I never felt that Dragon Age was too gritty. In fact, while I liked the game, it didn't seem to me that it captured the whole "dark fantasy" thing it was advertised as, it seemed like for the developers, "dark fantasy" translates to "violent fantasy". If you want to see a proper dark fantasy game, the Witcher is more suitable, I think.
But as to what rating Bethesda is going for, they have said that they don't aim for a specific rating, and this, as I see it, is exactly what they should do. Make the game you want, and let ESRB give it whatever rating they feel it deserves. Though in the podcast, Todd Howard said he expects the game to be rated M, and I can believe this. If you watch the trailer, there was a number of scenes with blood in it, and I'm not talking about a spray of red particles like Morrowind had, I mean reletively detailed blood that sprays out and sticks to the player and objects (See for example the part where the character hits the dragon and the resulting blood gets stuck on him. And if anyone is going to tell me "But the dragon fight was scripted!", I won't deny it probably was, but that doesn't mean we won't see blood like that in the actual game. The screenshot that shows the player fighting a troll also shows very similar looking blood on the player's sword, and blood that sticks to objects has been in games for a long time, Oblivion and Fallout 3 had it too, so I see no reason to think the blood in the trailer does not reflect what we'll actually see in the game.) The combat shown in the trailer as a whole also felt more brutal than in past games. From what I've seen, I certainly don't get the feeling of a game intended to get a T rating.
Same I liked DA: O however it was not a mature game, it was graphic in blood, somewhat mature with certain origin stories.
Most of the rest was either half boobies or over the top swearing loudly, it was flashy in your face but not really gritty or even mature in alot of places.
DA2 seems to offer even less grit, more of an anime look visually with even more BOOBS, I'm hoping Skyrim will be a counter balance to this and NV.
Less BLOOD and BOOBS, more dark shocks, grim stories of woe, a more earthy tone, blood and boobs.
You mean you find it hard to believe that they missed things like that? Well, I'd say that ESRB didn't do their job very well if they missed things like that, but obviously, they couldn't play through the whole game, I don't know the exact proccess by which ESRB determines what kind of content a game has, but I could easily see them missing some details in a game as large as Oblivion.
It seems everybody misses lots of stuff in games, myself if an rpg I'd play most variables in under a month if it was my job.
I'd find it my duty to break the game if I had to, or at least play in ways the devs never imagined just to test it.
» Tue Feb 01, 2011 9:55 am 
