Well handled. Well done.

Of course, the "testicle kill" animation will not appear in the hacked game because it was most likely completely removed from the code.


Andrew Eisen

aso thats happened is somebody modded and hacked the shit out of it. so what that happens to half life 2 every fucking day.

When Jack loses his lawyer liscense, is he going to change his GP tag to "jack thompson, homeless"?

I've actually had a few games where I've had to tweak things because my wife has epilepsy.

Actually, on a tangent, that IS something I'd like to see in more games, is the ability to disable strobe effects like Muzzle Flashes etc.

@Quad9 - Jack's post was probably in for moderating so it wasn't visible at first :)

@Paul Kerton -- they also removed the goriest of scenes when they made the changes to fgo from AO to M. I'd bet those were the major, important thing. The blur seems like possibly an "extra step" in order to help make sure the game got its rating fast enough for a Halloween release.

@Andrew

I'm unsure were you are all getting the "removing stealth kill filters" data. It's certainly nowhere in this article. I'm basing my argument on multiple quotes from this article: here's one from the bottom.

"I want to make clear that, according to Take Two, the hack does not reveal the entire AO-rated version of the game, only a portion thereof."

From the quote I was given the distinct impression that something that was rated AO was unlocked by this hack. Also, your advancement of my earlyer quote from the article left out where GP notes that it isn't just a rumor not 1 sentence later.

preciousRoy,

Um, Rockstar was not fined for Hot Coffee and there was no product recall.

I agree that the game’s controversy will fuel its sales but so what?

Also, as far as game content goes, developers can never go too far.


Andrew Eisen

@ Lard: I enjoy the positively surreal experience of interacting with an unstable attention whore on a site that refutes his BS.

Hmmm... I love it when Jack is proved wrong about absolutely everything he says out of his gaping, ugly, pious mouth and then comes back with another ludicrous comment ignoring the others because he has no leg to stand on. He'll ignore this comment, so this is the perfect moment to tell him that he fantasises about Keith Vaz rubbing him with baby oil every night.

Anyway, I thought he'd be terminating his internet contract to save money to contribute cash to his Westboro buddies...?

Also, if I'd modified the game code of the PS2 smash hit "The bible story" (oh yeah, it exists, folks!) and replaced all the innocent images with horrible depraved pornographic images, surely that would be the work of a hacker and not the developer? Likewise, obtaining the iso image (illegal), modding your psp (illegal), modding the code (illegal) and running the iso on it (also illegal) is somehow R*'s fault?

Fuck you Jack. You make no sense and your book is shit. The funny thing is you probably have gamepolitics set as your homepage as no one else will actually bother addressing you anywhere else. You're pretty much laughed at in all lawyer circles.

And if you ever set foot in the UK, I'd make sure you got a laughing stock reception for the utter buffoon you are, you utter waste of sperm.

Ok, let's get over the hatred of me. This is a huge news item, whether you agree with me or not. The ESRB made it REALLY clear that if a developer left code in a game that could be unlocked, then that would be a huge violation of ESRB rules.

If the ESRB allowed any code to be left in which could be unlocked, then the ESRB is a goner. That is not an exaggeration. Dennis, you know how serious this is.

Honestly, they had to know this would happen asap after release if the changes were this simple to remove. That and I remember some discussion from an earlier date where another group believed that this would happen too. So let the watchgroups freak-outs begin. But on the other hand, he's right...no one is really safe from someone hacking or trying to change the product. I've seen it happen from everything from Super Mario Brothers all the way up to this, Grand Theft Auto, and Oblivion. The hacking in itself is nothing but a game and a challenge to some people.

Awesome.

At this rate, with this kind of clean behaviour, I might just go back to buying their games.

Unfortunately they have some work to do in terms of credibility. The first thing that popped into my head was "Yah, right... " because I still consider Hot Coffee to be dirty pool on their part, but I'm willing to put a little faith into them this time and give them the benefit of the doubt.

Rockstar really should learn from past mistakes...

this is going to be so huge when the cheat code for it comes out on the PS2 version.

Now my programming abilities are limited to a class in college where we delved into the principles of programming by using Visual Basic...but what are the odds that if I cracked open Manhunt 2 for PS2/Wii, I'd find comments among the lines of code to the line of "FOR THE LOVE OF GOD DON'T DELETE THIS OR THE ESRB WILL KILL US"?

@Andrew Eisen

You really want to start making bets on that? Sad thing about all this is it could still backfire. Screaming hacks is like throwing the studies on the brain at the general public/watchdog groups, they'll never get it.

@PlayItBogart

You wouldn't be able to see the lines of code. The code is compiled into an executable that cannot be read. Well... that's not entirely true, SOMEONE might be able to read it, but it wouldn't be in english and comments aren't included (the compiler specifically excludes comments at compile time).

This all goes back to how programming works. It is much easier to go through and REM a line then it is to delete it and find out later you need the line for something else. This isn't something new in programming...and it doesn't surprise me one bit. I am glad though that Zelnick is standing up and doing the right thing.

We encourage them to enjoy our games as they are meant to be played

That is exactly what the hackers are trying to do...

Yep, ol' Jack will be jumping all over this one. Most likely with "This proves the ESRB is a sham!"

Kudos to Take Two for disclosing this as fast as possible. Most of the flack (from the game industry anyway) came from Take Two and Rockstar dicking around and pretending it hadn't happened, it wasn't their code/content, etc.

The disclosure to the ESRB was most interesting actually. So the ESRB can't slap them with any fines for "non-disclosure" over this...

Oh well, just wait for JT I suppose. It's not like its really that big a deal anyways. I mean come on, its the PSP people!

From the videos I've seen, the "blurring" effects actually aren't as severe as they were made out to be. The action is still pretty clear, and pretty disturbing.

Shame that as a *game* it still seems to have all the charm of a snuff film. The character animation is still clumsy and stiff, and in terms of polygons, textures, and lighting, it looks no better than the badly aging GTA VC/SA engine. In fact, the cinematic effects make it look better by at least adding a touch of style to some otherwise pretty drab presentation.

Sad. A game that was probably going to suck in sales anyways is now going to get a nice boost just because of all the attention drawn to it. Manhunt 1 wasn't even good, IMO.

@JT

The above is the same doublespeak we got from T2 with Hot Coffee.

No it isn't you idiot. Learn your history, duh.

T2 and Rockstar initially denied that Hot Coffee was present at all, and blamed hackers for creating the mini-game. Only later did they admit it was there, but then blamed the hackers for unlocking it.

God damn are you dense sometimes.

These idiots left the edits in, and they were told by the ESRB NEVER TO DO THAT AGAIN!

Again, you are so thick I'm not surprised you failed your bar exam first try.

The ESRB told them to never again leave the edits in AND NOT TELL THE ESRB ABOUT IT. If they left it in, but disclosed it in the ESRB application, then it was ok. So they are 100% in compliance with ESRB rules.

The didn’t heed the FTC’s warning to nail their butts if they ever did it again.

And again you fail. The FTC warned them to never include content AND NOT TELL THE ESRB ABOUT IT. But they informed the ESRB, so they are 100% in compliance with the FTC's demands.

Jeeze Louise Jack, if you're going to quote history, get it right. You aren't the Ministry of Truth here, you can't go back and alter the records of what happened...

This is the work of a hacker. The ESRB should NEVER be held accountable for this, but we all know the watchdog groups and Jack Thompson will fry all of them. I feel sorry for the ESRB because some sick and twisted hacker just had to see the sick action he/she wanted to see.

Kudos to Zelnick for his way of handling this

At least this time they're not trying to cover it up first.

JT, this requires people to hack their system, and the game. This could be done to ANY game. How about the Punisher game? It had the gore scenes changed to black and white to get an M rating, but then there were hacks to see the scenes in full colour. Where were you then asshole?

You will be buried by your personal vendetta with TT. It is obvious you hae an obsession, and use selective targeting in order to get what you want.

The developer of the game cannot control what people do to the game once it has been released. I know you do not have an understanding of how code is written, or how it works, but any game released on the market can be hacked to achieve whatever the people doing the hacking desire.

In this case it involved deleting code. The code is there, and people are deleting it. No code was hidden, as was the case with Hot Coffee. Prepare for another failure if you choose to pursue this line of attack.

Here's what the ESRB actually said in July '05:

"Going forward, the ESRB will now require all game publishers to submit any pertinent content shipped in final product even if is not intended to ever be accessed during game play or remove it from the final disc."

That doesn’t say unplayable code cannot exist, just that it must be disclosed. Furthermore, we’ve seen no evidence that any unplayable code (kill animations) have been unlock. Only the filter obscuring the kills has been disabled.

This is not in any way damaging to Take-Two or the ESRB. Both, from what we’ve seen so far, have done exactly what they’ve said they would.


Andrew Eisen

You know. Given Jack's commentary, I'd like to open a serious item of discussion. It's old, but it apparently needs repeating here.

Should the ESRB or Rockstar be responsible for the actions of the mod community? Let's face it. Without some serious digging into the code, no one should be able to access those scenes.

Of course, on the flip-side of the argument, You'd think Rockstar would've learned by now not to leave anything in. That lesson can be taken from Hot Coffee, or hell, Murphy's law.

Responses anyone? Jack's made his stance I think. (Rockstar should be held liable) Any other views? Seriously. This could turn entertaining.

Oh. and sorry for the quick turnaround, but this is @ Jack Thompson:

Can the ESRB really be held responsible for what the publisher left in? They're only informed of what the publisher tells them. They aren't handed a print-out of the code or what alterations to it can do. They're handed a video. True, Rockstar may be punished (see above debate question), but the ESRB hardly has a say, don't you suppose?

John Bruce,
As has already been pointed out, you are overlooking the detailed FACTS as presented in the article:

"All of the game material, and especially these specific edits, was submitted to and reviewed by the ESRB in accordance with requirements regarding disclosure that were enacted two years ago and any contrary suggestion is inaccurate and irresponsible."

"On the plus side, new Take Two chairman Strauss Zelnick came clean immediately on the hack. As much as anything, it was Take Two’s inept and deceptive handling of the 2005 Hot Coffee affair which allowed it to swirl out of control."

Perhaps it would have been in YOUR best interest (believe it or not) for the ESRB to have responded to this situation first. Apparently, T2/R* DID reveal the edits (though, one wonders if they revealed them as having "hidden" the content or "deleted" the content). If they lied to the ESRB as to the manner of edits, then that's another story. It may fall closer to the "Hot Coffee" situation. But, if they told the truth, and the ESRB followed a path other than what you claim they did, then the fault may fall on the ESRB. Then again, they may have told the ESRB the WHOLE Truth, and the ESRB did not make demands as you suggest, meaning YOU are the liar and deceiver. Time will tell.

And, certainly, T2 is apparently handling the situation Publically far differently than the "Hot Coffee" incident.

Nightwng2000
NW2K Software

John Bruce,
OH, and you have to remember that there were TWO incidents in the issue of "Hot Coffee". There was the unlocking of existing code by hackers that unlocked SOFTCORE adult content. Then, there was the mod community who altered, in one fashion or another, the code so that what was displayed wasn't even meant to be displayed in even the original version of GTA: SA. Combining the two situations to confuse that issue doesn't help your argument either.

Nightwng2000
NW2K Software

@AgnostoTheo

The problem is that the portion of the game that was left in NEEDS to be left in.

Here's an analogy. Let's say there was a movie that had nudity in it, and the producers decided to remove the nudity by putting black bars over it... Now, the actors are still there, just with black bars. The blurring in Manhunt 2 is equivalent to black bars. If someone were to remove the black bars, the underlying nudity is still there... but in order to remove THAT you'd have to remove the actors, and then you wouldn't have a movie anymore.

Lemme chew on this for a second. Seems like there are two separate issues. Correct me if I'm wrong.

1 - Basically concerns the theory that Rockstar didn't necessarily remove offensive sections of the code; they just added addt'l code to give us "blurry-cam" moments that I guess, somehow make violence more acceptable to conservatives. The hack, theorhetically, removes the blurry cam code.

While I would call this lazy programming, I can see why they did it. They were likely trying for a halloween launch, and let's face it, coding in distort-o-vision is easier and faster then having the concepts guys dream up new ideas for the sequence and then ordering your code jockeys to get it done from the ground up. Not to mention any extra work the modelers had to do.

The second issue seems to revolve around Jack's assertion that the the ESRB is somehow negligent for allowing this. Again.

"If the ESRB allowed any code to be left in which could be unlocked, then the ESRB is a goner."

(Sigh). Jack. Do you have any idea how incredibly unenforceable that is? Didn't I see an interview with Pat Vance somewhere where she said she has 3 or 4 full time rate-ers. Let me get this straight. You want 3 or 4 people to break down the game code line by line and guarantee that there's no hidden gotchas? Who's to say these raters even could understand the code?? When they couldn't even play through the game?

Now, as much as I hate to admit it, I may actually defend Jack now, because he might actually have a point. I shall endeavor to phrase what I'm thinking without the usual rhetoric.

1. If the ESRB has policies that are unenforceable (like guaranteeing no hidden code), then the system is broken and needs to be rethought.
2. If the ESRB vouches to the public things that it couldn't possibly know, (like no hidden code), then the system is broken.
3. If the devs are actively trying to sneak code past the ESRB, then again, perhaps the system is broken.

I, for one, will be interested to see Pat Vance's reaction: seems to me like she's shown considerable diplomatic skill in the past, and I will be curious to see how she addresses this when the hysterical uptight conservatives come a callin'

I can't believe i'm typing this....

Jack has an actual valid point.

This is potentially huge.

Wether R* violated the ESRB's requirements or the FTC's is irrelevant. The fact is they left material in that is unlockable in a game they KNEW would be controversial, material they "removed" to get the game rated at a level that they could actually sell.

This is, quite frankly, a STUPID move. I mean, what's thier next trick? Wearing lifelike deer costumes for the next hunting season?

@jack thompson, attorney

Considering you have to:

a) have a specially-modified PSP that Sony has been strongly against for quite some time now (and have done virtually everything in their power to not permit), then

b) actually modify the data directly on the disk itself, which requires a bit of hardware to make new UMD disks, and to copy it to a system where you can make the changes, then that ends with

c) this isn't the "mod community" here, nor is it by any stretch of the imagination considered "accessible" except for the most determined of people, with the right equipment, and the know-how to accomplish this.

Your statements are gross over-generalizations of terminology, which basically leads to you are arguing on the grounds of semantics, not a very sturdy or stable basis for your claims. But since when did you care about that?

Yup. I knew this was going to happen. *sigh*

This is one of the reasons I was against this game in the first place. I knew that Rockstar would pull something like this again. All they seem to care about is controversy, no matter how much their stupidity hurts the industry as a whole.

"If the ESRB allowed any code to be left in which could be unlocked, then the ESRB is a goner"

I'd like to see where is says that code cannot be left in which could be unlocked. This is IMPOSSIBLE. What the heck does "unlocked" mean? The "unlocking" of code is merely changing variables in memory. Which... at it's core is what a computer program is. If you have code that cannot be "unlocked", you would have non functioning piece of software.

Now watch this blow over because it's only unlocked violence, and not unlocked sexuality. Remember, this is America.

@Scott

Wether R* violated the ESRB’s requirements or the FTC’s is irrelevant.

That's the thing. Jack gets handed a perfectly good issue to be mad about (the ESRB allowing the edits to proceed knowing they could potentially be hacked), and what does he do with that? Run with it?

Nope. He lies through his teeth about stuff that never happened.

I mean that's like Fox News getting ready to run the story on Bill Clinton's blowjob, and just because they can't help it, throw in a claim that he bit a baby's head off. Why? Why bother? Was it not scandalous enough?

Jack's got a psychological problem alright. Not that he's paranoid, or obsessed, but that he's a pathological liar. Even about stuff that legitimately supports his claim.

He's so used to lying through his teeth, he couldn't tell the truth if his life depended on it.

---

Now, on to the ESRB issue. My guess is that the ESRB ok'd the "M" because certain scenes were deleted altogether, and other scenes were made inaccessible enough that the majority of players would no longer see them as they were in the original.

So it falls down to a judgment call people might disagree with, rather than a call based on false information.

The only thing they unlocked was to take a layer off of the effects. In order to make that whole scene, they would HAVE to start with uncut material anyways. Just like making changes with filters in Photoshop, you need to start with the original picture before applying anything. So if I "reverse edit" a photo, that's nobody's fault but my own. So why in the heck are they blaming R* for this anyways? At least they are being open about it happening and working towards a resolution.

Way to go Rockstar. The one game is was critical that you didn't leave any backdoors into, particularly after Hot Coffee and you leave them wide open, proving once again that half the time its your own stupidity that gets yourself and the industry the bad rap it has. I don't think the original game should have had to be censored in the first place but for the love of everything, when you're going to agree to modify it to comply with the rating, don't make the same stupid mistake you made before and leave an easily discoverable backdoor int hat can enable people to access content beyond the rating. Bravo indeed! It's getting harder and harder to stand behind these people.

Thats fucking it. Jack, take your head out of your ass so you can listen to something but the shit you keep coming up with.

Due to people like you screaming bloody murder because of this game, they were forced to make changes, of which even YOU denied happened. However, the modding community is vast. Very vast. People with all sorts of skills and knowledge exist. Hell, if they found a way to unlock something that was originally locked, wow. Great. But lets look at your fucked up logic here.

~~~~~

The Truth:
Manhunt 2 is released without any of this content readily available. The ESRB more than likely knows that these things can be locked out, and were. At the time of the second rating, the content was locked without possibility of playing said AO rated parts. The general populus is unable to play the parts that were locked. R* saves face, and some money and time, and releases on Halloween. After release, modders instantly shoot onto the game to attempt to unlock certain parts, and find a way to do so, using a modded PSP. Modifying a PSP is not authorized in any way, so R* and the ESRB normally don't worry about that (that would be like Ford worrying about people using their cars to kill people...its not something allowed so they don't worry about that). Modding a PSP takes alot of time, patience, and luck in most cases. Many under the age of 18 can't even comprehend how to do this. As well, R* does admit the parts were locked out but cannot be found in any conventional method. R* makes mention that the game is not meant for children at all, and even urges paren'ts not to buy the game for their kids.

~~~~

Now, your fucked up logic and way of thinking:
Manhunt 2 is being released to market towards children and teach them how to kill people through use of this "murder simulator". Rockstar's main goal is to teach those at a young age exactly how to go about killing in violent ways even though the box clearly states the game is intended for mature audiences only. Rockstar never edited the game out, but instead had the ESRB lower its rating because thats the evil way the game industry works. But now that proof has came out that it WAS edited, even though its extremely difficult for the unlocked version to fall into the hands of children, its all done on purpose, with the thought in mind that children know exactly how to mod a psp, then get the psp version and play it. Therefore, the murder simulator still exists to train these children.

~~~~~

Jack, I used to laugh so much when I was writing your chapter for the book "Blame the Game". Now you just disgust me. You talk about how you don't want children to get ahold of these games, and that you aren't for censorship (your email is amendmentone@wherever.com for christ's sake!) yet you continue to show up on here and throw things into the faces of those that aren't even children. You talk about your "victories" and how you have "won"? You walk around in a scared world, a false prophet trying to keep your liar's tongue as high as it can be.

I hope, for your sake, when you die, God invites you to play Halo 3 with him, or see this sick kill he got in Manhunt 2. Because then you can blame things like...Katrina...on him playing violent games.

I'm disgusted, and you should be ashamed, Jack. And by the way, if you want a debate over any of this, I'll not only stand up any time and any place, I'll finish it off with handing you a copy of the book, signed, and a bookmark where your chapter is. And try to sue me for defamation too. If you do, I'd suggest getting a lawyer game and getting really good at it.

Oy.

Talk about a no-win situation.

They couldn't make a public statement saying "here's our M-rated game, but please don't do -this-, as that will invalidate the ESRB rating by granting access to the AO-rated content", because, well...yeah, don't need to explain that.

They couldn't literally REMOVE the AO content, assuming my understanding of the material is accurate. That is, the blur is not being applied to pre-rendered footage, but to certain portions of the live gameplay (if the blur is being applied to pre-rendered footage, then R* are indeed colossal jackasses and deserve any flack they get over this, but I don't think that's the case).

They couldn't deny it, because 1. that's not the right thing to do, and 2. look how well that turned out the last time.

Unfortunately, because of how it turned out last time, no one is going to bother listening to them, let alone taking the time to understand, that this is indeed a different situation.

Hot Coffee, they straight up failed. This time, while I really have very little sympathy for them on the whole for what they do to the industry's image, I do feel that they more or less did what they were supposed to.

Also, this in no way invalidates the ESRB. If anything it just means that R* needs to be slapped upside the head a few times (harder than for HC).

@Parallax Abstraction

This time it's not really Rockstar's fault. Hot Coffee was (they made numerous errors in the way they handled that). But there is NO way to make a game inherently unhackable.

Now there is the possibility that the ESRB lowered the rating for another reason OTHER than the blurring and flashing...

who cares? how many kids are going own manhunt on psp, let alone have the skill to hack their psp and go through the code to unlock the material. only adults are going to be able to do this so why care?

Dear Moron Jabrwock:

Since you think I'm dense, try this out, Ace:

I said if they didn't tell the ESRB then that's bad. Why should we believe T2 on any of this, as to whom they told, etc. The ESRB has yet to talk.

As I earlier noted, if the ESRB did know about the leaving in of this stuff, then that's even worse for the industry, because they're the clowns that are supposed to make sure this can't happen!

Don't you get it? The watchdog may be complicit in this! The bottom line is that these games are going to have to be recalled. Just watch.

You know what just occured to me? This is on the PSP. A 2.5 inch screen, right? OMFG you can see detail on a 2.5 inch screen?

Call me when the Wii/PS2 version is hacked.

Sorry, hit the wrong button lol.

Anyways, Jabrwock, it could be the new PSP that you can display on a TV. Doesn't look half bad when you play a game on there honestly.

I doubt we will see a recall.

Can someone explain to me why JT and other groups would want the ESRB shut down? I fail to see the benefit there.

@ Jabrwock

True, and even with the filters removed, it still won't show the deaths there were just completely cut from the game anyways. So, it's like they just "unscrambled" a bad HBO movie or something lol. Hey, I wonder if you could sue the cable company for a kid watching a bad movie using a descrambler...it wasn't intended to be watched, took third party equipment, and breaking a few laws..but they are going after R* for basically the same thing.

I know I've posted this before, but...

The problem with this patch is that there is really nothing else like it in any other medium. Hopefully Jack will read this and understand it a bit: The game shows a graphic scene and applies blurring and other camera effects so that you can’t see it clearly. The patch removes the effects.

Now, remember that Manhunt 2 is a game. The scenes in question aren’t video; they’re generated on the fly by the console. The game says, for instance, “place this character here, pose him like this, there’s a box over here, cover that in a cardboard-like texture, there’s a wall here, make it look like stone, now blur the whole image and add a little film grain.” It creates the scene literally pixel by pixel, polygon by polygon, composing and superimposing thousands of tiny elements to create a single image and then doing it thirty+ times a second. (Feel sorry for your poor GeForce now?)

A patch like this changes the way the game composes the image, in this case removing the blur command at the end. Rockstar did not “hide the uncensored version in the code.” The game necessarily has to create a crisp, visible image and then blur it; technology simply *won’t let it* generate a blurred image to begin with. Finding a way to remove the blur effect is largely the same as finding a way to *increase* it. You have to change the way the game actually generates a picture.

Re-read that last bit again and let it sink in. In order to change the picture displayed on your TV, you have to change the way the game generates the picture. You have to modify the game yourself.

@Jack

I said if they didn’t tell the ESRB then that’s bad. Why should we believe T2 on any of this, as to whom they told, etc. The ESRB has yet to talk.

I'll believe T2 before I believe a known liar like you. T2 learned their lesson, because they have millions of dollars in fines to worry about if they didn't. You on the other hand, have no axe of financial penalty hovering over your head should you lie through your teeth.

Fine, we'll have it your way. We'll wait for the ESRB's comment. But if they say the content was all disclosed, THEN can I call you Liar Liar Pants on Fire?

As I earlier noted, if the ESRB did know about the leaving in of this stuff, then that’s even worse for the industry, because they’re the clowns that are supposed to make sure this can’t happen!

If you read Kotaku's review of the uncut/cut footage (and I know you CAN read), then the "cut" footage still shows the kills, still shows the blood, and still shows the death. So clearly the hack doesn't change anything but the colour set.

You can't honestly tell me that the ESRB would rate a scene like that AO if it's red blood, but M if it's reverse-chroma like a film negative?

Tells me that the ESRB had objections about completely unrelated content, and the negative flashy thingy was just a tonal adjustment.

Don’t you get it? The watchdog may be complicit in this! The bottom line is that these games are going to have to be recalled. Just watch.

Yes, it's all a conspiracy. You found us out. How clever. I guess we'll just have to gas you and send you to The Village now...

@ Zen

:( That would be a sad day indeed. The would have to rewrite that great song to be "The Day the Gaming Died". :(

"How could we know hackers would look at the code and determine a simple hack would reveal previously censored content? It's not like that's ever happened before...oh wait. Crap."

No sympathy this time. Not that they should have had to censor the game in the first place though.

"Ok, let’s get over the hatred of me. This is a huge news item, whether you agree with me or not. The ESRB made it REALLY clear that if a developer left code in a game that could be unlocked, then that would be a huge violation of ESRB rules.

If the ESRB allowed any code to be left in which could be unlocked, then the ESRB is a goner. That is not an exaggeration. Dennis, you know how serious this is. "

Your Luddite level of ignorance towards all things digital is amusing to me. Yes Rockstar placed filters over the more grisly acts in Manhunt 2, said filters are a cakewalk for any hacker to remove. I fail to see how people illegally modifying the game is Rockstar's fault or how it would end the ESRB.

To break it down even simpler for you I will note that there is a MODification you can add to a car called a nitrous oxide booster. Now this is quite illegal in many places. Now should we be suing Ford Motor Company as it is possible to add this modification to their vehicle?

Apparently lots of people here including jt have no clue about games development, It is imposable for devs to lock anything, ever and from my understanding of this lock it appears like a perfectly acceptable way to disallow the objectionable content as to unlock it would require a active want to unlock it as well as skill in hacking the psp, and breaking of the copyright of the game.

Left over game code and modding should never be even considered during the rating of games, people just need to learn that if people with knowledge want to change a game they will.

@ Zen

That's a great comparison, actually. Black box cable vs. the R* filter...

@ Erik

The problem is that the ESRB has already set a precedent that locked content is supposedly covered by their rating. Hot Coffee was rerated due to content that had to be unlocked via hack.

I really hate to seem like I'm on JT's side (really really I do), but as a rational person (although he is not) I do agree that this is going to be difficult for them to defend (they should have done it last time),

Vellocet,

As far as we've seen, no content has been unlocked. In fact, this hack actually removes content (the obscuring filters).


Andrew Eisen

[...] [Thanks to GamePolitics] [...]

@Matthew

That was an excellent technical summary - and I think you dumbed it down enough so that even Jack can understand it, maybe.
Once again, Jack is COMPLETELY MISUNDERSTANDING the issue.

Someone removed a part of the code! Rockstar can't control that! It's not so difficult to understand.

@ Erik, Andrew Eisen

You're probably right about that. But the general game hating public won't see it that way.
Basically what I'm saying is that regardless, there is no additional content ADDED to the game. The game as it stands can be modified to a state that (maybe) is not rated the way it's meant to be. This is the argument that people may make... That the ESRB had let that kind of thing happen before (no additional content).

Technically, you could say that Hot Coffee was removal of the software "filter" that kept you from playing the mini game.

Anyways, I'm hoping that the rerate from AO to M had more to do with the removal of castration/decapitation and level 13 than the addition of the filter.

@ Jabrwock

JT does not have the mental capacity to understand what's really going on with this hack. Unfortunately, neither do most people.

Is there any point in trying to explain it to them?

All I can say is, I'm not worried. A few years from now Rockstar will release Manhunt 3 which will be rated by the ESRB. The only variable is Jack may or may not have the capacity (law license) to do anything about it.

@ApokalypseNow:

Thanks, but someone kind of beat me to it. It is more like a scrambled movie; the channel shows the film to every home, but it broadcasts a signal that scrambles the image. If you hack the broadcast and de-scramble it, you get to see the movie.

Hear that, Jack? Porn is being sent THROUGH THE AIR to nearly EVERY TV IN THE COUNTRY, but it is hidden behind a wall of static. Some people can modify their systems to enter a "cheat code" that lets them watch the film. Similar deal really.

@anyone:

As far as T2's supposed level of culpability, isn't the EULA relevant here? As long as everything was initially disclosed...

@Jack Thompson:

There will be no recall because T2 did not violate ESRB/FTC mandates, and there was no rating change back to AO. Enough of your stupid pipe dreams. And Jabr's right, you ARE dense, and that's the nicest thing I can say about you.

@JT

If I really wanted to, I could make a modification that removed all the clothing from the latest Barbie game, thus filling it with nudes. Technically, this is the same sort of modification that is involved with the Manhunt mod. That doesn't mean Mattel has done something wrong, it doesn't mean that there was porn that I could "unlock", it just means that code can be changed and I did it.

Even if I did do this I doubt you'd go after Mattel, since you don't have a hard-on for their CEO like you do for Take Two's.

@JT

REMOVING THIS BLURRINESS IS NO DIFFERENT THAN REMOVING THE BLURRINESS FROM THE SIMS!

Also, anybody remember when he tried to say "The Sims" all were physically correct after you removed the clothes or (just like is being done to Manhunt 2) hacked the game to remove the blur when they shower. They were no more correct than a Barbie doll a child can play with, but that didn't stop ole Jack from lying about that too.

(Addendum: There is a slight difference, in that those porn films are designed to be viewed by people if they wish. Manhunt 2 does not offer the functionality to 'decode'.)

Thanks to Matthew for the explanation here. It seems to me this was an unavoidable situation and the ESRB and Take 2 both handled it correctly. It's not like plenty of other games haven't had gory kill sequences (Tenchu series, for instance).

@Jack

I said if they didn’t tell the ESRB then that’s bad.

It just occured to me you can't even tell the truth about what you yourself said. Good grief...

Let's review, shall we?

The ESRB made it REALLY clear that if a developer left code in a game that could be unlocked, then that would be a huge violation of ESRB rules.

Lie.The ESRB said code that was left in a game that was not disclosed to the ESRB.

These idiots left the edits in, and they were told by the ESRB NEVER TO DO THAT AGAIN!

Lie. They were told not to leave edits in and not tell the ESRB. Leaving the edits in is perfectly fine, as long as the ESRB knows about them.

So that's twice now that you've lied about what the ESRB said, and then tried to cover your arse by claiming that you had said something completely different.

The didn’t heed the FTC’s warning to nail their butts if they ever did it again.

So far, a lie (who's jumping the gun now?) The FTC said if they deceived the ESRB again, they'd nail their butts. (what is it with you and gay imagery?) Until you have proof they deceived the ESRB, you are still a liar.

Under terms of a proposed consent decree, the FTC will require Take-Two and Rockstar going forward to clearly disclose all content relevant to a game’s rating on its packaging.

The FTC said "disclose all content". They disclosed to the ESRB, who then authorizes the "M" on the package. The case clearly states "Blood and Gore, Intense Violence". The scenes... contain blood and gore, and intense violence. Sounds like it's in compliance to me.

The companies must also set up a content review system to spare the gaming public additional servings of Hot Coffee.

Like submitting it to the ESRB? Yep, in compliance.

You just can't help yourself, can you?

@thompson

there is hackable material in the game. BIG. FUCKING. DEAL. do you know how complex it is for the casual gamer to unlock those things? if its hard for adults to do how do you think its going to be any easier for people who are underage to do it? the only way people can even know about this is by word of mouth, which you are contributing by drawing attention to it. if you kept your damn mouth shut for 5 minutes maybe this whole thing will go unnoticed since nobody would know about the stuff unless they really go to high lengths to learn about it.

i highly doubt the average gamer, adult or not, is going to go through all that work just to see some hidden content. i dont know about the rest of you but when i spend my money on a game i intend to play it, not sit around tinkering with the technical crap. i doubt "children" will feel any differently considering most children have an attention span of about 10 seconds, by the time they read about it, they will forget how to access it anyway.

And Zen beat me to my post... and I had posted it before the update... boy do I feel like an idiot.

@ Vellocet

It's all good. Just shows we all seem to have some common sense here and can share common thoughts lol. United we stand!

@vellocet

And I beat Zen by mere seconds... it appears we're all on the same wavelength here. Now if only we could perform some form of additive interference on this wavelength and direct it through a lens at Jack's head...

I just watch the comparison video at GameVideos and it's pretty clear to me the video effects are just an artistic decision and have nothing to do with getting a lower rating. Basically, it normally looks like it's shot with a crappy video camera. It doesn't really obscure what's going on. There's nothing in the uncensored version outside the limits of an M.

extreme release = extreme delay of release.

@illspirit

Hmm, so the color filter/blur can be removed to show what’s underneath? Sorta like The Sims?

Sort of, except thanks to Kotaku, we know that the colour filter, wasn't really obscuring anything, just giving you a headache while you tried to look at it...

So it would be more like the blur filter not really being present in the Sims, but Maxis turned the Barbie doll model green instead of flesh coloured. And then someone figured out how to hack it so it was flesh coloured again...

[...] Thanks for the Update: GamePolitics.com [...]

@ Matthew

I wrote an analogy earlier that may also work...
"Let’s say there was a movie that had nudity in it, and the producers decided to remove the nudity by putting black bars over it… Now, the actors are still there, just with black bars. The blurring in Manhunt 2 is equivalent to black bars. If someone were to remove the black bars, the underlying content is still there… but in order to remove THAT you’d have to remove the actors, and then you wouldn’t have a movie anymore."

@ Zen
There is no way that JT would ever understand what we'd be talking about. He's technologically stupid. Socially stupid. Ethically stupid... I guess he's just stupid.

@thomas

material, mechnisms, either way its not something the casual gamer would take up.

@ jonc2006

I've been playing games for most of my life, have a good working background with computer systems, and have even done system repair..and I STILL have a heck of a time getting some of the model and level mods to work correctly on the original Sims and Quake 3 Arena lol...thought it was worth it to have a Wing Gundam running around the house looking for food or jumping around a FPS has Homer Simpson blowing people up. Innocent fun :)

Excuse me, mister fifty-something poor excuse for a lawyer? Why would someone like you in their right mind think that making insults or interrupting people (as seen on Fox "News") would make YOUR argument more valid. Do us a favor and apologize to Karl Rove for ripping off his kind of propaganda and using it in a more blatantly derogatory way. (Also give this to NewsCorp., Ann Coulter, Rush Limbaugh, and any other of Bush Administration's blind followers). Oh, and the more you act like a middle-schooler, the more you're going to be slammed on urbandictionary.com in a negative fashion. ;)

@ JT

Let me break this down into an area you might have a better ability to comprehend since they've been around longer than software/video games...

Cars.

Did you know all manufacturers of motor vehicles today produce cars that are modified to meet the definition of street legal? In fact let's just call a street legal car an M rated car (you should be at least 16 or 17 to drive legally right?). Well this M rated car has a throttle/speed limiter or in this case a blur filter to make sure you don't violate the law and go to fast. In the case of this game have content that makes it an AO status.

One day you decide the car just doesn't go fast enough, so you remove the speed limiter. Y-O-U removed the speed limiter. The manufacturer of your car never told you how nor endorsed it and the department of motor vehicles certainly didn't give you an ok to do it, but you did anyway.

So who's to blame Jack? The person who removed the limiter and made the car no longer street legal, the company for not putting a smaller engine in the car, or the department of motor vehicles for having roads that allowed this person to drive a car as such...

Last I checked the legal precident is that the individual who modified the car is to blame. This situation is no different. Those who hacked the game are the ones to blame.

Dust off your law books and do some reading. You're in waters that have already been charted.

@Loudspeaker

Good analogy, but why does ever situation requiring an analogy inevitably wind up going to cars?

Those who answer this question with a car analogy shall be institutionalized for life.

Well, if the color vomit filter didn't affect the rating, isn't this a non-story? AFAIK, all the hack does is remove the filter, and supposedly the dodgy kills (plier castration and such) aren't on the disc.

I'll go buy the game and snoop around a bit. If they're still using Rockstar North's file formats, it should only take an hour or two...

@ApokalypseNow

Cuz uh...

I dunno.

You try to explain how a LAN works to an end user and not end up discussing the morning traffic patters. :D

@ Zen

Thank you. Decided to stop lurking a couple days ago. This site rocks! Lots of informed readers.

Aye, just wanted to clarify it wasn't access to material locked in the game. Just removing the render of content that has been accessed previously.

I like the analogy to blackbars in movies better than my horrible attempt at a gaming analogy.

A recall wouldn't do spit. When's the last time a recall was mandatory, and whom, who already owns it, would turn it back in? Worst case scenario - they do like GTA:SA and release an AO version. Meanwhile the ebay value of the unedited version goes through the roof.

I just don't see why this would need to be rereleased as an AO.

@All

Does anyone know if the hack reveals pornographic material or nudity?

If it did then I can see why there would be a call for a change in its rating.

Filter: Content is ADDED that blocks and/or obscures content that is ALREADY THERE. Filtering CAN be removed. It's just not always easy. And, if the ESRB is as informed about certain aspects of game programming as they should be, they took this into account when giving the censored version an M rating. Working with video games is part of their job, so they would know. Lawyers are not required to work with video games, so they wouldn't know.

Note: The filter IS the "edits" that they left in. Oh noes!

Removal: Removing content in its entirety. This is what they essentially did with Hot Coffee, except they forgot to actually physically remove the data, and merely removed the "access" to the content.

I find it ridiculously funny that, while Jack tries to make others take responsibility for wrongs they didn't commit, he himself won't take responsibility for the wrongs he commits himself (*cough-GAYPORN-cough*).

@ Zen

Well it would not all be lies. His name would remain white as long as he is stating his full name John Bruce and not his lie of a name Jack (he does samurai a great dishonor calling himself that) :)

@ E. Zachary Knight

Freaking LOVED that show..but it also made me think of another good example. They always showed Jack being sprayed with "oil" and such during or after the fights. If somebody edited that AFTER THE SHOW WAS RELEASED to look red instead...could they go after the animators, or Cartoon Network? Because it was never intended to be there in the first place.

@ ApokalypseNow

Now now... Jack has stated hes innocent of any wrong doing, so it's really the judge's fault for opening the docket.

Wait. So then in Jack's own logic he's...

:O

Wait, doesn't all this hack do is remove the filters? If so then I don't see how it's unlocked the original AO content when it's just making the kill scenes visible.

"That being said - this isn’t the first time this particular company has faced this. I AM surprised that THIS company wasn’t more careful in disabling the content."

Considering the hackers *knew* that the old content existed, and considering it requires an unauthorized modification of a PSP, the ability to copy the data from the UMD disk into a system you can make changes to it on it, make the necessary changes, burn a new UMD disk with the changes, and once again, have a PSP that has been modified to read a homebrew-burned UMD disk, it isn't exactly a process that is available as an option for the average gamer. And, since it is such a process, how much more would take-two have had to have taken to do so? Especially since it does appear that the blur was added as an "extra" level of insurance to make it through the ESRB's censors.

Seriously, this is really the fault of JT, the media and watchdog orgs. They are the ones making the big stink over Manhunt 2 getting the AO rating. They are the ones that made a big stink over the game being edited to get the M rating. They are the ones who complained that it was too violent. It was these people that made these hackers interested in removing the filters.

If they had just shut up from the beginning, this would have been a non issue and it probably would have been months before anyone was bothered to see if they could alter the game.

So John Bruce (I will refrain from calling you Jack from now on as to avoid dishonoring the samurai), I blaim you.

Remember, Hot Coffee required a degree of technical know-how and equipment (admittedly less than this hack). That didn't stop the anti-games people to pretend it was simply a code.

@HCF

Even the Hot Coffee mod needed a gameshark or some other such device. You could just "unlock" it with just the PS2, a controller and the game.

Seeing as how the code is just enumerated variables, a gameshark code for this on the PS2 should be very easy to do.

I highly doubt Jack Thompson has the mental capacity to understand the programming methods used to do this. After all, he doesn't even know how to press the shift button to capitalize his own name.

Hey, Jack, why don't you join the rest of your kind in protesting soldier's funerals, maybe donate a few bucks to their $11 million fine.

@ JT

"Ok, let’s get over the hatred of me. This is a huge news item, whether you agree with me or not. The ESRB made it REALLY clear that if a developer left code in a game that could be unlocked, then that would be a huge violation of ESRB rules.

If the ESRB allowed any code to be left in which could be unlocked, then the ESRB is a goner. That is not an exaggeration. Dennis, you know how serious this is."

Go after people that make cheat devices then, Jack. No cheat devices, no unlockable code. BINGO, crisis averted, and you didn't even have to ban the game, the company, or the console. See how easy it is?

Everybody always blames the wrong things. It doesn't matter what you do. You can't make parents care if they already don't. No law is going to make it happen, either. All you're doing is making it difficult for adults like myself to purchase what we want.

two E's in coffee. Sorry.

[...] BREAKING: Rockstar Confirms Manhunt 2 PSP Hack [GP] [...]

Even though this isn't really Rockstar's fault, there's going to be a huge shitstorm over this. All the attention whoring politicians and massacre chasers like Jack Thompson will have a lot of fun spinning this out of proportion.

@ JT imposter

Please give it a rest.

@vellocet

Ah, sorry, I didn't see your post. Just scrolled back up and saw it, and it looks like we found different parts of the hack. No need to explain it, seems to be some simple camera commands and a few shader options. Hardly what I'd call "unlocked content" at any rate. :p

@ E. Zachary Knight

Good point. Just the easiest way I could think to put it. Basically, this content that's been unlocked isn't hidden or trashed, it's out in the open, and it's the original version that's been modified.

@ vellocet

Here we run into the difference between the general punlic, and the perception of the general public. Believe it or not, it's only a very vocal minority that are out to get gaming, not the majority. So sure, there'll be some kneejerk reactions, but I'm fairly confident it'll blow over. Not entirely confident though, as I know how much damage the vocal minority can do.

@ Matthew

Gotcha. At least it's a workable thoery with prior proof.

@jack thompson, attorney

"This game will be banned I give you my word!

All you haterz can suck me off hard!'

I... look, I may not like John Thompson, but this can't be him, can it?

Get that imposter off of here, Dennis. Seriously.

That's not Jack Thompson. Quit impersonating him.

@Mark Lucherini

No probs... there are definitely way worse ways to mispell public ;)

/sigh

Oh yea, he's fake. As much a bible-thumper as Thompson is the real one probably thinks fellatio is a sin. Not above putting it in court docs, but that's something else altogether.

@Vellocet,

That pretty much sums it up, there are some values assigned for the mapping texture, fade times etc for the post-process effects for the cutscenes in the .ini file. By deleting them, the shader will, as you say, recieve null values, so it's flashes at 0 time and takes 0 time to fade out, and doesn't use a texture anyway, so would probably assume transparency. It basically cripples a special effect, it doesn't reveal anything new whatsoever from the way I see it, it just reveals something old without some kind of 'flash' effect that appears to last for less than a second during its use.

I find it kind of odd that, if the naming is what I think it is, Manhunt 2 is running in OpenGL....

@ GRU

I worked on a PS2 dev kit before. A lot of the graphics are OpenGL (or at least use many OpenGL APIs), stands to reason that PSP would.

I took a (fairly) quick look at the hack. I don't see the changes being tied to a quick variable that a gameshark might be able to change the value of. It looks like it is just a matter of deleting the code that instructs the blur to take place. Not really "unlocking" anything, just removing a graphical effect.

If that is all there is, then there is little chance any of the cut scenes will be made available. It would be akin to descrambling HBO only to see an edited version of the movie.

Only if the code for the actual SEQUENCE of the pliar scene (or other cut content) is still present on the disc...then that is truly Hot Coffee 2.

For now, this is no different than the hack that removes the blur effects in the Sims 2.

This is EXACTLY the same thing as being able to disable the nudity blur in the Sims 2.

Jack Thompson / JT will obviously remember this, as he famously said something along the lines of the Sims 2 being a paedophile simulator and that the Sims 2 had nipples, genitals, labia and pubic hair (http://www.jackthompson.org/video_game_cases/the_sims_2.htm).

Of course, I'd never go as far as even suggesting that JT has never played any of the games he lies about, so I guess JT must've downloaded some kind of paedophile mod to add in these extras, as the Sims in the Sims 2 are featureless, much like Ken and Barbie dolls (and we know every girl has undressed these to see what anatomy they have under their clothes, so JT obviously wants Barbie dolls banned as well).

Well done Jack, you've either admitted that not only are you a closet-homosexual who misplaces his fap-fodder in important court folders, but you are also a paedophile who downloads sick mods for other family-friendly video games, or you never play the games you attack and thus are a hack and a liar. Of course, we all knew you were a hack and a liar in the first place, so I guess that makes you a paedophile who happens to be in the closet. I hear the cops coming Jack, I hear sick perverts like you are treated swell in prisons. Just don't drop the soap.

@ Zerodash

Ya, the hack doesn't reinstate any of the other assets (models, animations, cutscenes, etc). It just disables the blur.

But as I understand it, the variables after the hack return null. The gameshark would just go in there (to the memory location where the same variables are stored) and change them to null. That would effectively remove the blurring from the PS2 version as well.

Fake Jack has received the wrong end of the ban stick :)

Double post,

I just realised, we're talking Nintendo and Sony here, of course they won't use DirectX... Headesk time.

That's what I get for spending too much time round PC's :(

@ GoodRobotUs

Microsoft wants you to think that DirectX is the only API out there. They work hard to brainwash the masses. :)

Games don't kill people, playing video games do not make people murderers, people kill people. A person makes a choice to do X, to do Y, or to do Z. Individual responsibility and choice people. I don't need you, Jack Thompson or any entity making decisions for me. Thank you. I'm an adult, a grown man and responsible for my actions. Just like you, Jack Thompson, are responsible for allowing your child to play games rated mature or to try and censor my world. Just because you believe in mythical fairy tale zombie who rise from the dead doesn't mean everyone else adheres to that zombie or lame piece of mythological trash.

Ethical and moral relativism you dumb schmuck.

Zeus be praised!

So if I edit the game code of a game, it's the game makers fault? If I add "hot coffee" to The Sims 2...it's EA's fault...right? You might want to ban Half-Life 2 because there are mods that add a nude Alyx as well. Hell, why don't we just ban every game because it is capable of being modded! Idiots.

I have a question, sort of off-topic but related to this story: When I checked GP earlier the story had just been posted, and jack thompson did not have the first comment (I believe PlayItBogart did). Now I'm looking at this story a few hours later and his response is at the top of the page! What happened?

Bravo Rockstar, Bravo.
Did they learn nothing from Hot Coffee?
Regardless of the fact that its hackers that dd this, and to do this you need to illegally download this variant of the game, and put it onto a device in violation of the DMCA, the lobbyists against Manhunt 2 will ignore these restrictive laws that were put in place to stop this kind of thing in the first place, and are going to beat them round the head with this... liberally.

@Paul

As far as I can tell, this is for the retail version.

Secondly, to be perfectly honest, if we get into the realms of re-burning the game disk, I don't see any possible way for ANY publisher to have prevented something like this being done to their software. Rockstar shouldn't have known better because they couldn't have, details like this are what .ini files are for. I'm sure plenty of people have tweaked their Oblivion or Doom 3 ini files on the PC, it's far from an uncommon practice.

As apathetic as I am towards their games and business approach, I feel I must point out that RockStar are NOT omniscient, they could have encrypted and compressed the shader settings and stored them on a hidden file, and if someone wanted to, using the same tools as used here, they could eventually disable those shaders. This isn't something extra or hidden, it's part of the code being deliberately broken, therefore disabling an in-game effect.

"We encourage them to enjoy our games as they are meant to be played."

In that case shouldn't we dowload the mod since the game was MEANT to be played without all the censors?

This whole fiasco kills me. If any critic actually knew the first thing about game development, they would know that it is not simple to remove content from a game.

It's not like a movie, where they can reedit a movie by slicing away the offending frames. It's much more involved and time consuming.

@Paul Kerton -- there is nothing proving that the blur was absolutely required to make the game have an M rating. Like others have said, it isn't like the modification makes scenes suddenly appear -- it removes a blur filter from the graphics is all.

And, for the record, there is no law being broken here by Take-Two. There is no legal requirement or enforcement in the US forcing game developers to all submit to the power of the ESRB, any more than there is anything requiring a movie to be rated by the MPAA.

Don't get me wrong. Rockstar haven't done anything wrong... but they know EXACTLY what would happen once it got hacked, which we all knew would happen. They are no more to blame for this than someone being able to download the leaked AO version.

HOWEVER. If the murdering blurs, and thats enough to change it from AO to M, they really should have used FMV to show the murders, or have some way of making nigh on impossible to hack. They shouldn't be so lacklustre when it comes to issues like this, and should make sure they are completely absolvable of any blame whatsoever by making it impossible.

If Jack and co manage to get their way, it really seems Rockstar being a little too blaze about things is the way in.

@AJ Collins

I don't know that's exactly true. Imagine somebody went into the game code and hacked Future: Tools of Destruction so that Ratchet starts twisting robot nuts off with his wrench. Somehow I don't think Insomniac would have ANY RESPONSIBILITY OF ANY KIND in that scenario. Rockstar on the other hand, goes out of its way to try and offend. Considering how thick their legal file is, AND the fact the unedited version already got leaked by Sony Europe, AND the pre-existing controversy.

Quite frankly, in this scenario, I would Rockstar would have to KNOW they'd get hacked. While I would not expect them to take superhuman measures to stop it, I do think it's unprofessional to just gloss over the violence with extra effects, in the name of "preserving the artistic vision".

Make no mistake, I'm not calling for Zelnick's head on a plate or any of that nonsense. What I'm basically trying to say is that I don't think it's unreasonable to treat Rockstar differently then you would other developers, because they don't behave in the same way other developers do. They're controversial on purpose, we can't really be surprised when people treat them as such. If Rockstar insists on tormenting a sleeping bear, you can't be surprised about it when you get mauled

@jadedcritic -- how could Rockstar be even remotely responsible for what someone from Sony Europe did?

Are you honestly saying that because Rockstar likes to make more....controversial games, that means that they automatically must take responsibility for the actions of hackers, while other companies don't? Seems a bit like a double standard there.

Most of Rockstar's legal file is filled with frivolous claims made by Jack Thompson. Remove those, and I'd be their file gets a lot lighter. That said, I don't quite see the relevance, again, like with the previous point I mentioned.

I do think it is unreasonable to treat Rockstar differently than other developers. Honestly, they've done no wrong here. They seemed to have tried to go out of their way to appease the ESRB to get a Mature rating, and succeeded. What people do to the game after that, using tools outside of Rockstar's control, and making changes to the code burned on the discs... that definitely cannot be Rockstar's fault. If it was made through using an in-game module/plug in tool, that would be one thing (and mind you, still not Rockstar's responsibility), but we're talking about making changes to the system, in a way Rockstar (or any developer) cannot control.

@Xlorep Darkhelm
Then if it would of delayed it by months, then that would have been preferable than loading the gun for the lobbyists and putting the whole industry under the koche.

Ok Well lets start off here with my warning for the new people that what you are about to read is known here on gp as a "duffy rant" Im going to say something here that may offend the Gp vets and if it does then im sorry but its well known on here that i dont hold back my opinion..So there's the warning..I've already messaged dennis on aim and let him know i was posting but i'd thought i'd give u all a heads up...

Jack Thompson



"These idiots left the edits in, and they were told by the ESRB NEVER TO DO THAT AGAIN"

No What they were told was to disclose the information before hand and thats what they did..the fact is they told the esrb so you lose...as usual

Now Onto this whole "protect the children" Bs...Im so sick and damn tired of this idea that everything and i do mean EVERYTHING has to revolve around children...Well to quote george carlin "F*** the children"

Im really sick and tired of this whole idea that "m rated games are marketed to children"...well seeing as how im pretty much a big kid at heart and i enjoy watching the disney channel (yep i said it) I have yet to see a commercial for Manhunt 2 while im watching the suite life of zach and cody (im an ashley tisdale fan) or high school musical or even hannah montana..if they are marketed to children then why havent i seen the commercials on those stations...i only see m rated games on stations like G4 and usa...

Stop lying Jack and i suggest you grow the hell up because soon here you may lose your law license and then what...Try saying "would u like fries with that"

Now i have to say something else regarding parents and violent video games and all this crap and that was the reason that i put my little warning in the begginig...My outlook on it is this..Parents (no one here at gp since all of you are damn cool) If you choose not to parent your child and dont want to have to parent them...Then i suggest you call the Child services and inform them you dont want to parent you child..(que the hate posts)

Now im not saying that parents should right away have their kids taken away if they buy m rated games..because that is there choice rather or not they want too..Just like its there choice if they choose to parent there child or not...(not sure if im making sense in this area)

Now as for the "hack" im not to bright when it comes to hacking and all that and hell it was a pain to get the hot coffee thing set up with a gameshark..so if there is a gameshark code that will let me view it great i'd love that seeing as how im a 27 year old gamer it's my choice on what i choose to play and i want to play a uncut version of manhunt 2..and if you happen to tell me that as a adult i dont have that right be prepared to be flipped off or told to F off...

No one and i damn well mean NO ONE has or will ever have the right to tell me what i as an adult can or cant play...end of story

What in the hell is wrong with society today????? Why are so many damn people uptight...Geez go toke on the bong or something

Sorry illspirit, but I lol'd at your Sims comment. I remember that...

@ Jack

I'm not gonna try and sugarcoat this, because it really does warrant saying. I disagree with you on basically everything you say, however I think you and I can agree on this: What R* did here was amazingly stupid. Not even your regular garden variety of stupid. That they didn't COMPLETLY DELETE the offending segments seems to be an oversight of monumental proportions. They should have known a hacker would find a way to open this up. R* itself deserves every bit of ill will they are going to get for this. However (Oh wow I bet you didn’t see this however coming) it more than likely isn’t the ESRB’s fault.
If the content was hidden (aka, coded over and not accessible without hacking) they are not required to view it to make their rating. If it is accessible via a code, then that’s a different story entirely. However, the standard game bought off the shelves played by a standard adult on a standard PSP does not have this content readily viewable, therefore it wasn’t included in the ESRB rating. It’s probable they didn’t know it was there, they aren’t hackers.

Ryan T.,

Who said Rockstar didn't delete every bit of offending (meaning made the game AO) content? There has been nothing so far to indicate that the sections said to have been removed, like the "testicle kill," are still on the disc.

Even if it is still on the disc, they apparently disclosed that fact to the ESRB so what's the problem?


Andrew Eisen

@JT

Who cares. This game is for adults. Stop trying to shove your absurd, perverse, and contradictory moral agenda down the throats of free consumers.

This sick, child-catering industry, should never have censored content in the first place. We truely live in the day of moral facism and video game censorship.

Jack,

And what you can't seem to grasp, other than flinging insults, is that you need something called "proof" that this all happened. You know, in the legal profession that you are supposedly a part of, this is a big part of what you should know but somehow it seems to slip by you every single time.

1) Prove to me that children are buying the game. (No, I don't believe you "sting" operations...try again.)

2) Prove that the ESRB and Take Two conspired with each other on this.

3) Prove that "children" have ILLEGALLY HACKED PSPs AND CAN CONFIGURE THIS ILLEGAL HACK TO GET TO THE CONTENT.

Question: How exactly is this mod illegal?

"The ESRB is owned, operated, and funded completely by the video game companies."

This statement is confusing since there are many video gaming companies such as EA, T2, Ubisoft, just to name a few, and they are all in competition with each other. I'm sure none of them collaborate with each other to make sure that certain adult materials get into the hands of teens.

If they don't work together, then, how is it that they all operate the ESRB? Do they have a rep from each company meet up, play the game, and then determine what kind of rating the game deserves?

Also, ESRB rated the game first as AO. Why would they do that and publically announce it if T2 owns and runs the ESRB?

For some reason, Soldier of Fortune comes to mind. Anyone think that game is gorier than Manhunt 2?

@CyberSkull

For one, a regular unmodded PSP will not run ISO's without the aid of a mod chip or firmware hack. Next up you need to be able to dump the UMD (Sony proprietary format, no commercial burners or media exist) or obtain it by downloading it from someone else who (presumably) paid for it and dumped it themselves. Following that you have to take the information that is there, break it open and start fiddling with some of the lines of code in order to get it working properly. So, all steps involved can pretty much be summed up to "Your PSP must be hacked in order to do this" which null and voids your warranty right then and there.

Plus, let's not get into the legalities surrounding mod-chips and their ilk:

http://www.xbox-scene.com/xbox1data/sep/EElyEEkAllysyVJWYQ.php

Now the ESRB has collaborated with T2 to leave the adult content in the game, and now kids have it. Have you got that?

No. The ESRB has rated a game as M, and Mature-rated content is in the game that was approved for people ages 17 and up. The "hack" only applies if one alters the factory settings of the hardware.

Once again, Jack: there is no content in the game that is not listed clearly in the content descriptors. NONE. ZERO. What part of that are your ailing frontal lobes failing to understand?

@Paul Kerton:

Sadly, the only way Rockstar could possibly play safe is by not releasing the game at all. Editing the game to make the murder scenes unhackable would mean turning them into pre-rendered cutscenes. This would remove any sense of control. You could not plan a kill, because there would only be one way of seeing that character die and it could only happen in one location. This in turn would likely mean a major game design change to ensure that the death scenes would make sense, then rebalancing and restructuring the levels... and Manhunt 2 would become a Choose Your Own Adventure with FMVs. X-rated Myst.

Guys, you act like Rockstar could have just removed this. How do you remove execution scenes with out ruining the whole point of the game?

Jack:
"Kids, pay attention, because this is the last time I’m going to explain this to the analytically challenged here:"
Calling adults kids isn't very professional, now is it? I fail to see why your still in the Florida Bar after the whole gay porn thing, you must be a good briber!