The rules of the game...as they pertain to reviewing games

Globe and Mail: "At the risk of coming off as a stereotypically cantankerous reporter, I'm going to use the following space to discuss a couple of irksome obstacles I ran into this holiday while trying to cover various games.

As many readers will no doubt have guessed by now, publishers often distribute advance copies of popular games to journalists. This practice is essential. Most games take days or weeks to play through, and publishing deadlines often occur long before games hit store shelves. It's the only means by which web sites, newspapers, and magazines can ensure timely coverage of high profile titles.

Unfortunately, I've frequently found it impossible to get my hands on games prior to their release."

[jack who]

same way reviewers were not sup to talk about the 1hr long cut screen in MGS4?

[Graphics Whore]

Yeah the story to GEoW2 is pretty irrelevant however the story to MGS4 is everything.

[Magic_The_Celt]

^^ Yep couldn't have said it better myself

Jack if your mind is too dimwitted to enjoy a real story and cant go 5 minutes without shooting something, then please

go back to your horde playing on gears 2, enjoy yourself kid.

[mesh1]

yhaha mgs4 iis average and crap and hahah funny sony droids are funny

[InMyOpinion]

And they didn't even get to review the online part of MGS4. Because it sucked.

It's obvious Epic didn't want reviewers to spoil the story.

[Magic_The_Celt]

Thats because MGO is considered a seperate game to MGS4

get your facts right next time kid.

[STFUAJPG]

No big deal. They just didn't want to spoil the game for people.

[Edge Maverick]

Doesn't make much sense. What they should be angry about is how this game scores AAA with no resistance while critics complain about Killzone 2's color scheme. Ho-ho, now THAT'S where I wonder where media control REALLY LIES!!!

[cactuschef]

No biggie. If all they told them not to write about was spoilers then fine by me. i hate having games/movies/books ruined by someone else. Someone ruined the Saw movie before i saw it. Worse yet someone ruined fight club for me.

[Jerkapotamus]

When there was all that hubbub about not being able to mention the length of cut scenes in MGS4, I recall IGN saying that a list of story points not to be mentioned was pretty standard for a game. The deal with not mentioning the length of cut scenes was unusual, but within the rights of the publisher.

In this case, we're just talking about story spoilers, which IGN indicated was standard. This makes me think the guy writing this article doesn't have the best relationship with publishers, since he's complaining about something that's standard.

[Danja]

but I see nothing wrong with them not wanting to spoil the game for alot of ppl..

I would have been pissed if a reviewer told me how R2 ended in a review

[The Killer]

its not like a review can never be changed on the game!!

these tricks shouldnt work on professionals but i can see that most reviewers r fanboys or payed to give a certain score!!

only few do their jobs right!!

[Radiodread]

is a masterpiece and a work of art. Gears of War 2 is far from a masterpiece or a work of art.

[N4PS3G]

dude shut up..everything is relative

[gamfreak]

did it too, it another way to not spoil the game as a whole.

[FantasyStar]

Report the User and story for deliberately making up a title.

[kyleg]

I say fu*k the media and reviewers they mostly lie to us so why believe them. and when they lie once you can't believe one word they say. so i say again fu*k you media

[Shnazzyone]

It makes it sound like all the reviews are skewed when in fact the actual article this is only a snippet of the entire article. Not sure but it sounds like this articles release here is a bit of sony fanboy-ism.

though maybe I'm wrong.

[CrippleH]

Same thing happened to MGS4 have to disagree with you.

MGS4 was more overblown though.

[Breakfast]

And the real title...
"The rules of the game...as they pertain to reviewing games"

lol

[kyleg]

all fanboys are wrong wrong wrong.
can't believe fanboys.

[austere]

stupid post trying to make Epic and Gears 2 look bad. Nothing more. There is nothing to hide about Gears 2. It is just more of Gears 1 which is what everyone that was a fan wanted. Actually I only thought Gears 1 was decent but Gears 2 was much better in the singleplayer portion. I could of done without the boring tank sequence but riding the enemies at the end was fun as hell.

[Pixel_Addict]

How about the laundry list of glitches in both single player and match-making multiplayer issues? Isn't the anti-Sony cult of 1up.com going to give Killzone 2 a 'B' instead of an 'A' over some glitches, so why not the same mention of glitches for GOW2?

[Whoooop]

I really don't understand why reviews as a whole got so important...

I know they are important when they just provide information about the product, features, specs, price etc.

However, I don't know when the hell reviews got to the point where they seem more important than the actual product and what's worse is that reviewers think they are more important than it too.

When this happened???

[Pixel_Addict]

Didn't the gaming media get all high and mighty condemning Konami of these restrictions on MGS4 reviews? Where is EGM/1up.com's grandstand refusal to review Gears of War 2?

Reality is almost all publishers have guidelines and restrictions on high profiled titles; it's just some times, some self-proclaimed martyrs in the game media want to be 'hero' for a day.

[tehReaper]

Nah, exposing the story(spoilers) and not mentioning how long cutscenes were are two different things.

But yes, reviewers probably get restrictions all of the time.

[Product]

i doubt had the movie the Sixth Sense been reviewed the right way people would have seen it.(sarcasm)

[BX81]

I went to the mid-night release of GOW2. I had my head phones on the whole time, except for 10seconds to hear someone say "Dom dies it's all over the internet". I put them back on pissed as hell. Game spoilers should not be revealed. Good thing this one wasn't true.

[FantasyStar]

That's why you never go mid-night releases. Or if you do. Make sure you beat the **** out of whoever said it or bring rocks to throw at cars.

[NoodleStroodle]

Why is this in PS3?????? its xbox360 exclusive.

[FantasyStar]

The contributor ****ed up. It's not really about Gears 2, but quote.

"The rules of the game...as they pertain to reviewing games"

/quote. Ugh, damn contributors.

[NoodleStroodle]

Glitches of War AAA CONFIRMED FLOP OF THE YEAR, ADDED 1.2 PIXELS FROM THE ORIGNAL.

[OSIRUSSS]

well...Ain't that a glitch!!!

[FantasyStar]

This is the worst kind of article submission I've seen yet. Everyone, please report this.

-Contributor made up the title.

-The article summary only reinforces the fake title and does not summarizes the entire article.

-And the related channels are somewhat off.

[FantasyStar]

Every person that approved this article should have their CRank lowered, or Approval power suspended. This is simply unacceptable.

[xg-ei8ht]

Saw movie, ROFL.

What one, 1,2,3,4,5.

I wish someone would saw the film company inhalf.

[ahnonamis]

Awful story editing on N4G aside, this is common practice. It's an unwritten rule: don't talk too much about the story when you review games, movies, and books. But sometimes, companies like to send a list of specific points NOT to talk about, because while you don't consider it a spoiler others might.

Big deal. There's no reason to get upset that people want to preserve the story for people who play the game when it comes out.