn't very realistic, even when the good guys get it they are in like armor space type suits so you just see a spot of color it isn't like you see a realistic arm hanging off or guts coming out. I don't see any reason he couldn't play this if he is already playing halo. there is a lot of explosions cause you are shooting down space ships etc. I don't think it is anymore violent than any of the Star wars games he has and plays. My son also plays the COD games which are in some ways more realistically violent but it has helped with his love of history! Also in the COD games at least and a lot of other more realistic games you CAN turn OFF the blood so it doesn't show. This is how he plays just by personal preference, I never told him to do it.

I personally don't follow the no violence rule because my kids know it is all pretend and animated and computer generated. In real life he is a very gentle kid!

One thing you could do that could give you points is let his dad get the game but you could buy him some of the Mega Blok Halo sets! They are similar to Lego and have the ships and characters from the game. My DS is getting a few of these for Christmas.

 

[Juliegirl1]

Thanks for the input. I think I'm going to let his dad get it and not put up a fuss. My son does understand the difference between real and pretend guns.

I was thinking about surprising him with the Halo mega bloks - he saw them in the store and I vetoed him spending his allowance on them using because I already knew I was going to get him a few for Christmas.

My only issues with violence are that he has an active imagination and will project scary things he's seen into nightmares. My thought is that you can't "unsee" scary things. I refuse to watch really scary and gory movies myself because I don't really want to know all the different ways the boogie man is going to get me!

 

[XYSRUS]

I say there is a time and a place for everything. I've let all my kids play everything from a very young age-3ish. Now the younger ones play what the older ones like. The 2 oldest are into COD and the 2 younger are into Halo Reach. All my kids get excellent grades and wouldn't dare try to pull of any disrespect to any other living things. Plus they do other stuff-swimming, baseball, basketball. Every kid is different, but for mine-it's just a video game.

 

[Hannathy]

My only issues with violence are that he has an active imagination and will project scary things he's seen into nightmares. My thought is that you can't "unsee" scary things. I refuse to watch really scary and gory movies myself because I don't really want to know all the different ways the boogie man is going to get me!

yes but if he projects the violence/scary things from the games into his nightmares he will also be projecting himself armed with a missile launcher and nuclear grenades! He will be on equal footing with the scary things and will defeat them!!! ( or at least have unlimited lives)

 

[Juliegirl1]

yes but if he projects the violence/scary things from the games into his nightmares he will also be projecting himself armed with a missile launcher and nuclear grenades! He will be on equal footing with the scary things and will defeat them!!! ( or at least have unlimited lives)

I'll have to remind him of that next time he has a bad dream!

 

[scrapquitler]

I have left the video game policing up to my DH, since I have no interest in playing them, watching them or researching them. My DH and DD (now 14) have been playing all kinds of video games together since she was tiny. Since she has been 8 or so he has played many of the "mature" rating video games with her. But maybe that's an important distinction. Anyway, Vice City, Call of Duty, Halo, etc have been in our house and she has played them all along. She has a firm grasp of the difference between reality and non-reality (like in video games and movies), and she knows that there is a reall difference between 'fake' violence and real violence.

 

[Sparx]

Halo is a shooter game. The player mostly moves through levels by shooting aliens. The gore in the game that has led to an M rating is most likely from the shooting aliens and if the player dies, gore may be shown there.

There is likely no sex, little adult language (unless playing online because the ESRB cannot rate what other players may say or do while playing in online multiplayer).

Here's a link about the ESRB rating system.
http://www.esrb.org/ratings/search.jsp

It says that Halo got M for violence, reguarding shooting aliens.

The violence in Halo is different than the violence in say, grand theft auto. In GTA, the player kills "real" people. They shoot human beings, where as in Halo, they're shooting imaginary aliens. For what that's worth, the violence is completely fantasy based.

I work at Gamestop and we are not allowed to sell M rated games to anyone under the age of 17, however if an adult buys the game for a child we can't do anything about that.

Its completely up to you if you want to let him play the game, just like if you wanted to let him see an R rated movie.

 

[Polyluvr]

My 9.5 y/o who is also on the Autism spectrum plays this game; as another PP stated it's more shooting aliens.
It was the ONLY thing he asked for for his Bday ; he earns video game time when he's had a good day @ school~ I wouldn't be overtly concerned w this game.