There's absolutely no way they actually playtested the Trials. No way at all.

Played for 7 and a half hours straight. The presentation and story definitely lack the pop of previous God of War games but the gameplay is second only to GoW2 imo. Combat is much improved, the puzzles are great, and the game is gorgeous. Very good stuff so far.

[QUOTE="Systems_Id"]Why SHOULDN'T he be concerned with sales and what his fans think? With the ramapant corruption in gaming journalism I trust ALL reviews about as far as I can throw them, ESPECIALLY when it comes to AAA games. For all we know the low scores for GoW:A are the result of Sony skimping out on money hats this year. c_rake

If you seriously think reviewers are taking bribes, then use your head. Think about it: what good does bribing a game reviewer of all things do? What are you getting out that? A slightly better, meaningless score? One that very well could -- and will -- be discovered to have been bought, thus sullying yours and the publication's reputation forever? Is that really worth the risk? Is that really worth wasting resources on? Resources you could use to keep the goddamn company going?

If you seriously think this is a plausible scenario, seriously think this could and has happened countless times... you're hopeless. How in the word does anyone believe this bullsh*t.

Why don't you use YOUR head for a minute. Think about it for a second. Reviewers are reviewing games from companies they depend on for coverage of said games. What happens when reviewers give the hottest new game like Assassin's Creed 3 or Call of Duty low scores? Ubisoft and Activision deny those publications coverage to any other games. No more access to sweet press events, no more exclusive previews, no more early review kits full of awesome swag for the hottest games. Publishers have gaming journalists by the balls and they know it. That doesn't even get into the fact that publishers can just pull their advertising thus robbing gaming publications of advertising dollars. 

It's funny you bring up sullying of reputations since our very own GameSpot had no problem sullying their reputation when they fired Jeff Gerstmann over a low review. And this was at a time when GameSpot was considered to have THE most reputable reviews in the industry...and they flushed it down the toilet for advertising dollars. The irony is that the decision payed off for the handsomly since GS is still alive and kicking.

The money hat comment was a bit tongue-in-cheek but I stand by that sentiment. Until gaming journalists are no longer beholden to game publishers for their coverage, I'll continue not trusting them for reviews. 

Why SHOULDN'T he be concerned with sales and what his fans think? With the ramapant corruption in gaming journalism I trust ALL reviews about as far as I can throw them, ESPECIALLY when it comes to AAA games. For all we know the low scores for GoW:A are the result of Sony skimping out on money hats this year. 

I took a break from Dark Souls a couple of times. I stopped at Sen's Fortress for a week and Ornstein/Smough for a couple of months until I swallowed my pride and summoned some help. 

omg I R SO OFFENDED. Allicrombie

My feeling in a nutshell. I know it's been slow since the PS4 reveal but come on Gaming Media, we've had enough faux outrage this generation.

I really, REALLY enjoyed King of Fighters XIII.

It's been a hell of generation though for fighting games, arguably the best ever. Marvel vs Capcom 3 and its iterations, Street Fighter 4 and its iterations, the new Mortal Kombat game, the Blaz Blue series, King of Fighters XIII, Persona 4: Arena and probably many others I'm missing. 

Despite the fact that it tapers off towards the end, Darksiders 2 was some of the most fun I had in 2012. Great game.

I'm about 3 hours into and the game honestly feels very derivative so far. It feels like a game that should of come out three years ago.

[QUOTE="mrsniper83"]

That Killzone game they showed, it didnt look any better than some of the top games out there now.

Grammaton-Cleric

I'd love you to cite one current console game that looks as good as that Killzone demo.

Just one.

Indeed. Now if you weren't impressed with the gameplay I could understand. But to say it looked on par with top end games? No. Crysis 3 at max settings on PC doesn't even compare to that Killzone demo, and that demo was made when GG was under the assumption PS4 would only have 4GB of GDDR5. 

Begun, the next generation wars have.