No, it was cool to be good at sports and still maintain good grades, playing M rated games did nothing for me other than feeling good about murdering things.

Not really. I never really thought much about M rated games back when I was a kid, and the only one I played at the time, Mortal Kombat, I didn't really find it a big deal. My sister and I played that game a lot and we loved it. I didn't see it as mature though. Although the characters were real, but digitized people, I still found it to look comical, and no one made a fuss.

It was only that I got older and games developed that I got to enjoy some great M rated games, like Fatal Frame and Silent Hill 2 :D

Games didn't have ratings when I was a young kid. That happened during my teenage years. I wasn't playing a lot of video games at that point.

Looking back on the more violent games of my childhood (Mortal Kombat and Doom come to mind), I don't think I really cared one way of the other about that factor. I just liked good games. I mean, I had a fun week pulling out spines and throwing people onto spikes in MK. But, it just wasn't a big thing for me overall.

when I was a kid during ps2 era maybe I was like 8? I didn't really care TBH. At the time I only played JRPGS though.

no, i never thought it was cool to play M rated games. i actually think i tried to avoid them back then. the only M rated games i liked was the gta series, because they were really the only ones i thought were fun, but i didn't think they were cooler than any E or T rated games.

I'm not sure what the rating system was for Super Nintendo but I do remember really wanting to play Mortal Kombat 2 because of how awesome it looked.

Kind of. Like a lot of people, Mortal Kombat really hooked me in. It was the first fighting game I played, though I played it on the SNES, so it's not like it had the blood or anything. MK2 was even better! I was also into games like Doom, Duke, Quake, etc. But I'm not sure I was into it specifically for the violence.

There weren't ratings yet, but I definitely remember "Doom" in the computer lab being a big deal when one kid installed it and we all thought it was cool.

The first time I remember ratings being an issue I bought Metal Gear Solid and I was 14 and the clerk made me get my Mom before agreeing to sell it to me.

Yes, I was young enough that playing Doom or Mortal Kombat made me think I was breaking some sort of societal rule. The funny thing is that my mom didn't care in the slightest and would refuse games based on price rather than content. 

I wasn't attracted particularly to the "mature" stuff. I rarely got to see the ratings on a box anyway.

I was mostly fascinated by the art and interactivity anyway, so all sorts of genres would do as long as they had a certain flair.