November 3, 2007
ESRB president Patricia Vance's lengthy Manhunt 2 statement, issued yesterday, won't silence critics of the ultra-violent game 2 any time soon.The explanation offered by the head of the video game industry's content rating board is esoteric and highly technical - hardly an effective counter to the gut-level, protect-the-children type of accusations being leveled at the game by the likes of Leland Yee, Common Sense Media, the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood and the Parents Television Council.
However, let's give kudos where they are due. Vance, the ESRB and publisher Take Two Interactive addressed the situation swiftly and publicly - something they failed to do during the 2005 Hot Coffee fiasco, which played out over an agonizing month of denials and stonewalling before reaching its expensive and public image-shattering conclusion.
So, good on them for being responsive. But questions remain. The San Jose Mercury-News' Dean Takahashi, a pretty tech-savvy journalist, writes about what's on his mind concerning the Manhunt 2 affair:
In my opinion, some of [Vance's] answers make sense; some don’t...
Here’s what doesn’t make sense to me. Vance said it was easy to modify the PC version of GTA: San Andreas to depict Hot Coffee. Here she notes that the player has to modify both the hardware and the software to view the hacked code... There is a technical difference here, but I’m not understanding it. It seems to me that it would be just as easy to mod the Manhunt 2 game as it was to install Hot Coffee...
[Vance] noted that there are a lot of people reporting on the [Manhunt 2] matter who are not technically up to speed on how this is different from the Hot Coffee situation. I guess that includes me. Rockstar is clearly getting a pass from the ESRB today...
Did Rockstar say to the ESRB: “Oh, yeah, we have the original execution scenes here and we blurred them. We don’t think anyone can unblur them and we have done our best to make sure that doesn’t happen.” If it did something like that, I can see why they get a pass. But if they stopped short of that, then it’s a little foggy to me.
Comments
I want to ask a politician: why do we need a law whose final goal is to cut down on one one-thousandth of all murders? Have they ever heard of diminishing marginal returns? It's not just in economics, but it also applies to politics. Some laws would have maxed out the effectiveness of preventing crimes. After this point, no matter how much money you spend or how much support you get, laws made to further whittle down crime rates will become less effective.
We know that Bush's pre-emptive War on Terror is so far very ineffective; that's why his approval ratings is down. So let them try to pass these game-ban bills (also pre-emptive strikes), but they have only themselves to blame when they see what little effect they have and their approval ratings go down.
And again you start making false claims about christianity when the article has absolutely nothing to do with religion in the slightest way.
I was also making a point that they did try out right banning something to reduce crime. (among number of things.) And all that did was increase crime and start even more problems.
No reason to get all upitty on me.
So why are people whining and attacking this guy? Have we all degenerated to the point where it's "If you're not with us, you're against us"? We're trying to prove we're BETTER than JT, fellas, not the same. Quit perpetuating the negative stereotype that gamers are close minded, snarling, raging jerks. It works to our disadvantage.
You are in no position to sue anyone here.
To get our names, you have to first get our IPs, and then go to our respective ISPs to get that information. But unfortunally for you, THEY WILL NEVER EVER EVER give you that information; Dennis or the ISPs, due to Privacy issues. Are you willing to break the law just to get at us gamers?
Pathetic hypocritical nobody, you are JT. I've told my Dad about your antics, and he is a lawyer himself, and he knows your days are numbered
Even though I'm not Pandralisk, I can provide some quotes. Examples of the genocidal parts are the story of Noah's Ark and Numbers 16:1-50, where of God kills 15,000 of his own people for daring to question the authority of Moses.
As for the child-killing parts:
"Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones." (Psalm 137:9)
"And he [Elisha] went up from thence unto Bethel: and as he was going up by the way, there came forth little children out of the city, and mocked him, and said unto him, Go up, thou bald head; go up, thou bald head. And he turned back, and looked on them, and cursed them in the name of the Lord. And there came forth two she bears out of the wood, and tare forty and two children of them." (II Kings 2:23-24)
岩「…」
"It seems to me that it would be just as easy to mod the Manhunt 2 game as it was to install Hot Coffee…"
Okay then. Get two kids, give one a copy of GTA: SA and the other a copy of Manhunt 2, both on the PS2 (which they wouldn't even have in the first place because both games can only be bought by those who are 17 and over) and see how long it takes each one of them to mod the game. Chances are, neither kid will be able to mod either game. However, if the kid with GTA has it on the PC, then maybe he could download the mod. However, as Manhunt 2 is not on the PC, and the hacked version only works on a PSP with an unauthorised modification, then I can guarantee it is a whole lot harder to hack Manhunt 2 than it is to hack GTA.
And so what if they can remove the blur from the PSP? The graphics will still be grainy considering the format, and don't get me started on the easily smudged and scratched screen. I doubt it'd make very much difference, to be honest.
Key phrase, "I'm not understanding it". This is the problem that pretty much all of the critics of the game have. They don't understand how this works. Modding GTA for the PC involves downloading a small piece of software from the internet and running it and following a few other documented steps. Modding the PSP version requires different software, an unauthorized copy of the game (not the one from stores), and specific alterations be made to your PSP. The PSP alterations cannot be done by anyone, and would likely be expensive.
Now, if your kid can get his hands on all of the above and use them to remove the blurring filter over the games scenes, then I'm pretty sure that the kid is mature enough to handle them. He's already got the equpment and software to pirate games, I think as a parent I would be more concerned about my kid being a digital thief than seeing some make believe characters killing each other in silly exaggerated ways.
"[Vance] noted that there are a lot of people reporting on the [Manhunt 2] matter who are not technically up to speed on how this is different from the Hot Coffee situation. I guess that includes me."
I admire that the reporter is man enough and honest enough to admit that he doesn't understand the issue
"Rockstar is clearly getting a pass from the ESRB today…"
And why is that? Because they did nothing wrong. Like several people have pointed out, changing the product you buy so that it is more dangerous, more adult, etc. is not the fault of the manufacturer or retailer. If i buy a car and remove the brakes and die in a crash, my family cannot sue Toyota. If I buy a Harry Potter book, tear out some pages and replace them with pornographic images, J. K. Rowling cannot be sued.
Not only PSP, PS2 as well. And you don't have to hardware mod a PSP just like you don't have to hardware mod a PS2.
I for one think that companies should leave no hackable content (execpt cheat codes) that makes a game SEEM more violent, on the simple fact that the press and the talking heads will jump on and use it as thier bandwagon to push thier anti-gaming agenda. I am really sick of Manhunt 2 as it is. I honestly believe the hack thing was done on purpose by Rockstar (knowing damn well the hacker community will find it) to rally up gamers, generate publicity, and get people gamers don't respect to say bad shit, so it makes them feel more self righteous in the end. That and they knew the ESRB would back them up for the reasons that were stated. I have no evidence, backing up, just thoughts and opinions, and thats enough for me.
go ahead and call me names and dissect every freakin line of my point with with pointless analogies. I'll be playing Dementium: The Ward, an M-Rated game done right.
A child has not the technical expertise (heck, most adults haven't the technical expertise) to play the "AO" Manhunt 2.
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I DON'T need a "watchdog group" telling me whether statements or the ESRB as a whole or excuses by companies are acceptable or not.
I DON'T need a "watchdog group" TELLING me (as opposed to merely offering opinions) I'm a Parent who has been properly educated over years (ok, yes, decades) about where to find sufficient information to make MY OWN decisions. Amazing how all these "well-meaning" "watchdog groups" have done NOTHING to encourage Parents to educate themselves and make their own decisions. They'd rather act like tin-pot-dictator-wannabes and make the decisions FOR Parents.
Ya know what? I've got the INFORMATION network. I've got Gamespot. I've got IGN. I've got GamerDad. I've got Google. I've got the ESRB. I've got dozens of information resources.
I DON'T need you, PTC, making the decision FOR me.
I DON'T need you, CSM, making the decision FOR me.
I DON'T need you, CCFC, making the decision FOR me.
I DON'T need you, politicians such as Senator Yee, Senator Burrell, or Senator Clinton, among others, making the decision FOR me.
I DON'T need you, tin-pot-dictator-wannabes and Massacre Chasers such as John Bruce "Jack" Thompson, Lyndon LaRouche, Dr. Phil, or umpteen number of "experts" using (ie abusing) the tragedies of individuals, families, and communities, making the decision FOR me.
I am the Parent of my OWN child and -I- make the decisions as to what is or is not appropriate for MYSELF and MY OWN child.
And if you don't like it, you can kiss my ass and choke on the end product.
- Parents Media Motto (replace references to media products and media type and media information resources with whatever you want. It's still the same Motto.)
Uh...leave in no hackable content?
Then there'd be no game. You think you just add an extra line of code and something is 'unhackable'? Sorry, doesn't work that way. The binary of the game can be disassembled just like any .exe binary can be disassembled. Disassembly isn't always needed for hacking, but if you understand the assembly language syntax and semantics of the target hardware, it certainly makes it easier. Things get even more hairy when you've already compromised the target hardware (with a modchip or exploit) so that you can run your own code unchecked, then you can write a debugger for the hardware, and step-through the game's code line-by-line, revealing even more goodies.
So yeah, unhackable anything is an impossibility.
But there was no "hackable content" as far as I can tell. This isn't some hidden code. Someone simply removed a color/noise effect from the scenes already visible in the default game. The effect doesn't really hide anything either. IMHO, it kinda makes it seem more violent...
Nah, the filters really do fuck up the game. I bought the game, got five minutes into it, got my first kill, saw the filter, and powered off my PS2 and ripped the DVD to my PC, loaded the elf up in PS2Dis and started looking for anything I could find to remove it. Saw a reference to the ini file, decided to go picking through that, and voila, found it. Also, I found the references to it in the disassembly, which means I *COULD* create a CodeBreaker code for it, and I have, for my own personal use, but releasing it would just cause another shitstorm.
P.S: I love that Sony uses their own internal SDK that gets leaked almost monthly, I get to load up their library symbols in IDA :D
What you're not understanding, is the fact that with Hot Coffee on the PC, all you really needed was a mod. With this, you need to modify the game, AND have modified the actual system itself to run the game. You have to modify the hardware AND the software, just like Vance says. And trust me, depending on how new your PSP is, that can be a pretty difficult thing to do. Definitely not something your everyday kid will be able to do without likely destroying the PSP in the process.
No one is attacking this guy like he's the new JT. This guy is using his position as a published journalist to spread slander against the ESRB and misinformation about just how 'easy' it is to mod these games illegally. He doesn't really understand the process at all, yet he goes ahead and makes various assumptions that will likely further spread the misinformation and keep this Manhunt 2 bullshit going for longer and longer.
It's not that we care about Manhunt 2 or it's rights as an artistic piece, we're just tired of the news with no news to report. I'm off to make a comment on their site after this, since they'll hear that more than they'll hear this.
Also, we just need to vent. It's so frustrating to have all this crap being piled on our favored form of entertainment and not have someone to punch in the face. So we have to rant, rave, bitch, and moan all we can here since it's an outlet for our indignation and rage.
And once again, we don't even know if the unblurred scenes do make it AO. As I mentioned in another thread, a video clip out there shows the uncut version with scenes unblurred and they are no worse than what is found in Manhunt 1 which is rated M. The truly horrific scenes have been removed.
Think of it as all those unrated extra scene dvd's. Most just show a few small scenes that still would have left it at a R rating if included, but simply added to the dvd to make it unrated and make it sound worse than it really is. This may be pretty much the same thing.
My dog is more tech-savvy then these folks, he knows how to open latch gates and I've seen him use a doorknob once. The "hack" does not reveal "hidden content," it simply changes a display effect. As this alteration is prohibited by the EULA, I am confident that Rockstar cannot be held accountable. Any competent, ethical, non-massacre chasing lawyers out there agree?
Nah, the unblurred scenes don't make it AO. I've yet to even be able to find any references to the fabled shovel-decapitation or the plier-castration sequences in the disassembly of the executable, and I have found and labeled the code that handles the different weapon kills. There's nothing in plain-text or anything that describes which kill you're doing with what weapon, but by finding that bit of code, and then dumping the live memory of the game, I've been able to find a few values (hexadecimal, 2byte values) that correlate to different weapons which (of three for regular weapons, of one for the 'environmental kills') dictate which kill-sequence will get played. With this information I was able to create a CodeBreaker code which will make you always perform the specified kill, so I played with all the values I could think of, and wasn't able to find either of those kills, so I'm pretty sure they've been removed from the code period. R* learned from Hot Coffee, regardless of what the mainstream morons would have you believe.
Holy crap... its like they mention the hardware modification and then forget about it after one sentence... yes, you install the mod... but what about the hardware! jesus tap dancing christ these people really try hard to not know what they are talking about.
That said they still dont get that the game is MATURE as in 17+ with or without hacks its NOT FOR KIDS and no matter what they say if kids get hold of it this is neither a failing of the ERSB or the game industry, it is the fault of retailers and stupid parents.
And it pisses me off how they dont realise this, or do realise it and still focus on the wrong culprit.
So, in short you think Mod communities shouldn't exist? Since modding games is technically hacking them. You know, poking around to see how they're put together, and what part of them can be modified to change the experience? You'd have to encrypt every last datafile to have a prayer of even coming close to keeping people out of game files, and can you imagine what kind of impact that'd have on performance at runtime?
Scenes? It's clear here that a lot of people discussing the issue have a real hard time separating technical differences between film and games.
Maybe the ESRB should have had an additional FAQ section where they discuss the inner-workings of games like little tiny actors running around inside your computer being filmed live as you play the game. And then the nasty big hacker people (that does include your child) come and get inside the computer and steal the video camera and replace it with one that doesn't have a blur option.
Actually, depending on the algo, decryption is pretty fast with modern processors, most companies distribute datafiles in a compressed VFS (Virtual File System) similiar to PAKs or WADs, and they don't generally effect performance, encryption would just be another layer in the VFS I/O core, and some companies (mainly MMO) do this as a rule of them. Still, the game has to contain the decryption algorithm, so that won't really keep people out for long. Any sort of protection you implement, there is code. Many people are well versed in reverse engineering and disassembly, so nothing is totally secure.
The issue at hand isn't stopping hackers, it's recognizing that people can't be blamed for the inevitabilities that they can't control.
And as many people have stated, modifying the game is blatantly against the EULA. The only people are keeping this going is because they don't understand, or they have an agenda.
That simple.
@ed:
Illegal, yes. But what I do in my own home with my things I buy is my business, we're not discussing this because it'll turn into a full-blown DMCA debate. There's other news stories on this site where we relegate that sort of talk.
Thanks for the info. Cool to hear those kind of details. So as I suspected, this is still not AO. So why the heck didn't the ESRB come out and and just say "Even with the unblurring, the details shown would have it be rated M. The AO scenes have been removed." That would have shut this down problem asap. I get a feeling they haven't fully reviewed the hacked version yet.
It's not a hacked version, you simply modify one of the .ini files on the retail disc, or use the retail disc to find the code in the disassembly, and create a CodeBreaker/GameShark code. Not sure if this has been done publicly yet, as I stated earlier I've done it for myself for simplicity's sake, but it'll happen eventually.
I will also admit to downloading the 'unrated' version a few months ago, and being an early play-test beta, it was very buggy, but comparing the two, I've seen minor changes embodied in the blur, a shovel decapitation, and a plier castration. The game bugs out after level 3, so I can't really attest to anything after that. But this specific hack removes only the blur, that's it, nothing else. There's also a public CodeBreaker code on their website which removes the film-grain effect shown in the game throughout. So with that code, coupled with the killscene blur removal code, the game looks exactly like the original (M-rated) Manhunt.
Go figure.
Yeah, I saw that code, but it only changes one of the option in the .ini file. There's a few more, change those, red-filter gone. There also other configuration files I've found that modify the AI, which I'm currently playing with. All I've done so far is make all the AI stay in the 'Idle' state, even while standing in front of them.
Er, 'kay, rambling, gonna go pack a bowl and call my boss to see if he needs me to come in today.
I did the same thing, that filter was really annoying. There's a Codebreaker code already out made by Skiller (someone who's been involved with cheat device code making for awhile now), I posted it in one of the other stories.
I don't get what's so hard with these people to understand the difference between this and Hot Coffee. Aside from the technical issues (such as Hot Coffee taking a lot more effort to find and change) as Vance said, this wasn't someone adding things that were hidden on the disc, it was removing something from the game that distorted executions.
I think a better analogy would be, give two people with at least a little knowledge about the task at hand a copy of Manhunt 2 and a original copy of GTA:SA and tell them to find and remove the filter from Manhunt 2. Have the other person find and enable Hot Coffee. I guarandamntee the person working with Manhunt 2 will find, edit and have the game running again before the other person is even 1% into their "job" of finding and restoring the dry humping minigame.
If this is the case, then I'm glad for the ESRB standing up to this and understanding that there's no sense making compromises with people who want to just push you over a cliff.
It doesn't matter how the content is unlocked. The code remains on the disc, and that's the content on the disc. Rockstar left the kill scenes unedited on the disc. By hacking the game, the player isn't adding anything that wasn't originally there. They're removing a locked section of content, just like you would remove a locked section to get Hot Coffee.
Rockstar needed to go back and remove the original scenes in their entirety. They didn't, and just added a few lines of code. It was quick, cheap, and painless for them. This will have wide reaching effects. It's no different than Hot Coffee and he's no less technical for saying so.
The ESRB rates what's on the disc. What's on the disc is unedited content. That's the only important factor here. Vance completely ignored the PS2 version can be hacked for Hot Coffee. Her entire statement is shady. The only point they can make is that the content isn't AO-worthy when unfiltered.
I'm not sure who's as fault here: the ESRB for knowingly letting the content through or Rockstar for taking the easy way out.
Yeah, I know Skiller, I used to help out on CMP. I'm more a PC-based 'hacker' though.
As far as being hard to understand, I think as I said earlier, it is either the technical aspect, or people just using the story to further whatever agendas they may have.
@Wirebrain:
The ESRB are saying that yes, things can be hacked, because they're not stupid. They point they are driving home is the fact that they KNEW about the filters, they KNEW how they worked technically, and they KNEW that it was possible to remove them (because they're not naive). Full-disclosure, which R* complied with.
THAT IS WHY THIS IS NOT HOT COFFEE. It's not the issue of how the hack went technically, but how R* complied with the new full-disclosure rule the ESRB put in effect after Hot Coffee.
And guess what? It worked. Well, the village idiots are still crying and moaning, but that's to be expected.
Dammit, this is moving too fast... Ahh, okay I kinda put that there so those who don't know would.
"My left nut is more tech-savvy than this hack."
So's mine. It was even able to install Phantasy Star Online several years back...now that's a talented nut.
I've seen the filters in action. I'm like halfway through the game. ;) Yea, the technicolor spew hides blood and such, but you can still tell he's jabbing people in the eyes, sawing into their heads, and what have you. My point was that it wasn't some sort of completely locked away animation a la Hot Coffee.
As for finding if there are any hidden kills, in case you haven't figured it out, the *ifp files are the Renderware animation format. All the labels seem to have been stripped, and the headers/clumps are nothing like the GTA3D triliogy, so I dunno what's going on in them.
On a more general side note, am I the only one who think Manhunt 2 is less "bleak" than the original? Whereas in the first one you were killing for some guy's amusement, the sequel here has like a *gasp* plot and stuff that puts the violence into context. It's like half Manchurian Candidate and half Clockwork Orange, with a bunch of allusions to the war on terror™ that don't quite make sense yet. The Project hunters also have lots of lines that sound like parodies of something Bush would say. But, yea, all that's beside the point since most people won't actually play it to see what it's about before saying it's just violence for violence's sake..
I didn't call him a hack, nor do I care who he is. And again, this is not Hot Coffee. Explain to me where it is stated that the filter was explicitly called for by the ESRB to have it rated M. Notice in the press release that NO AO CONTENT WAS UNLOCKED. I suspect this MAY BE BECAUSE IT DOESN'T EXIST.
Defending Dean whatshisface is nice, if not noble, but get your facts straight, or you make the same mistake he did.
I knew from the get-go the majority of MH2's storyline. I enjoyed MH1 severely, and make no allusions to my sanity either way. I didn't know the storyline was going to be as deep as it is, but I figured it would be, in order to justify another iteration, this time with more gore. As far as the fileformats, I specifically stay away from stuff like that. I'm a codemonkey, and in my experience, code doesn't lie.
The game was submitted without the filter. It got an AO. It was resubmitted with the filter. It got an M.
"Notice in the press release that NO AO CONTENT WAS UNLOCKED. I suspect this MAY BE BECAUSE IT DOESN’T EXIST."
I still haven't see what's been unlocked. They didn't say exactly what was/what wasn't unlocked. We don't know their ratings guidelines to make the call. You can't say if this content is AO worthy or not. They're covering themselves, and doing it poorly. The critics don't care how hard it is to see, they only care that it can accessed in uncensored form.