While flipping around the channels on TV lately I keep running into the same commercial for Saw IV on DVD. This got me thinking about the rumored games based of the movie franchise developed by Brash Entertainment. While there hasn't been any update on said project since the announcement that plans were being made, one can't help but wonder what kind of effect this could have on the perceptions of video games as a medium (especially after the whole Manhunt 2 episode).

Seeing as to how during the entire process of the Manhunt controversy the majority of people (ie: gamers) were in agreement that the M rating of games should run equivalent to that of an R rating in cinema. Yet it seems that there is an unequivicable bias formed in the favor of movies and in some ways even television. Ironically enough there were a few movies that were cited often by people for proof of such bias, one of which being Saw.

So here is the point of it all. While I'm not a huge fan of Saw or Manhunt for that example, I can't help but wish that they create a game that is worthy of the name. Make it as brutal and sadistic as the movies were. Sure this is going to bring up a whole lot of controversy with the likes of Jack Thompson, other government officials, and parents alike, but it could be the single most important thing to getting the equivilancy of ratings solved. If the game is created in faith to the movies it should without a doubt get the dreaded AO ban that Manhunt experienced. Yet it is perfectly fine for similar content to be created for the movie screen (where it can usually be seen in even more detail since there a real actors as opposed to digitized models of people)?

Ideally the creation of such a game could finally create a dialog that could either make game ratings more prevalent to parents (the best solution since the burden lies upon them for what their children play in my opinion) or resolves some of the complaints that have been laid upon the ESRB. Hopefully the end result would be a fair and equal rating system across the board that will finally make sense and hopefully get some of the bad press that games occasionally get off of headline news until there is actually an accurate study done to prove anything.