San Andreas Now Rated Ao

[xxxeagle]

Today the esrb rated San Andreas Adults only becuase of the mini game that you could unlock in the pc version well im glad I got my copy for christmas.

[G-Prime]

Did they ever figgure out how to unlock it with the gameshark? I have the PS2 version

[Sparkfist]

So its rated Mature now, I though they had done that to Vice City and GTA3 as well?

[Total Eclipse of the Toe]

yeah its because of the "hot coffee" minigame and it aparently cant be unlocked with gameshark only some other cheating device (probably some lesser known one)

this news just broke on attack of the show a few minutes ago too...

doesnt really affect me much, I havent played GTA:SA and I don't plan to.

Still this is BIG news in the gaming world.

It begs the question on how much influence western culture puts on sexuality being "worse" than violence, even when it isnt neccessarily explicit.

compare this to, for example, Japan, where sexually oriented and explorative media things are the rule and not just the exception...

very interesting...

[G-Prime]

No, its AO...thats above Mature if you didn't alredy know.

[xxxeagle]

No it cant be unocked with gameshark yet currently the pc version is the only one you can unlock it on so I think they should only rate the pc version Ao.

[G-Prime]

yeah its because of the "hot coffee" minigame and it aparently cant be unlocked with gameshark only some other cheating device (probably some lesser known one)

this news just broke on attack of the show a few minutes ago too...

All cheating devices work in the same way so it couldn't work of the "lesser knon" cheating devices if it coudn't work with GameShark

Oh, ya that is a rerun...it was on about a month or 2 ago.

[Triton]

quoth kotaku

Rumor has it that Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas may be pulled from some of the nation’s largest retailers by the end of the day.

Enormous ma and pa gobbling mega-chain Walmart will mostly likely be the first on the list. Though, ironically, they all sell the Action Replay game hacker that allows gamers to access the in-game sex in the first place.

Do me a favor, while you are out and about the rest of the week keep an eye out for copies of the game. If you have a second, ask around if you don’t see any. I’d love to know who’s doing what and when in the way of San Andreas.

and more from kotaku

Holy crap!

In an unprecedented move that could have sweeping effects on the gaming industry as a whole, the Entertainment Software Rating Board Wednesday rescinded Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas’ rating and advised retailers to stop selling the game.

The lock-down and ratings revocation came after a lengthy investigation by the ESRB, which was spurred by the discovery of an explicit sex mini-game hidden in the free-roaming, genre-shifting uber-hit by Rockstar.

Using a mod for the PC version of the game or an Action Replay device for the console version, gamers were able to unlock the Hot Coffee mini-game which allowed them to use a controller or keyboard to have sex with a girlfriend after a date.

In making the decision, ESRB head Patricia Vance said the existence of Hot Coffee can’t help but undermine the credibility of her organization.

After a thorough investigation, we have concluded that sexually explicit material exists in a fully rendered, unmodified form on the final discs of all three platform versions of the game (i.e., PC CD-ROM, Xbox and PS2).

However, the material was programmed by Rockstar to be inaccessible to the player and they have stated that it was never intended to be made accessible.

The material can only be accessed by downloading a software patch, created by an independent third party without Rockstar’s permission, which is now freely available on the internet and through console accessories.

Considering the existence of the undisclosed and highly pertinent content on the final discs, compounded by the broad distribution of the third party modification, the credibility and utility of the initial ESRB rating has been seriously undermined.

The news came about 4 p.m. New York time, within minutes of the closing of the stock market, delaying the immediate financial impact on Rockstar’s parent company, Take-Two.

Rockstar initially denied creating the content on the disc in a carefully worded statement that read in part:

In violation of the software user agreement, hackers created the ‘hot coffee’ modification by disassembling and then combining, recompiling and altering the game’s source code.

Reached for comment Wednesday, Rockstar spokesman Rodney Walker called the decision a new challenge for the industry and digital entertainment in general.

Rockstar has offered retailers the option of either re-stickering existing inventory with an AO (Adults Only 18+) rating, or exchanging all unsold inventory for new versions of the game that has the hidden content removed and the original M rating intact.

The developer will also be making a downloadable patch available to all consumers who have previously purchased the PC version of the game, which will make the modification that unlocks the material inoperable.

The decision could have a sweeping impact on the industry as a whole. The decision forces the ESRB to consider Easter eggs, hidden content and perhaps even the ability to mod a game in rating future games.

It also could lead to a crack-down by the industry on the modding community, forcing game developers to spend more time making their games mod and crack proof lest they be held responsible for some future modification of their game.

No word yet from the politicians who have been calling for action against Rockstar and an investigation of the industry. I’m sure this could lead to some sort of congressional hearings.

Think of it as video games’ own Seduction of the Innocents.

Yay!

[Total Eclipse of the Toe]

also just FEI (For Everyone's Information, yes I made that up ) most retailers dont sell AO games wich is one of the reasons this is such BIG news...

[G-Prime]

Funny...ever since that segment on Attack of the Show Gta San Andres is the top selling PC game at game stop

[Total Eclipse of the Toe]

yeah its because of the "hot coffee" minigame and it aparently cant be unlocked with gameshark only some other cheating device (probably some lesser known one)

this news just broke on attack of the show a few minutes ago too...

All cheating devices work in the same way so it couldn't work of the "lesser knon" cheating devices if it coudn't work with GameShark

Oh, ya that is a rerun...it was on about a month or 2 ago.

some cheat devices "alter" game code differently, so it is possible gameshark may not have been able to get to it. I think it was Action replay or something like that...some leser known cheat device..

and the news that the ESRB changed GTA:SA's rating just broke now. . They had been reporting that they might change it two weeks ago...but they didnt report the change until today.I'm watching today's AOTS right now.

(I know this because the paintball guy was just on and the episode with him on was slated to air today)

[G-Prime]

some cheat devices "alter" game code differently, so it is very possible gameshark may not have been able to get to it.

Cheat Devices don't alter game code, they alter the bits of data sent to the RAM called "Offsets". This is the only way to do do things that cheating devices do without hacking the game files.

[Total Eclipse of the Toe]

apparently this "hot coffee" thing was pretty well embedded, its possible that one device was the only one that actually knew where/how to get to it.

I'm surprised, Gameshark and Game Genie and whatever usually get to all of these kinds of things first.

Eh.

[G-Prime]

apparently this "hot coffee" thing was pretty well embedded, its possible that one device was the only one that actually knew where/how to get to it.

A "Cheating Device" can't know were/how to get anything. That is why you put in the codes, they tell tell the device what to do and change. Here is an example.

00000000 8XXXXXXX
Y1Y2Y3Y4 Z1Z2Z3Z4

Part of the that code tells a cheating device what Byte of data to edit.
Part of the Code tells it how to exicute the code.
Part of the code tells it what to change the Byte to.

All cheating devices work like this, the only difference is how you write the codes to tell it what to do.

If I had to guess, I would say that getting the "Hot Coffie" is like getting a debug menu. A debugs value is always 0 (off). You need somthing to capture all of the games bytes to check their value. When you use somthing to capture all of the bytes and check their valuse their are on average...about 100,000,000 bytes with the value 0. You would need to keep getting the bytes and doing an equal to check untill your down to a few hundred bytes...then you try them all on at a time.

[Total Eclipse of the Toe]

By "knowing where to get it" I meant the people who created the thing, not the device itself- its possible the makers of gameshark didn't know about the hot coffee exploit or perhaps did not want to make it public to cause trouble for themselves

either way, I had heard from one place that only one cheating device could uncover it...however I dont know if anyone else reported as such or have tried to confirm this, so take that with a grain of salt too...