Rockstar throws cold water on 'Hot Coffee'

Moving to calm the scandal surrounding Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, Rockstar Games has released a patch that disables the infamous sexually oriented 'Hot Coffee' scenes from its game.

"The Hot Coffee scenes were not intended to be part of the Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas experience," Rockstar wrote in an introduction to the patch on its site. "If your copy of GTA for PCs has been altered by the unauthorised Hot Coffee download circulating on the Internet, or if you wish to prevent your version from being so altered... download and open the 'No More Hot Coffee' game patch."

Rockstar has been heavily criticised in the US media since the Hot Coffee scandal broke last month. And it has tried to handle the criticism gracefully by accepting the blame.

"We take the situation seriously, and we're trying to address it aggressively and proactively," Rodney Walker, a Rockstar spokesman, told CNET.co.uk's sister site News.com prior to the release of the patch. "We're re-dedicating ourselves to improving the understanding about the kinds of games we're making, and the audience the games are intended for."

In the wake of the scandal surrounding the best-selling video game of 2005, the videogame ratings board ESRB changed San Andreas' rating from Mature to Adult. At the same time, Senator Hillary Clinton railed against the game for its inappropriate content, despite the fact that the Hot Coffee scenes were not directly accessible without downloading the modification from the Internet.

"Once the ESRB rated the game," Walker said, "we had to act quickly and take immediate corrective action, and we have."

Alongside the instructions for installing the No More Hot Coffee patch, Rockstar included a FAQ explaining the situation.

Curiously, though, in a section titled 'How do I avoid the Hot Coffee scenes?' Rockstar backhandedly gives instructions on how someone can in fact access them.

"Playing an unmodified installation of San Andreas there is absolutely no way to gain access to the Hot Coffee scenes," Rockstar wrote. "It is only through the use of downloadable files or through direct, difficult and intentional modification of various game files that these scenes become available."

In any case, Rockstar said it wants to move on, and the patch is sure to help.

"We take our game seriously, and the ratings system seriously," said Walker, "and we're looking forward to getting back to making the games we make."