Sunday, July 17, 2005

Grand Theft Auto: Pink Slip

Someone is so fired at Rockstar, or should be. Friday's Gamespot contained an article proving that GTA: San Andreas' infamous Hot Coffee sex minigame is present in the game's PS2 version.

The problem, besides more shrill, ad hominem alarmism from Jack Thompson and Hillary Clinton's opportunistic political haymaking? Rockstar had previously claimed that the minigame, which surfaced when the PC version of GTA:SA was released recently, was solely the work of hacking modders or modding hackers or some such.

You can't hack or mod a DVD-ROM. That stupid minigame was always in the game code.

Way to go, Rockstar. Way to make the ESRB look like idiots and the entire industry a pack of deceitful jerks.

The thing that gets me is that multiple developers had to have been complicit in this, from animators to texture artists to programmers and designers. By the Gamespot account, the game is nothing worse than you'd see in an R movie, but videogames are once again in the crosshairs and this. Stuff. Does. Not. Help. Get a clue. Players are smart and motivated, and if you've hidden something in your game, they will find it.

7/20 update: Penny Arcade has weighed in on the foofaraw.

No comments: