Top 10 PG-Rated Games on Choicest Games

Posted by Mark Goninon on
4X games are well represented in the wonderful world of PG games

Following on from my pre-Christmas post about this blog's Top 10 G-Rated Games it's now time to take a look at the top 10 PG-rated games.

In Australia, media that is rated "PG" means parental guidance is recommended. This means anyone can still play this game but parental guidance is recommended for anyone under 15 years of age due to mild impact. Basically, this category allows minimal level of violence, sexual references, adult themes and some tame coarse language. Here are the top 10 to feature on Choicest Games:

  1. Portal 2
  2. Civilization V: Brave New World
  3. Gray Matter
  4. The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition
  5. Monkey Island II: Special Edition
  6. Civilization V
  7. Civilization: Beyond Earth
  8. Wargame: Airland Battle
  9. Tales of Monkey Island
  10. Civilization IV: Colonization


So if I take into account all the 29 PG-rated games that I've reviewed on Choicest Games, what kind of genres made this list? This is what they tended to be:

  • Puzzle First Person Shooters
  • 4X Strategy Games
  • Point 'n' Click Adventures
  • Real Time Strategy Games
  • Grand Strategy
  • Artillery Games
  • MMORPGs
  • Platformers
  • Arcade games
  • Flight sim
  • Racing
  • Puzzle games
  • Visual novels
  • City builders

There are a few returning genres to this list including Real-Time Strategy, puzzle games, racing games and city builders. Since you really don't see any blood and gore in games like Wargame: Airland Battle, this is probably why the game isn't rated higher than probably many other Real-Time Strategy games such as Company of Heroes or Starcraft II. Puzzle games such as Trine 2, on the other hand, rated slightly higher probably due to some low level violence against goblins. The racing games that tend to fit under the PG-label are usually ones that have a bit of a story which may incorporate low level violence, adult themes and coarse language, and this may have been the case with games like Need for Speed: The Run. Finally, city builders like Tropico 3 are probably rated higher than their counterparts because of low level violence (due to coups) and probably adult themes.

4X Strategy games are well represented by the PG rating probably because due to their abstraction of concepts like war, the impact isn't as severe on younger minds - except when they hear people screaming as their cities are being razed to the ground - that's probably not so cool :). Point 'n' click adventures and combat flight sims are also well represented considering comic mischief being prevalent in the former (especially the Monkey Island series) and low level violence in the latter.

Anyway, it seems that a lot of my favourite genres happen to fit in under the PG-rating - especially 4X strategy games and point 'n' click adventures, which means the PG-rating doesn't sound that bad at all. I'm finding as I go through this exercise that there are plenty of good games for adults out there without needing to resort to MA15+ or R18+ games.

Also, statistics for statistics sake:

  • Total number of games reviewed that are rated "PG": 29
  • Highest rating for a "PG" game: 9/10
  • Lowest rating for a "PG" game: 5/10

Stay tuned for Top 10 lists for M and MA15+ in the near future.

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