An upcoming WiiWare game based on that most hallowed and cherished of American pastimes – beer pong – has raised the ire of Connecticut attorney general Richard Blumenthal.

"The video game rating board is under the influence – rating frat party video drinking games suitable for minors," Blumenthal's office said in a press release sent to GamePolitics.

Alcohol use as depicted in a game of beer pong is only enough to garner a game a Teen rating.

But even this is no longer included in the game: The publisher, JV Games, has actually pulled the alcoholic content, renaming the game Pong Toss. It's apparently been re-rated with an E.

In response to Blumenthal's comments, Entertainment Software Ratings Board Eliot Mizrachi said in a statement: "Pong Toss involves nothing more than players tossing virtual ping-pong balls into plastic cups, which hardly qualifies it for our most restrictive rating of AO (Adults Only 18+)."

And ESRB president Patricia Vance went even further in a letter to Blumenthal, noting the demonstrable fact that calling for public scrutiny of games that nobody would ever actually buy anyways is only going to make more people buy them: "Our concern is that a greater number of consumers (including the age group about which you are most concerned) will be made aware of this game and resolve to play it as a result of publicized statements of advocacy groups and others. Ironically, this is likely to result in more rather than less consumers being drawn to this game, particularly those very minors all of us seek to protect."

I don't know. On the one hand, if the game is making explicit references to people getting drunk while slamming entire cupfuls of beer, that sounds to me like a Mature rating. But with all the booze yanked out, what's to protest?

ESRB Under the Influence [GamePolitics]