• 6Oct 08

  When We Can Verify The 'No Hype' Policy

  It was the 29th of April, I woke up and groggily walked down the stairs. The first thing I did was check Gamespot. Would Grand Theft Auto IV get the elusive 10? I was not to be disappointed. There it was, staring me in the face, Justin Calvert had just given the biggest game release in history a 10.

  I had the game pre-ordered, so about an hour later it arrived. I popped the disk in and was eagerly waiting for the game to finish installing. Once again, I was not to be dissapointed, I immediately made my review score a 10, it was great. Then a few days later I started getting incredibly bored with it. I was at the point in the story where I simply did not want to keep going, and unlike in other Grand Theft Auto games I did not have any interesting distractions. I took my review down to a 9.5. It was still great, right?

  I carried on with the story, it was following an immensely cliche structure and the missions were so, so, so very repetitive. I really began to not care for the game, it was dull and the story held no appeal to me. It must have been great, maybe I'm just not seeing it yet, since all these choices must catch up with me at some point. Nevertheless my review went down to an 8.0.

  Hmmm, well, I suppose that ending was okay....I mean, well, I guess their shoving this American dream idea down my throat (I'm English). So after a month of the game I found it irritating, repetitive, boring and far too preachy. But hell, it's Grand Theft Auto IV, it earns an 8.0!

  As soon as the story had finished I ripped the game out, made a mental note to never play that game again.

  It's now October, I completed Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns Of The Patriots in two sittings, that is still a 10. Just yesterday I decided to play Grand Theft Auto 4, and boy, was I disappointed, I decided to play it for atleast an hour, but in all honesty, there simply is not enough to do in that game. It was embarrasing, it felt clunky and the mechanics seemed poor. My review slid down to 6.5.

  The point of what I'm saying is that I honestly believe the game got a 10 because the hype around it was un-avoidable. I think if the reviewer gives the re-release PC game a 10, I will accept that I simply did not get Grand Theft Auto 4. However, there will not be the same amount of hype around the PC version, so if it recieves a lesser score, I think it will have to be conceeded that the hype altered the review. After all, Justin Calvert originally submitted the review with a 9.5. I can't be sure but I think it is very unlikely that the PC game will have any major issues.

  Please let it be noted that I think GTA Vice City was a 10 but I did not like GTA San Andreas at all, so I do not love, nor hate, all GTA games. I also do not have anything against either Justin Calvert, or Gamespot. I love this site, and I think all the reviewers are exceptionally talented.

  • Posted Oct 6, 2008 2:23 pm PT
  • Category: Games
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