“Mature” games you played as a kid?

[Bearcat-Doug | 5,105]

Probably Doom or Mortal Kombat unless something like Friday the 13th on NES counts.

[cj_robot | 546]

3 hours ago, Estil said:

Welcome to the club!  Both age and only having an NES still!  Did your parents too pull that whole "you already have a Nintendo" crap?    Of course it wasn't until a couple years later we REALLY had the whole sex/violence in games debate and the start of that whole ESRB thing...which, just like the Parental Advisory stickers for CDs at the time, only made young people want them more!  Shoot I remember some clothes back then with the Parental Advisory logo!

I don't even know the reason why, but my Mom vowed to never buy us another video game console after the NES. So, my brother and I saved every bit of cash we got and bought a Super NES in '93, and then a Sega Genesis in '94. Plus, I discovered DOS gaming about that time as well, so the violent video games really started rolling in. But yeah, never got to experience Doom, Mortal Kombat, etc. until I was already a teeny bopper.

Not really sure how I would have reacted to seeing that stuff as a little kid. I know that I really, really did not like violent or scary movies back then. Doom probably would have given me nightmares

[Tanooki | 4,952]

None...not sure I would have had a way to if I wanted missing it by a short few years.

Got a PC Christmas of 1990, before that just had the NES (85) and Gameboy (89) and nothing on those came out I owned that could be considered by todays standards T or M rated at all.  The closest would be Wolfenstein 3D with it's awesome PC-13 rated for Profound Carnage and I was 15 when that released.  At that point the parents didn't care if I shot nazis, just as no one cared a year down from there when Doom arrived.

Games back then, console side, never really got dark enough to be mature.  Sure you had Friday the 13th, it's hardly scary or awful enough given the limits of NES visuals on that game.  SNES had the potential for it, but again, just didn't tap into it.  The PC is where I found the mature stuff even Sega wouldn't touch either despite being supposedly more gritty.

Yes I am ignoring Mortal Kombat, it was immortal combat on SNES.   By the time MK2 came out that was 1993, same year as Doom.

Edited August 19, 2021 by Tanooki

[RegularGuyGamer | 2,018]

I got Doom in 94 with the PS1 launch. I was in 3rd grade lol

[GPX | 1,374]

27 minutes ago, RegularGuyGamer said:

I got Doom in 94 with the PS1 launch. I was in 3rd grade lol

Your parents didn’t take notice of the age-rating? Or they didn’t care? 

[GPX | 1,374]

Just a side-question, I wonder what is the earliest marketed game that has 15+ mature content?

[RegularGuyGamer | 2,018]

8 minutes ago, GPX said:

Your parents didn’t take notice of the age-rating? Or they didn’t care? 

My dad thought it looked cool, I'm sure. He rented Resident Evil shortly after that as well. Doom wasn't nearly as mature as RE though. I remember having nightmares from RE and RE2

[GPX | 1,374]

6 minutes ago, RegularGuyGamer said:

My dad thought it looked cool, I'm sure. He rented Resident Evil shortly after that as well. Doom wasn't nearly as mature as RE though. I remember having nightmares from RE and RE2

Oh hell yeah! RE was the console landmark for horror genre, and that game also scared the heck out of me from that first scene when the zombie was muchin’ and then turning his head around. And I was already passed the age of 15 back then! 

[captmorgandrinker | 1,650]

51 minutes ago, GPX said:

Just a side-question, I wonder what is the earliest marketed game that has 15+ mature content?

Guessing Leisure Suit Larry

[darkchylde28 | 1,546]

1 hour ago, captmorgandrinker said:

Guessing Leisure Suit Larry

I started to reply, then got curious, and did some Googling.  Turns out that The Softporn Adventure, Larry's direct inspiration (virtually all of the puzzles in Larry came from it, Larry really just added graphics) released in 1981, ahead of the adult Atari 2600 games that I originally thought led the pack time-wise.  The adult stuff from Mystique didn't hit until 1982.  Then, the violent 2600 stuff (like Halloween and Texas Chainsaw Massacre) didn't come out until 1983, amidst the crash (possibly why they're so rare to come across).

[captmorgandrinker | 1,650]

He did mention "marketed", and I do recall seeing Leisure Suit Larry ads.   Not sure if the other stuff had any type of ad campaign (maybe Halloween/TCM for 2600 did)?

[GPX | 1,374]

2 hours ago, captmorgandrinker said:

He did mention "marketed", and I do recall seeing Leisure Suit Larry ads.   Not sure if the other stuff had any type of ad campaign (maybe Halloween/TCM for 2600 did)?

I used “marketed” in the loose sense, as in “sold for the general consumer masses”. I can imagine in the 80s, companies would assume gamers were predominantly of young age to young teens, so it would be a big gamble to sell adult content. 

Also, something that’s just crossed my mind. Back then, particularly in the 80s, everything that appeared in pixels were “comic in nature” and were presumed “for children”. Then in the mid-90s, graphics improved to a more realistic state, and that’s when you get the censorship ratings. But mature themes were aplenty back in the 80s, just that parents probably were oblivious to this.

[DoctorEncore | 3,691]

Mortal Kombat, blood code on, for the Sega Genesis when I was 8 years old. Yeah, I'm a badass.

[GPX | 1,374]

1 hour ago, DoctorEncore said:

Mortal Kombat, blood code on, for the Sega Genesis when I was 8 years old. Yeah, I'm a badass.

And judging by the ID and profession, you’re also a gore lover. 

[darkchylde28 | 1,546]

6 hours ago, captmorgandrinker said:

He did mention "marketed", and I do recall seeing Leisure Suit Larry ads.   Not sure if the other stuff had any type of ad campaign (maybe Halloween/TCM for 2600 did)?

There were ads.  I doubt many of us saw them back then, based on the types of media they were printed in, but they were absolutely marketed.

Check this out:  http://www.atarimania.com/list_ads_atari_publisher-_23-_2.html

Edit:  Initially forgot about Softporn Adventure, and while I know I've seen ads for it here and there before, I couldn't come up with one on as short a notice as I'm going to spend replying here.  However, check the Wikipedia link below, as it references it being advertised in Time, which ought to count well enough for being "marketed."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Softporn_Adventure

Edited August 20, 2021 by darkchylde28

[koifish | 561]

Younger than several on this site, but I was really disturbed as a kid by the resident evil 2 commercial. That game is a big part of my fear of zombie stuff.

[G-type | 2,525]

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Edited August 20, 2021 by G-type
double post

[G-type | 2,525]

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Edited August 20, 2021 by G-type
Double post

[G-type | 2,525]

We had the leisure suit Larry games

[captmorgandrinker | 1,650]

11 hours ago, darkchylde28 said:

There were ads.  I doubt many of us saw them back then, based on the types of media they were printed in, but they were absolutely marketed.

Check this out:  http://www.atarimania.com/list_ads_atari_publisher-_23-_2.html

Edit:  Initially forgot about Softporn Adventure, and while I know I've seen ads for it here and there before, I couldn't come up with one on as short a notice as I'm going to spend replying here.  However, check the Wikipedia link below, as it references it being advertised in Time, which ought to count well enough for being "marketed."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Softporn_Adventure

Don't come up with one if you're at work!

[darkchylde28 | 1,546]

47 minutes ago, captmorgandrinker said:

Don't come up with one if you're at work!

You're not wrong, my "boss" wandered by and went, "WHAT ARE YOU GOOGLING?!" until I tabbed over to show her the thread, at which point I got an "oh," and accompanying eyeroll. 

[Optomon | 65]

I think just the fighting games MKII, Primal Rage, etc.

I remember watching a 9 year old kid run over hundreds of people on the sidewalks in GTA III when it was new and thinking it was too disturbing.

[monsterG | 17]

I never understood why the ESRB marked Offworld Interceptor Extreme as M. 

[WhyNotZoidberg | 586]

On 8/21/2021 at 9:48 PM, monsterG said:

I never understood why the ESRB marked Offworld Interceptor Extreme as M. 

wow I never realized this. Even the OG on 3DO has an M rating

I can't say I played enough of this game to see all the content, but you never really see humans on screen or anything. I know there's a lot of trash talk going on so maybe there's heavy cursing in the comments and cutscenes? I don't remember.

[AstralSoul | 503]

Other than Mortal Kombat, there was nothing really. My parents only let me play family friendly games. I only got to play MK at a friend's house. But I know it was a big deal with parents at the time but that was part of its appeal to us as kids.