It's no secret anymore that Rockstar added a few more anatomical parts to a certain character for a certain scene in GTA IV's DLC pack, Lost and Damned. Some outlets had a field day reporting on the scene, which begs the question - if game players didn't want the past Rockstar fiasco "Hot Coffee" to come to so much scrutiny, why make such a fuss over this new thing if nobody else did? "Hot Coffee" was a big deal because a lot of the non gaming got into the bandwagon talking about it, like a certain Florida ex-lawyer, TV news programs and newspapers... it even landed in a lawsuit. So is this new thing something to be bothered with? In a rational way, considering the situation in which the character's in in that particular scene, no. Considering the person's getting a massage in a sauna, anyone could assume this guy's naked. Heck, if you go to a strip club in Liberty City, you're bound to encounter topless girls.

Now, looking at another perspective, do we need to have full frontal nudity in order to convey the message of the scene? Probably not. Even if there's a strip club with partly naked women in the game, it's not an mandatory place to visit, save one time in the original GTA IV's story mode. This is a scene that cannot be skipped without missing mission detail exposure. When we imagine a sauna with men attending it, it's easy to imagine that they are naked, we don't particularly need to imagine details, only know that there's something under the towel. The scene would be fine insinuating he was naked, but not showing his nakedness directly, since insinuating something is mostly something much more artistic. And considering Rockstar is one of the masters of insinuation to a borderline - just look at Vice City's cutscene showing (but not "showing") Candy Suxx in the middle of a porno shooting - one must imagine why they would include such detail in an otherwise common mission briefing movie. Was it necessary? In my opinion, no. Why did they do it then, to bother people? I don't think so, not directly to bother people, but to garner attention, kind of like the little kid stripping himself in the middle of a crowded department store on sale, while his mother is busy fighting other women for a discount blouse. "HEY! I'm here, please look at me!!"

Since I'm reviewing the game for GameRevolution.com, some might ask if this particular scene is something worth mentioning. Almost sure it's not. The game has many other factors that merit it being one of the more popular downloads of last month, and while I'm still fairly early in its story mode, it's easy to see how one cutscene is just a piece of a huge pie, that some things leave a sour thought in our minds, but nevertheless is an overall experience worth remembering.