'Grand Sex Auto'? Sex Scenes Possibly Hidden In Ga

[paidelr]

'Grand Sex Auto'? Sex Scenes Possibly Hidden In Game Have Critics In A Lather

Unclear whether graphic scenes are intentional part of game, unfinished coding left on disc, or just the work of a clever fan.

Carl Johnson and Sweet are characters in "Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas"

Who put the sex in "Grand Theft Auto"? That's the question buzzing in video-game circles.

For years, the hottest franchise in video games has been under fire for its depiction of violence against police, prostitutes and various ethnic groups.

Now come complaints that sex scenes possibly hidden in the series' latest installment, "Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas" (which is already rated "M" — intended for players aged 17 and up — by the Entertainment Software Ratings Board), should be given the video-game equivalent of an X rating.

"Once again, ESRB has failed our parents," California Assemblymember Leland Yee said in a statement released last week. "This particular game has been known to include extremely heinous acts of violence, and now it has been uncovered that the game also includes explicit sexual scenes that are inappropriate for our children. I have urged the ESRB on numerous occasions to rate this game AO ['adults-only'] based on its blatantly graphic nature."

In a statement released Friday, the National Institute on Media and the Family echoed the call for a switch to an AO rating. Such a move would position "GTA" in an unusual spot. Many retailers will not stock AO games, which has chilled major publishers' enthusiasm for making them. The ESRB ratings database lists more than 600 M-rated games; for the AO rating, the number of games is 18.

But the question in video-game circles for the past month hasn't been whether "GTA" deserves an AO rating because of its content, but whether the controversial content is actually in the game.

Those in the best position to know — the game's developers — declined a request for an interview about the subject but issued a statement saying that the hidden sex scenes "are not represented or playable" in the retail version of the game. The company did not address specific questions about whether the scenes were hidden, intentionally or accidentally, on "GTA" discs that made it to stores — and they certainly are "playable," because many gamers have found ways to play them.

The controversy began in early June, when a Dutch gamer named Patrick Wildenborg released the "Hot Coffee Mod," a downloadable application that introduced a startling new element to the PC version of "San Andreas": interactive sex.

The game, which was initially released on PS2 in October 2004 but is now also available on PC and Xbox, always allowed the player-controlled protagonist, CJ, to date a variety of women in the sprawling state of "San Andreas." The dates involved activities typical of the franchise's satirical bent. For example, one hard-nosed girlfriend would request that her nights out consist of drive-by shootings. If players could get their hero to sufficiently charm one these girlfriends, CJ would be invited into a girlfriend's house for "hot coffee." At that point, the game's camera would remain outside the girlfriend's house, but the muffled noises emanating from within the digital domicile left no doubt about what the "coffee" really meant.

Events would play out differently with Wildenborg's "mod." The programming tweak required some manipulation of the game's source code. That kind of under-the-hood tweak requires more tech savvy than the standard video-game bonus, which might reward a player with infinite lives if they can strike the proper 12-button combination on their controller.

Once "Hot Coffee" was properly activated, an invitation for coffee would lead to an interior view of CJ and girlfriend in the bedroom indulging in their affections, according to Internet reviews by people who successfully ran Wildenborg's programming trick. More than a non-interactive cut-scene, the couple's copulation would play out as a controllable mini-game. Button presses affected performance.

However, downloaders noticed that a few things didn't seem quite right. CJ remained clothed, making the action onscreen anatomically improbable. And the mini-game was difficult to control, suggesting amateurish or unfinished programming.

The question arose as to whether Wildenborg had crudely created a new bit of gameplay, or whether he had unearthed unfinished code that had been abandoned by the game's developers and left on the game's disc. If Wildenborg had simply created new content, then he was following in the long tradition of "modding" games, creating new content based on established code in a way similar to how fans modified the code of the hit first-person shooter "Half-Life" into a whole new game, "Counter-Strike," which itself became a hit game.

Wildenborg said he hadn't created that kind of mod. On his Web site, he wrote: "All the contents of this mod were already available on the original disks. Therefore the script code, the models, the animations and the dialogs by the original voice actors were all created by Rockstar. The only thing I had to do to enable the mini-games was toggle a single bit in the main.scm file." In other words, Wildenborg claimed that he had simply found a key that unlocked a Rockstar-programmed secret.

In an e-mail interview with MTV News on Monday (July 11), Wildenborg said the mod came about when "some fellow modder discovered the animation sequences somewhere on the PS2 disc while browsing through its data files." That revelation means that the code would have been buried in 2004's PlayStation 2 version. "At first we thought these were just the regular 'leftovers' from old gameplay ideas that had not been finished. But after further investigation with home-brewed tooling, I slowly discovered what emerged as a complete mini-game. But it was very carefully removed from the normal gameplay — to the best of my knowledge, all this stuff is under no circumstance playable on an original installation of the game. We were, however, able to craft a 'software-key' that unlocks this content."

It wouldn't have been unprecedented for a game developer to have left content on retail copies of the disc that it didn't intend for gamers to access. Hackers have found cutting-room-floor content buried in games such as "GoldenEye." Rockstar, however, isn't saying if this is the case. In a statement, the company said: "The scenes depicted in the 'Hot Coffee' modification are not represented or playable in the final version of the game available at any retail outlets. The 'Hot Coffee' scenes cannot be created without intentional and significant technical modifications to the PC version of the game's source code."

This wouldn't be the first time Rockstar had left scuttled code in a "GTA" game, said Jordan Liles, site director for planetgrandtheftauto.com. According to Liles, code sleuths have also found graphics for a skateboard in "San Andreas," even though no skateboard is usable in the game. He added that the game also included leftover images from "Grand Theft Auto: Vice City," and the PC version of the single-player "GTAIII" even included some rough options for a multi-player mode — all tucked away and inaccessible to regular users of the games.

A Rockstar representative did confirm that the ESRB is conducting an investigation, and the company said in a statement that "we also feel confident that the investigation will uphold the original rating of the game, as the work of the mod community is beyond the scope of either publishers or the ESRB."

Representatives from the ESRB did not return a request for an update about the investigation by press time. Over the weekend, ESRB president Patricia Vance told the Boston Globe that "Hot Coffee" mini-games would likely not affect the game's ratings, because they were not available to users unless they meddled with the game's source code. But, she added, the incident "raises issues about what's considered playable content." She asked, "Should there be complete disclosure of non-playable content?"

For now, "GTA" is still available on store shelves with an M rating. According to the game's box, the game is rated M for blood and gore, intense violence, strong language, strong sexual content and use of drugs.

Bolded interesting parts if your lazy. Good read though.

[Psicosis]

Screenshots and video at http://www.gtasanandreas.net/news/single.php?id=1469

[Pepsi]

That is so wrong.

.....how do I install that mod?

[Docpepper]

for the ps2 version it requires a ps2 save builder and a sharkport or xport. I've tried it and it isn't that good . unresponsive controls , low audio. I'm glad they left it out of the game though

[Benji]

That coding was left in by Rockstar, it was in the PS2 versions coding too, it's a pretty well known fact, it wasn't developed, it's their own fault for leaving it in.

[apsham]

"You the man! Oh yeah! You the man!"

Are his buddies in the room egging him on?

[ROC]

Ugh. Now this is gaining major media attention. ABC mentioned it this morning with the tagline "Is Porn in Your Kid's Video Game?"

Looks like another unnecessary gaming scandal has developed again, folks...

[oldskool]

Load of freaking trash. So I can go editing Mickey's Mouse Adventures source code, throw in a few penises, and bam, Adults Only for Mickey and Co.? Doesn't matter to me if it's in the code or not, if I can't get to it without screwing around with the code it's not worth changing a rating for, that's for damn sure.

[Cactus Drags]

I love how the media and irritating-bastard-parents associations are com peltely ignoring the fact that your kid would have to be a coding genius to even know about Hot Coffee...well, until the same people started kicking up a fuss about it. Now everyone's going to be trying to find it, they've made the problem worse, not better

[zero]

Now everyone's going to be trying to find it, they've made the problem worse, not better

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Isn't that the media's goal?

And wasn't this posted like a month ago? I'm not being a dick, I'm honestly not sure.

[MalaCloudy Black]

That coding was left in by Rockstar, it was in the PS2 versions coding too, it's a pretty well known fact, it wasn't developed, it's their own fault for leaving it in.

←

Yeah, I remember when I posted back at GTA-Forums when the game came out, They had a TON of great posters who dedicated a lot of time to playing around with the source code and finding things like this.

I've known about it since November or so. I'm surprised it hasn't been brought up by the media before. =/

[ROC]

And wasn't this posted like a month ago?  I'm not being a dick, I'm honestly not sure.

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[K]

The metro had a great quote today, was something like

Prostitution, fine. Murder, fine. Organised crime, fine. Breaking and entering, fine. Consensual Sex, Dear God No!

[MDK]

Hah, I read that on the way back home, it was great.

[oldskool]

GTA: SA just got slapped with an AO rating and has been pulled from numerous stores (Target, Wal-Mart and GameStop, just to name three). They're in the works remaking one without the Hot Coffee on the discs to get the M rating back, as well as suing the Action Replay/Game Shark people for allowing the hacking into the disc to find it in the first place.

Edited July 21, 2005 by oldskool

[Docpepper]

GTA: SA just got slapped with an AO rating and has been pulled from numerous stores (Target, Wal-Mart and GameStop, just to name three). They're in the works remaking one without the Hot Coffee on the discs to get the M rating back, as well as suing the Action Replay/Game Shark people for allowing the hacking into the disc to find it in the first place.

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[zero]

Unbelievable. I understand the  changing to the AO rating , but filing a lawsuit on  the gameshark/action replay people  is  crazy.!    those devices  can bring enjoyment  in a rather  stale game.

The hackers wouldn't have been able to  make the  minigame  , if the code wasn't there in the first place. Rockstar is just trying to pass blame

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How can you understand changing the game's rating almost a year after release? Goddamn sensationalist media playing with their dicks rather than finding some real fucking news. Shit like this infuriates me. Just like Iwc said earlier in the thread, blow all the heads off you want but God forebid two consenting adults fuck.

And those gameshark devices that bring enjoyment can also be used for illegal purposes:

The scenes depicted in the "hot coffee" modification are not playable in the retail version of the game unless the user downloads and/or installs unauthorized software that alters the content of the original retail version of the title, representing a violation of Take-Two and Rockstar's end user license agreement (EULA) and intellectual property rights. "We are deeply concerned that the publicity surrounding these unauthorized modifications has caused the game to be misrepresented to the public and has detracted from the creative merits of this award winning product,"

Edited July 21, 2005 by Zero

[tristy]

There could be nuclear weapons in the US, and everyone is concerned with a fucking game with characters fucking? That was rated 18+ before?

Fuck off Hilary.

[Docpepper]

yeah I'm pissed but I knew it would happen sooner or later. I think they should keep it rated AO. Not many stores will carry it but then maybe the critics and media would stop all the complaining. I realise that hacking and changing the games contents are illegal , but you know there's been alot of gameshark hacks that have changed certain games and nothing was ever said.

[zero]

yeah I'm pissed but I knew it would happen sooner or later. I think they  should keep it rated AO. Not  many stores will carry it but then maybe the critics and media would stop all the complaining.  I realise that hacking  and changing the games contents are illegal , but you know  there's been alot of  gameshark hacks that have changed  certain games and nothing was ever said.

←

No, it shouldn't be AO because these scenes are not supposed to be in the game. "But they left the code in!" Then the ESRB should have done their jobs and found it before it was released. Now we have hackers doing the ESRB's job? Give me a fucking break. If something that never was supposed to see the light of day can allow the ESRB to change a rating almost a year later, then they should have found it a year ago. It's a bullshit political move. The game is already rated Mature and that means 17+ it is not Rockstar's fault that parents are not doing their jobs and it is not Rockstar's fault that retailers are not doing their jobs. Video games are not just kid's toys anymore, no matter what the ignorant fucking media says.

Edited July 21, 2005 by Zero