Should I buy "Death Throes 3" for little Johnny? (Part 2)

Just like a book, you can't always judge a game by its cover. As we saw in Part 1, the ESRB description for the game shown above says that it contains "Fantasy Violence, Mild Language, and Use of Alcohol".

There are several cartoony characters on the box, so it's hard to imagine the "Use of Alcohol" or "Mild Language" parts of the game.

Reading Reviews to Learn About a Game

One way to learn more about the contents of a game is to read reviews of the game online. Game reviews are generally not written with protective parents in mind, but you can still learn a lot from reading a review of a game.

One word of caution. You're looking for reviews. NOT PREVIEWS. Reviews are (usually) written after the game is finished. Previews are written during the development of the game. This matters because sites that preview games are often reluctant to or restricted from writing negative things about a game before it is released. In other words, a preview might not give you an accurate picture of the contents of the game.

There are several places you can go online to read game reviews, but you'll get the most "bang for your buck" by going to sites that aggregate game reviews. Here are three popular sites for game reviews:

• Metacritic
• Game Rankings
• GameTab

My favorite of the three game review sites is Metacritic. On any of the sites, you can either search for the title of the game, or you can browse for the game if you know which system the game is on, such as the Xbox 360, Nitendo Wii, PlayStation 3, Nintendo DS, PSP, etc.

Finding a Review

Let's walk through finding some reviews of the game above, Eternal Sonata.

1. Type "http://www.metacritic.com/games/" into the address bar in your browser.
   
   
   
   
2. Search for Eternal Sonata
   
   
   
   
3. Click on Eternal Sonata in the list of results.
   
   
   
   
   
4. Click on one of the Read Full Review links to go to one of the reviews.
   
   

Here is an excerpt from the review of Eternal Sonata on GameSpot.com

"If that makes Eternal Sonata sound sickeningly sweet, rest assured that it also possesses a good deal of maturity. We watch Chopin sleeping on his deathbed, as the clock slowly counts down to his last moment on earth."

It's tidbits like this that can aid you in deciding whether or not a game is suitable for your child or not.

I understand that weeding through reviews of a game to find out if it's appropriate for your child can feel overwhelming (or even a waste of time). In Part 3, we'll look at ways to find videos of game-play online so that you can see with your own eyes what's in the game little Johnny has been begging you for.