LABELS: Rating video games by their content...

LABELS: Rating video games by their content (A16) is supposed to help parents keep the most violent and sexual stuff away from their kids. Yet the new system will also mean better business for Nintendo, says Andrew Cockburn, editor of Diehard Game Fan, a video game magazine in Agoura Hills. . . . Nintendo games at home, he says, “have been edited down from what you get at the arcade. Now you’ll be getting the same game.”

TV TICKETS: Tired of 77 channels with nothing on? Ready to strangle the host of cable access? Well, there is an alternative. . . . Next week, taping of fall TV shows will get fully under way in Universal City, Studio City and Burbank. Ticket information can be obtained through Audiences Unlimited in Universal City.

BULL GATTIS: From high school in North Hollywood to the North Pole Nicks in Alaska, Coach Jim Gattis (above) has logged many miles in the national pastime. His latest stop--the University of Wyoming. . . . Gattis, who once made the Nicks practice in the midnight sun, has mellowed in middle age. “I think he communicates better with players now,” said assistant Dave Taylor (C14).

RADER’S ARMY: Every army goes through changes, and the Salvation Army is no exception. With a new leader, Gen. Paul A. Rader, expect all kinds of changes. . . . As head of the army’s western territory, Rader started five New Life Centers, offering music and discussion. A Northridge center will start a similar program in September (B1).

ONLY FLORENCE: CSUN is no UCLA. After all, with ex-Bruin Troy Aikman on the cover of Sports Illustrated this week, that makes it 88 times a UCLA athlete or coach has been so honored. Only three SI covers have featured a CSUN athlete, and each time it was Olympian Florence Griffith-Joyner. . . . She was a member of the school’s track team in 1979 and 1980 before going, you guessed it, to UCLA.