A look at often inconsistent, sometimes just plain ridiculous video game ratings.

Several years ago, when I worked at a magazine for parents, I attended a presentation by some self-styled expert on violence in the media. It was a friggin’ joke. Among the clips she showed were snippets from America’s Funniest Home Videos (standard fare, like little kids accidentally whacking dad in the nuts with a Wiffle ball bat) and Beavis and Butt-head -- not the slapping and whacking with real bats, as one might expect, but the exchanging of insults like “bunghole” and “dumb ass.” “Verbal violence,” she called it, frowning at the gravity of the situation.

Violence is in the eye of the beholder. And some people seem to behold violence everywhere -- but nowhere more so than in media in which children are likely to take an interest, such as video games.

Much as I'd like to, I'm not going to rant about the deeply flawed and yet almost universally accepted notion that violent video games cause violent behavior. (OK, one point and then I'll stop: The game that really set this debate in motion, Mortal Kombat, was released in 1993; the following year, the rate of violent crimes by youths began to drop, and it continued to drop until at least last year.)

But that's a topic for another time. Today we're going to focus on the indisputable fact that home video game ratings can be completely ridiculous.

Like movies, virtually all video games intended for the mass market are submitted for review and rating -- in this case, to the Entertainment Software Rating Board. The ESRB passes each game to three trained evaluators, who then determine which letters should be slapped on the game's box: EC (Early Childhood, recommended for age 3 and up); E (Everyone, 6 and up; "may contain minimal violence and some comic mischief"); T (Teen, 13 and up; "may contain violent content, mild or strong language, and/or suggestive themes"); M (Mature, 17 and up; "sexual themes" or "more intense violence or language"); or A (Adults Only; "graphic depictions of sex and/or violence"). These are intended primarily as a guide for parents.

And as a parent who plays these games, I can tell you the ratings can be absurdly misleading.

Case in point: Last year me and my gaming partner, my 4-year-old son Conor (who prefers to watch me play), became obsessed with Ico (SCEA, PlayStation 2), a gorgeous and clever adventure game in which a boy of about 10 tries to help a magical girl escape from her evil mother's castle. (Trust me, it makes sense when you play it.) Occasionally, the kids are set upon by shadowy critters. (Remember the demons that came for the bad guys in the movie Ghost? They're kinda like that.) The demons try to capture the girl, and Ico has to fight them off with a stick or, if he finds one, a sword. Not a drop of blood is spilled. In fact, the "black monsters," as Conor dubbed them, can't do anything more to Ico than knock him down -- it's the not-entirely-corporeal girl they're after. The game's rating? T, due to "violence."

More recently we tried out Spider-Man (Activision, PS2, Gamecube and Xbox), which is based on the movie. In this uninspired game (even Conor lost interest quickly, though possibly because I found the movement controls difficult to master), the bad guys are quite real, and they kick and punch and even shoot at you. And yet Spider-Man is rated E.

What are we to conclude from this? That a game in which you whack ghosts with a stick is potentially harmful to children but a game in which thugs fire on you with semiautomatic weapons is not? Or that the ESRB is as inconsistent and prone to prudishness as the Motion Picture Association of America? I'm leaning toward the latter. (The ESRB did not respond to requests for an interview.)

Okage: Shadow King (SCEA, PS2), an excruciatingly slow and boring kids' game that's looong on plot exposition and short on action, is rated T -- for "comic mischief, mild language, mild violence." If the ESRB is going to be that vigilant, then surely it should be appalled at the level of violence in pro football and hockey video games -- and yet they're all rated E.

Pirates: The Legend of Black Kat (Westwood Studios, PS2 and Xbox) has sword fighting (all bloodless) and battles at sea (comically unrealistic), and pretty Kat is quite curvaceous, but there is nothing that most kids younger than 13 couldn't handle. Certain books of the Bible are more gory and frightening than this game, but it too is rated T, for "suggestive themes and violence."

There are games that are not appropriate for kids, for various reasons. Rune: Viking Warlord (Human Head Studios, PS2, read City Paper review), which is rated M, never scared my son, but when he started imitating the hero a bit too enthusiastically on days when he was home with Mommy and his little brother, we stopped playing it together. (I should note, however, that aside from a stubbornness streak that he must get from his mother, his behavior has never been a problem; he has never been aggressive, at home or at day care. He understands the difference between a warrior and a bully.) Twisted Metal: Black (Incog, PS2; read City Paper review), also rated M, did spook him, so we stopped playing immediately.

But just as most other parents don't let PG and PG-13 ratings stop their kids from seeing obviously suitable fare like Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone and the Star Wars movies, I'm not going to shield my kids from games that are no more suggestive or violent than a typical Warner Bros. cartoon. Nor should other parents. What is accomplished by allowing letters determined by unseen reviewers turn us into arbitrary arbiters, aside from imbuing even innocuous games with the allure of the forbidden?