Video games carry ratings for age-appropriateness and content so that parents can make informed choices about the ones they find suitable for their children and families. Those ratings are assigned by the non-profit Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB), and appear on the front and back of virtually every game sold at retail in the U.S. and Canada.

In order to make it even easier for you to find ESRB rating information for the games your kids have been asking for, the ESRB has created a rating search "widget," which Blogcritics is proud to offer here. A widget is a tool that can appear on a website, be grabbed and placed on a personal web page, put onto your PC (or Mac) desktop and even shared among friends. This ESRB widget lets you search for games by their title, and provides information about the game's ESRB rating category, content descriptors, publisher and platform.

So talk to your kids about the games they want, and then look up their ratings right here before going out to the store. That way, you can be sure that those games contain content that is appropriate for their age. You will find the ESRB widget on every page of Blogcritics Gaming in the right-hand column, where you can find games without leaving this page. Try it below:

Want to have your own rating search widget?
Just click the "get & share" tab below the widget and select the destination. You can email it to a friend, or place the widget on your social networking page like MySpace and Facebook, your personal homepage on sites like Yahoo! and Google, or on your desktop with Windows Vista. You can even select the color you want, and choose between English, Spanish and French. Just follow the steps for entering your login information and video game ratings will never be more than a click away!