We normally think of game ratings as little more than a useful marker of where we'll be able to buy a game, or whether or not it's suitable for children. But oh, let me tell you: ESRB literature can be so, so much more than that.

It should be no surprise that South Park: The Stick of Truth is chock full o' filth-flarn-flarn-filth-flarn and hellbent for an M-for-Mature rating. It's still fun to hear the ESRB reading the dialogue aloud from its fainting couch.

In 2011, Sony released LittleBigPlanet 2 for the PlayStation 3. Two years later, Sacremento, California's News10 uncovers the startling truth behind its misleading "E for Everyone" rating.

The ESRB has asked the Chinese maker of a browser-based game to quit advertising it as rated Adults Only, reports GamesIndustry.biz, largely because the game has never been rated by the ESRB.

The Witcher 2: Assassin's of Kings' hero doesn't get laid all the time for nothing. In this launch trailer for the Xbox 360 edition of the game, Geralt of Rivia warns of mature content in a way that'll have your parents purchasing the game for themselves.

The ESRB has a fairly detailed and complex system that determines what games are marked kid-safe and which are considered appropriate for adults' eyes only. All major publishers participate in the voluntary rating system, and it is instrumental in physical, retail game sales in stores like GameStop and Walmart.

You know, video games will rot your brain. They're filled with nothing more than gratuitous fish abuse, LEGO toilet humor and references to pornographic cannonballs—or so this week's most potentially offensive video games might lead us to believe.

How are new and upcoming video games potentially offending us now? In mostly the same old ways: with excessive violence and gore, earfuls of foul language, smoking, drinking and "suggestive themes," sometimes known as sex.

Earlier this year we published a rumor that the first three games in Capcom's famed Devil May Cry series would be getting an HD re-release.

It's no surprise that Deep Silver's zombie title is getting an M-rating. The certificate just handed to it by the ESRB is still a little interesting for the bits of details it gives up from the game, from dialogue to gameplay features.

The Nintendo DS game based on the Aliens franchise that leaked more than two years ago looks like its finally going to happen. Proof? Aliens: Infestation for the DS, a side-scrolling, alien-shooting platformer, was just rated by the ESRB.

Microsoft may be running shorter on genuine new surprises for this year's E3 expo, as Australia's ratings classification board shines a light on new, unannounced Xbox 360 and Kinect games. That said, I'm dying to find out what Kinect Googly Eyes is.

Looks like Microsoft is turning game show Hole in the Wall, the Western take on Japan's Nōkabe (aka Brain Wall or colloquially "Human Tetris"), into an Xbox 360 game. And, yes, that does seem like a very natural fit for Kinect...

Already outed by Australian's ratings board, the ESRB details the next game in the Burnout series, a PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 game that sounds... well, really different.

Shortly after introducing ratings of individual video game developers, based on the aggregated ratings of games in which they are credited, Metacritic has scrapped the idea altogether, saying the information is incomplete and can't be trusted.