Halo 2 Vista delayed because of "partial nudity"

23 Comments by Christopher Grant May 25th 2007 1:24PM
Filed under: PC, First Person Shooters

Whoops! So, Halo 2 missed both of its Vista release dates, also missing the opportunity to be called the first Games for Windows Live-enabled title (that honor now belongs to Shadowrun). Their first excuse was the relatively banal: we need to "make some improvements to the install experience and address other technical issues." Their newest excuse? Oh, it's much juicier than that. According to GameDaily BIZ, this second delay was due to "an unfortunate, obscure content error which includes partial nudity." Oh yeah, cue the chanting monks, we're imagining some Hot Coffee style minigames with Master Chief and the Arbiter.

Microsoft has updated the packaging and is making a patch available at Halo2.com to remove the content in question. Future releases will have the content removed. What was the content? Do you really want to know? According to the ESRB: "a photograph of an individual showing his bare backside to the user when a particular error occurs." Oh Microsoft, you could have made this so much more scandalous if you only tried harder.

Tags: Bungie, delay, Halo2, nudity, Vista

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(Page 1) Reader Comments

MV: May 25th 2007; 1:34PM

Great. Now we'll never know if Cortana is "shaved" or not.

Sidebuster: May 25th 2007; 1:38PM

I don't get it. Why would there be nude skins?

GJM: May 25th 2007; 1:45PM

"I don't get it. Why would there be nude skins?"

It would help if you read past the headline...

JodyAnthony: May 25th 2007; 1:49PM

there are a lot of games with 'partial nudity'

isnt the game already rated mature? why worry about changing it?

GJM: May 25th 2007; 1:53PM

"isnt the game already rated mature? why worry about changing it?"

Becuase for every rating - the box has to tell you WHY it got that rating as well as just showing the rating itself

AssemblyLineHuman: May 25th 2007; 1:54PM

Jody: Because the ratings scale isn't intended to be some absolute set of guidelines. People can choose to follow the recommendations if they would like, but ideally, people should look at the descriptors to determine if the game is appropriate for them or their kids. For example, I would not want my hypothetical kid to play an M-rated game if it's filled with gruesome violence, but I don't care if he/she is exposed to a little taboo language.

jonny quest: May 25th 2007; 2:13PM

@ JodyAnthony

This issue sounds like there is an internal debug message or screen of someone's ass that pops up if an error occurs. It's not game content.

Even if it wasn't a picture of someone's ass, it should have been removed or replaced with a proper dialog (I work in QA at another company. Definitely an oops moment.)

JodyAnthony: May 25th 2007; 2:13PM

but like it or not, most parents dont seem to know or care.

hell even that snk vs capcom card game for DS has partial nudity.

GJM: May 25th 2007; 2:18PM

"but like it or not, most parents dont seem to know or care."

Doesn't matter, it has to be on the box and that's the issue here.

"hell even that snk vs capcom card game for DS has partial nudity."

Halo 2 PC shows a photograph of a guy's ass. I'm thinking the card game probably does not...

x876543: May 25th 2007; 2:20PM

Maybe a character moons you when you choose the wrong path?

Lee: May 25th 2007; 2:27PM

So let me get this straight: I've had to wait this much longer for my Halo 2 PC fix because some dev thought it would be cute to try to sneak in an ass shot? (You know they were all thinking "Har har Hot Coffee this")
That's absolutely ridiculous. The whole point of this game (to me) was going to be to tide me over until the Halo3 and Warhawk betas hit. So much for that.
I guess I *could* use that extra 1000 gamerpoints though.

GJM: May 25th 2007; 2:39PM

"Maybe a character moons you when you choose the wrong path?"

Maybe you should read the second paragraph?

terry Ricketts: May 25th 2007; 2:51PM

The first toon on the subject...
Http://www.fatgamers.com

Rishard: May 25th 2007; 3:18PM

I got my copy yesterday and I've been playing it all this morning. If you want this game check circuit city's online website. Some of there stores still have it available to buy as is.

Grey Fox: May 25th 2007; 3:55PM

So the game got delayed because one of the developers ass is in an error screen? This is what happens when people have knee jerk reactions to the term "parital nudity".

Satertek: May 25th 2007; 5:44PM

The .ASS error in question: http://img293.imageshack.us/img293/5082/untitleddf7.png

(Warning: Uhh, its an ass)

Satertek: May 25th 2007; 5:45PM

The .ASS error in question: http://img293.imageshack.us/img293/5082/untitleddf7.png (Warning: Uhh, it's an ass)

Satertek: May 25th 2007; 5:46PM

Warning: This e-mail verify thing sucks

Andrew: May 25th 2007; 7:09PM

The article at the link below includes this choice snippet:

"Friday morning, however, the ESRB e-mailed Next-Gen a statement that said a "photograph of an individual showing his bare backside" is accessible within Halo 2 Vista's exclusive map editor tool. Apparently, it pops up when an ".ass" error occurs (see pic below, via the Halo 2 Vista forums)."

http://www.next-gen.biz/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=5757&Itemid=2

Bill nye: May 25th 2007; 8:37PM

Maybe the question should be can a .ass error ever occur?

Jonathan Y: May 26th 2007; 1:21AM

This is so stupid, but yet funny.

Jim Tobin: May 26th 2007; 1:31AM

Well, The game is actually available right now. If you dont believe me, I have it. Check my gamertag on Xbox.com, its: MAYH3M v2

Bought it today at Circuit City. From what I hear, most of the Circuit City's have them in stock.

Jon: May 26th 2007; 9:57AM

thats funny.

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