The elephant in the room - Kane & Lynch reviews :D

    I'm pretty sure Eidos is now on the shitlist of companies not to work for for many many industry professionals out there.

    Problem is, if only it was the only one....

    Bottom line: reviewing is inherently an occupation based upon sharing an opinion, whether that opinion is positive or negative. If he was indeed fired for doing that, Gamespot failed, and I hope the community boycotts or whatever. Even the perception of impropriety is bad at this point.

    On a larger scale, the realm of video game criticism is inherently screwed up. Let's look at movie criticism, you don't see people wanting to kill Roger Ebert when he gives a movie thumbs down. Sure, people will disagree, and maybe write a letter in response, but nothing near the venom that video game critics get. Major studio movie releases come out about as frequently as major video game releases, yet look at the Metacritic scores for both. People are willing to say a bad movie is worth a 20% or 40% score. People won't say the same about video games. A 70% is bad, and anything less than 90% is met with scorn. It seems as though the average reader of Gamespot or IGN isn't looking for an honest opinion, they merely want some sort of personal validation that their support of a game/developer/publisher/console is correct. A bad review isn't recieved by them as saying "this game is bad" but rather "you were wrong for liking this game (or at least anticipating the game)."

    The flip side of this is that game journalism is based around a free-rider relationship with content creators. Game magazines and websites exist on the free screenshots, movies, and interviews given to them by publishers and developers. They can then leverage what they have (especially exclusives) into better ad rates. Take away their source of free content, and they're done. It's not journalism. It's a circular PR system.

    I got it today, I like it so far. But the graphics are kinda outdated, poor lipsync on the characters and such nit-pick stuff. Only got to the club, but I'll atleast finish it and play coop with my friends some time. Oh and the coversystem wasn't my type, I'm a more fan of the "click and go to cover" ala Vegas and GoW.

    Gerstmann was infamous for being a bad reviewer, handing out a perfect ten for THPS3, sub-par scores to Twilight Princess, and having fanboys foaming at the mouths. I’m not in anyway trying to suggest what happened to him wasn’t horrible or was, in some way, overdue - but he was one figure at Gamespot known for creating unneeded controversy, and I imagine this was the angle taken when Eidos loomed over him like a softly spoken mob-boss that was oh so very disappointed.

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    I finished it in coop yesterday, enjoyed it start to finish. I must say though, that Havana and afterwards I wasn't quite so keen on. I loved the crime vibe the game had going, with business suits and so on, but Havana onwards went a bit too military. Still fun to play, in places actually more so, it just lost some of it's identity. I'd also have liked the fights against The7 members to have been more significant. It was pretty much only the final two that felt like a significant moments - the others I only really knew I'd killed because the revenge achievements popped up.

    The endings are both pretty disappointing. I quite liked the fact they are both tragic endings, it's a brave move I've not seen done before, but I didn't like the implementation. Really short cut scenes and neither felt like a good payoff for the game. When you rescue Shelley, he runs off and dies. I think it's a nice move killing the daughter, but you could at least have got Shelley out I reckon. And if you take the chopper, why the hell don't you take Lynch?! He was stood right next to me, then I chose the chopper and he's suddenly back down at the plane saying "I fucking knew it...". Another minor annoyance is Lynch changing his opinion. All through the car chase/plane level he's saying "we've got to rescue them!", then you go to do it and he starts whining at you for not taking the chopper.

    But despite all the niggles I had with the game, I still really enjoyed playing through it. I'll definitely finish it off in single player as well at some point.

    EDIT: Something I meant to mention is that, on the 360 version at least, the initial control sensitivities are horrible. I put aim acceleration right up and increased the aim/turn speeds, and it became much easier to play. I recommend you try tweaking these yourself, as watching that video review made it look like he hadn't bothered.

    quoted for truth you summed it up absolutely perfect ... this is exactly how i think about the game and what should have been different ... THAT and a better aim and cover system ^^

    Quote from Taylor

    Gerstmann was famous for actually being a good, unbiased reviewer, handing out fair grades for everything - successfully pointing out flaws and strokes of genious in mechanics of games and hardware alike. Not being afraid of the fanboys, he valiantly assumed the role of being the one honest person you could actually trust to make a review that was at least in-depth, well-thought, and had viable arguments pro and contra. Him being fired is a great loss to the future of reviews, and I fear that the example set will only serve to further cave in reviewers to give amazing scores to shitty games in fear of losing their job.

    Fixed.

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    Oh, btw. I haven't played Kane and Lynch, so I have nothing to say about that particular game so far.

    I agree. The best level of the game is the Tokyo boardroom, once you reach that the game peaks, and after that the game goes slightly down in quality from there on out.

    Also the endings had been changed so much in the development that I actually had no idea how they ended up in the final game, was pretty disappointed when I finally got to see them both.

    Quote from Cybbe

    Gerstmann was famous for actually being a good, unbiased reviewer, handing out fair grades for everything - successfully pointing out flaws and strokes of genious in mechanics of games and hardware alike. Not being afraid of the fanboys, he valiantly assumed the role of being the one honest person you could actually trust to make a review that was at least in-depth, well-thought, and had viable arguments pro and contra.

    Right, which is why he gave THPS3 a perfect 10 in every single category, I notice that wasn't mentioned in the fix, though taking 'fanboy' out of context (of needless controversy) is better material.

    Quote

    I fear that the example set will only serve to further cave in reviewers to give amazing scores to shitty games in fear of losing their job.

    Online review sites have always been at the beg and call of their advertisers - IGN have been pretty notorious for it. It’s just until this point here has been no (known) incidents where one has done anything so heavy handed about it. Like I said (though I skimmed over it as other posts have covered it), I feel sorry for the guy, it’s horrible this happened, a terrible realisation of how these sites are run and in no way do I think this is a 'good thing.' But please don't pretend his dubious reviews are suddenly him standing against the tide and saying how it really is.

    Well, honestly, I don't trust reviews because I know my tastes aren't fit for reviews. I'll play games with broken game mechanics if the story is good.

    But the fact that this guy actually manages to slam his balls on the table to at least provide some sort of feeling of how well-constructed the game/item is, is a huge step up from most other things I've read. And of course every review site are under the influence of their paycheck. That's why 8 is actually considered a semi bad grade around reviews. Because after all this time of gloryfying stuff, people are just expecting 9 and above for good games.

    I must admit, that I do not vigilantly read every review out there. I've read a few here and there on the things that piqued my temporary interest, but the ones I've seen with Gerstmann have been, though hardly objective, at least somewhat analytical in their execution. This compared to a bunch of other reviews just plaqueing the walls with fancy buzzwords that hold no general meaning, and after you read your 9.9/10 review, you feel like someone shat in your hand and told you it was liquid gold.

    But at least we still have Zero Punctuation for some bashing..

    Oh, and excuse my ignorance. What is THPS3?

    if he gave THPS3 a 10, then he deserves to get fired. that's the WORST game in the THPS series, and everyone knows it. Atleast it's the worst of the 4 first games.

    I loved the Tokyo boardroom, haha that was awesome. Now I'm at Havana and it's soo much harder. But the squad commands are actually ok, they aren't really that stupid, and god, if you want them to follow you, they are right behind you, that was pretty amazing in the nightclub, how Lynch was behind me the entire time.

    ps we need to create the most sketchy fragile alliance, anyone have any idea about how fun it is to blow up the getaway car with 2 or 3 people inside of it? hahahahhahahahahaha just hit me up, lassepdsn and I'll play everyday this week.

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