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Categories: Commentary
Tags: reviews
Companies stipulate many items in regard to when you can review a game, and if you can release a review early. Score a game with an 8 or a 9, and the review goes up right away. Score a low review and you are told to hold the review until it is released.
Alone in The Dark, and the Controversy of Review Pressure by Joe Haygood. June 20, 2008. [Aeropause.com]
With this in mind, I knew when I wasn’t seeing reviews of Alone in the Dark on the major sites yesterday it could only mean one thing.
IGN: 3.5/10
UGO: C
1UP: B-
You might say a B- isn’t a bad score, but with the current Glengarry Glen Ross mentality anything under a solid B is “you’re fired.”
Now here’s what interests me — people are angry about the low scores. At first I didn’t get it. Reviews don’t change the nature of the game – they reflect the reviewer’s experience playing it. Plus, is anyone really invested in a franchise that hit its high point over 15 years ago?
Then I started thinking about some of the comments. Comments like: at least this game is innovative; the engine alone should bump the score up; I haven’t played it, but I think the score should be higher.
Here’s the problem: The gaming press has been selling us on the bells and whistles of Alone in the Dark for over a year now, pimping the game with every press release or tech demo Atari put out, while major issues – major-fucking-playability issues – went ignored even though the sites listed above had hands-on previews.
And this is where the anger’s coming from. It’s not that the game is crap (I haven’t played it, so I don’t know). It’s that these sites have been building excitement for this game since it was announced at X05, doing a full Alone in the Dark blitz for the last week, and then waiting for the game to be released before warning us against it.
Yeah, if you get me excited about something and then yank it away, I’m going to be pissed.
On July 4th, 2008 at 6:51 pm, Silvercube wrote:
I think you should still rent the game and see for yourself :)
i’ve read on the xbox.com forums that many people do like it.