Rock Band looks like Guitar Hero for little girls and kids. Real men play Guitar Hero, !@#$ Rock Band! GodModeEnabled

Normally I don't even like to interject on threads like this, but this particular post made me throw up in my mouth a little bit. 'Scuse me, son. Try picking up the drums in Rock Band on any difficulty medium or higher and see how well you do. Then talk to me about "little girls and kids." Kay? Thxbye.

I am not even getting into the whole previews discussion with you, because frankly, that whole aspect of things operates outside of my purview. I handle reviews, and reviews only. We separate our previews and reviews teams specifically to avoid any conflicts of interest on that front.

Regarding the specific timing of the Pro Evo review, that was done by our UK staff. The preview you mentioned was done by our Australian team. It was a debug disc he previewed. The disc was region coded, thus making that disc useless to the UK editor who reviewed the game. And, in fact, our UK editors had to go out and buy Pro Evo 2008 because Konami didn't send it to them. Maybe there's a good reason for that.

I could sit here all day long and explain to you why this happened and that happened, but that's really not a very good use of my time. Suffice it to say, you are mired in your belief that the game review industry is unquestionably shady, and I've done all I can to try and convince you that your theories don't hold much water when it comes to how we do our reviews. Believe what you like. I think I've about had my fill at this point.

[QUOTE="Kazona"]

It's real simple when you think about it: if the review for a game still isn't up several days after its release, you can be pretty certain that it will be getting a bad score. So the next time a review gets delayed, use that simple reasoning and prepare yourself for some bad scores ;)

rragnaar

Oddly enough, yet another game that wasn't sent to us ahead of time. Those games aren't always terrible. It's just usually a bad sign.

Maybe I went a little overboard with the tinfoil hat comment, but I have a real, real short fuse when it comes to crazy talk, especially when it comes from someone who clearly doesn't quite grasp how things work around here. Believe me, you're not the first to make comments like this. Hence my somewhat cross reaction.

Again, there's no pattern to be broken. There is legitimately nothing that can be done to change the way things operate so long as we rely on publishers to get us code ahead of release. If they don't want negative reviews, they won't send code. It's that simple.

And regarding the movie review comment, movie reviews come out the day the movie comes out, EXCEPT when movie companies don't want bad reviews. If you ever watch Ebert & Roper, every now and again they'll call out some movie that wasn't screened for critics, and those movies usually don't have reviews on the day they hit theaters. Face it, it's the same situation in practically every facet of entertainment criticism. Just because a game goes gold weeks ahead of release doesn't mean we automagically get access to said code. It's entirely reliant on how enthusiastic a publisher is about getting a review up for its game. We try to review everything we can as quickly as we can, but the stuff I have in my hot little hand always takes priority over stuff I ain't got.

[QUOTE="rragnaar"]Sometimes companies withhold review copies of games that they know aren't going to be good. Gamespot isn't some evil ogre trying to trick you into buying stuff, and they aren't the only source for reviews if you need advice..ikreyer

Definitely not. But, this is a media-wide problem and not Gamespot's only. Hellgate for example: no online reviews out yet. GamePro.com posted the review that gave it 60% but pulled it back, now the review page gives 404 Page not found. The game is out and on the shelves. Is it any good? I don't know, looking at demo it's probably not. Reading a review from an online magazine I trust would help but it's nowhere to be seen. What saddens me is that I'm sure the review is written and ready to go , probably even a week ago, just waiting for go-ahead from EA :(

That game has major online functionality, MMO-like, even. MMOs need to be played with the full community live and active in order for us to review them properly. We've never had an MMO review up before a week or more after release, because those games take a wicked amount of time to review. Be it World of Warcraft or Archlord.

If companies don't send us games, we can't review them. We got Orange Box a full week before it came out, and had ample opportunity to test the multiplayer prior to release. Hence why the review went live day of release. Spider-Man 3 was sent to us the day before it came out, leading to me needing a few days to, you know, PLAY THE GAME. I don't think Midway sent us Hour of Victory until after it came out. And I can't even count the number of games we've ended up having to go buy ourselves because publishers didn't want reviews to get in the way of sales. Face it, we're basically at the mercy of a publisher's whims when it comes to getting games or not getting them. We can't review what we don't have. I can't stress that enough.

And as to your claim of "it'd take 2 minutes to give Hour of Victory the score it deserved," you are more than welcome to take your business elsewhere if that's the kind of half-assed reviewing you want out of us, because that's not how we roll. We play the games we review. We don't spend five minutes with them, then slap a score on 'em. If you want us to call games like we see them, then be patient, because we don't screw around with our reviews process. We take our time and make sure we've seen everything we need to see.

I'm sure this is all fruitless, since you're probably too busy building a tinfoil helmet and writing message board posts about how 9/11 happened on 9/12 to ever listen to reason.

Probably something similar to my response to this thread.

"No. Just no."