<img attachment="3503_gta_iv_art.jpg" align="left" class="frame" caption="Lollipop">GTA lets you do a lot of naughty things: hire prostitutes, gamble, run rackets, kill people, commit vehicular manslaughter and on and on. The game is named after a crime and features thugs, gangsters and women of ill repute all over it. Yet, once again, the white knights of morality are assailing it as being bad for kids. No kidding; that's why it's rated M for mature. According to the <a href="http://www.esrb.org/ratings/ratings_guide.jsp">ESRB</a>, no one under 17 should be buying it or even playing it. Problem solved, right? Wrong. There are plenty of people who aren't happy with the ratings system because it doesn't prevent people from buying it---and thus, requires actual parenting and monitoring of children to prevent them from getting their grubby, little, budding-criminal hands on it. Case in point: the article <a href="http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/52461" source="Shacknews">MADD Protests GTA 4 Over Drunk Driving</a> covers a complaint by MADD (Mothers Against Drunk Driving) about a feature in GTA IV <iq>where players have to drive drunk</iq>. Not only do you not <i>have</i> to drive drunk, <iq>the game [actually] recommends that players make use of a taxi once drunk</iq>. What more could you want? The game puts the player in a real-life position where they could make the wrong choice, <i>then advises them to make the right one.</i> I repeat: what more could MADD want? Isn't that pretty much exactly what a MADD video game would want to do? And here comes Rockstar investing dozens of millions of dollars to do their jobs for them. They couldn't have planned it any better themselves and it didn't cost them a dime. Instead of rejoicing in the free publicity for their cause and patting Rockstar on the back for a job well done, they've instead asked for sanctions against Rockstar Games. <iq>MADD is calling on the Electronic Software Ratings Board to re-rate the game as an Adults-Only title</iq>; however, they apparently realize that upping the age limit by one whole year isn't going to do a damned thing, so they've also asked that <iq>Rockstar [...] consider a stop in distribution.</iq> Side. Splitting. Laughter.