Hot-Coffee 2.0: Media Stunt or Rockstar Doesn't Learn
Ok, so the hot-coffee incident last year was, in my opinion, a big smelly non-issue. Quite frankly, if you have to use a 3rd party non-licensed tool that will most likely void your warranty and is potentially illegal to unlock content that was otherwise programmically removed from a piece of software, it is no longer the responsibility of the developer. Hackers added uncensored pork and beans to the Sims and no one said a word. Rockstar is just an easy target.
Well, they did not learn their lesson from the GTA scandal, and now we get to experience a raft of "bad" press. I'll venture a guess and say most of our readers know about Manhunt 2 and it's Adult Only content that was unceremoniously ripped from the game. Well, it wasn't so much "ripped" as it was 'commented out'. Creative hackers managed to unlock the "removed" contents as little as a day after the release of the title.
The effective bits are of course the death sequences. Most of what was said about the changes were that they put heavy filtering on the sequences, effectively masking out the offensive material with darkness and blurry visuals. Having seen a video comparison of the two videos, it looks like they just removed the filtering.
What should we learn from this? Anything that can be changed will be. A runtime filter does not remove any content from the disk. The ratings board should have known this when they saw the game and reevaluated it. Rockstar is simply not to blame for this. Now, lets all sit back and watch the bloodbath commence. I can already hear Jacko chanting "Sue"!
Hot Coffee-hunt 2 [via Nintendo Wii Fanboy]
Video comparison of the two version after the jump. (Viewer digression advised)
Asterick
Posted to Video Games on 2 November 2007
· Comments (2)
Other stuff like this: adults only, filters, hot coffee, manhunt 2, omg drama, wii
How does one access the "uncut" version of the game? Because if I'm gonna play it, that's how I'd want to play it.
http://gamepolitics.com/2007/11/02/esrb-clears-rockstart2-in-manhunt-2-hack-investigation/
The ESRB actually showed some sense in this one.