July 13^th, 2005 (5:32pm) - In recent weeks, a mod for Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas that could be downloaded for free (nicknamed "Hot Coffee") was said to "unlock" hidden parts of the game that were left out of the final version.

Controversy has stricken over whether or not the game was shipped with the content on the disc, with a US Senator named Leland Yee getting on the ESRB’s case about not rating San Andreas appropriately with an Adults Only rating.

With "nationwide parental warnings" being issued all over the place and the mod writer saying the game ships with the "Hot Coffee" sex scenes on it, and that the mod simply "unlocks" it, Rockstar has stayed silent through the whole dilemna except to say that they were fully cooperating with an ESRB investigation into the matter.

Today, however, Rockstar Games has issued a statement saying that the Hot Coffee mod was the product of "the work of a determined group of hackers who have gone to significant trouble to alter scenes in the official version of the game."

They continued, saying that "Hackers created the ’Hot Coffee’ modification by disassembling and then combining, recompiling and altering the game’s source code."

Rockstar also said that it intended to take steps to ensure the Hot Coffee mod faded from existence. "Since the ’Hot Coffee’ scenes cannot be created without intentional and significant technical modifications and reverse-engineering of the game’s source code, we are currently investigating ways that we can increase the security protection of the source code."

However, the ESRB investigation still goes on, and whether or not there will be a new ruling on the rating of the game due to "Hot Coffee" is not completely certain.