Something interesting is going on at gamespot
Well, a reviewer got fired from the site. Most people think it was because of his review of kain and lynch, which received a 6.0. Eidos bought a bunch of ads from gamespot, so eidos pressured them to fire him.
Well, I didn't think this would happen, but over 2,000 people have rated kain & lynch a 1.0 lowering its user score from 7.? to a 2.8. Join in!
I heard that, although to be fair, CNET (who own gamespot) have put out a release denying that the review was the reason for letting him go.
If it's true it's an absolute joke and will definitely mean the last of me trusting any Gamespot review!
More and more reports coming out are saying he WAS fired because of advertiser pressure.... And I can see why. At the beggining of his review (you can see it on youtube) he batters the game with his words... "it's a really ugly UGLY ugly GAME!"
I don't think he should've gotten fired for that, but I never liked his reviews..
Regardless of whether you like the guy or not (hell regardless of whether you respect the guy), this is the kind of thing where everone loses!!!
If this is true (emphisis on the IF)
Jeff loses his job
Gamespot / CNet lose all respect
Edios have the whole situation blow up in their face as I'd imagine 10x the number of people have now seen the "Ugly, Ugly" review than if they kept quiet.
Again if this is true, who would ever believe any "impressions" from Gamespot ever again???
Eidos isn't just reactive to reviews it seems, but proactively creating false 5 star ratings.
http://kotaku.com/gaming/eidos/did-we-give-kane--lynch-5-stars-329539.php
I haven't trusted gamespot for a long time, I just don't like their reviews. Maybe if it was high quality and was funny to watch like xplay, i might tune in. I only READ reviews in magazines like EGM.
I think all reviews should be 3 reviews and the main score the average of those reviews. So no one can say there was any bias in the score.
On another note, eidos isn't the first to do something like that: crappy movies post positive comments (from a first impression or so on) on their DVD boxes and commercials. I think they guess it will sell more. An example:
"This movie looks really good and the story is interesting!"
Their quote example: "looks really good"- chicago tribune
Other quote example: "The story is interesting!"- chicago tribune
So basically any little snippet can be made into a positive thing.. Oh, also I heard they use reviews from little town's newspapers'.
Like from Butthole, Arkansas.
Strategyking you might be interested in Metacritic.
It is a consolidation of various reviews with a short summary of why the rating was earned as well as the rating. Mind you ratings are all converted to a 100 point scale and how each rating is adjusted is explained since a magazine which gives out stars would have to be adjusted to be normalized.
The list also has direct links to the reviews so you can quickly skim over the odd ball comments or points of actual interest from a summary.
The interesting thing about metacritic...it's also owned by CNet, same with gamerankings that does basically the same thing.
Just finished listening to the hotspot, man I felt sorry for those guys. I really can't see how all of this is coincidence. The funniest part of the podcast was the fact that nobody came out and said, "The Kane and Lynch review had nothing to due with it".
I hadn't realized Metacritic was owned by Cnet, sorry. I don't use it personally, but I see the scores everytime I play a Steam game so the name is always in front of me.
I don't generally read published reviews anymore in any form. I have always found them inconsistent and always heavily biased in some form. Sometimes just biased by the preferences of the writer, but often they also seem to be affected by money. There are times the reader is the victim and other times the developers are the victims, but proper reviews shouldn't create victims of either.
you're kinda safe with both Metacritic and Gamerankings as there isn't anything in the way of opinion pieces, just strait coping of scores from other sites.
I hear you on reviews, with the live service being what it is and the plethora of demos, it's easy enough to make your mind up for yourself.
Metacritic does seem to have its uses. I accidently loaded up the page while downloading Defcon onto my new laptop. While skimming through the reviews it was rather interesting to see some reviews copmlaining it lacked depth and other saying the exact opposite (reminicent of BoB reviews).
Funny enough the "big" reviewers such as Gamespot and PC gamer comment on the lack of depth which pretty much indicates how little time and effort they spent with the game. Wonder how complex they feel chess is?
I realize that they are trying to push out reviews before a deadline, but if all they are going to give is a face value then I can get that from watching youtube videos.
Right now I usually just watch xplay and read electronic gaming monthly.
Anyway I really don't care anymore... Just as long as developers make great games and don't lie about what genre their from I think any gamer can be happy... And reviews in general would be pointless.
Tries before buys
Gamerscore: 2870
Joined: 2007-11-22